Ducky dad doesn’t appreciate the new baby

[DuckDuckPromise]

Hey friends! We have our adult Cayugas set up in the backyard. After circumstances led to this, we had only one duckling to hatch out of our last incubation. This happy new Cayuga is in a smaller pen within the adults pen, in an effort to get them accustomed to each other... it has been in that setup for 4 days. I know they need longer, but I turned the baby out with the big ducks for a second today, and let’s just say the daddy drake wasn’t amused. He started biting at her, and I grabbed her up and put her back in her smaller pen. In y’all’s experience, how long do you usually see it taking for ducks to warm up to each other? Is there anything else that helps?
Have a blessed one!

 

[SilverBirds]

How old is the duckling? My male would chase my two and I'm pretty sure had full intentions of seriously injuring/killing them. I didn't let them out together until the babies could defend themselves which was about 14 weeks old. Even then, my male would run them down and pull their feathers. Eventually it stopped after a few days but boy are duck pecking orders harsh. Are you SURE that your duckling is a girl? My two ended up being males which my drake new good and well which I think is another reason he attacked them so hard.

 

[Yardmom]

Ducklings can be killed by drakes. Wild mallards do not participate in raising young. Domestic mallard derived drakes often are aggressive towards young birds. Integrating ducks sometimes needs to wait until the ducklings are mature.

 

[citymeetscountry]

I’m not sure as we’re currently going through similar. We have 4 (almost 6 weeks old) they are penned separately inside the duck house with the 2 moms and the 2 drakes are outside the run in the garden and their own house. We’ve been letting the moms and babies mix during the day and the attacks have gotten fewer. The drakes got separated from the hens anyway bc mating season and bad ratio. I let all of them go to the pond the other day and the drake went right for one of the babies. Unfortunately (fortunately?) our drakes are being rehomed (that’s putting it nicely) next week. It will be interesting to see how the hens and babies get along with the drakes out of the picture entirely.

How many drakesns do you have? Is there anyway to separate the drakes from them?

 

[SilverBirds]

The baby is just over a month old! And I re-read my post... I didn’t even realize I referred to “her” as a her!!! Wishful thinking? I absolutely do not know what gender the baby is... and that may have something to do with it!! Now that you mention it, I’ve been calling the baby a “her” pretty much since it (had to stop myself there) has hatched!!! So Lord’s swilling, you think that some more time might allow them to calm down and figure each other out?

After a while, yes, they should settle down. Ducks establishing a pecking order is brutal stuff. And I understand the calling it a her! I just wasn't sure if you knew the gender for sure or not.

 

[SilverBirds]

It is! Can you imagine if humans acted like them?
I don’t really remember when you can tell the gender. Any idea what time frame for differences to start appearing?

I think you can start to tell by the sound. The males will make the whap whap sound and the females will make more of a quack sound.

 

[DuckDuckPromise]

Ducklings can be killed by drakes. Wild mallards do not participate in raising young. Domestic mallard derived drakes often are aggressive towards young birds. Integrating ducks sometimes needs to wait until the ducklings are mature.

Got it!! Lord’s Willing we’ll just leave “her” (here’s praying!!! ) in the separate pen til older!! Thank you for the advice!

 

[citymeetscountry]

I’ll be listening then!! Lord’s Willing, when do they start that?

Usually around 6ish (-8)weeks or so. Mine will be 6 weeks Sunday and I have 1 definite female. I think the other 3 are males (but I’m also hoping they’re just late quackers) I’m also noticing the start of drake curls (yes people will say it’s too early BUT my pekin drakes from last year started getting them early too and now I know for sure that that’s what it was).

Those darn pekins

 

[Miss Lydia]

Age difference for now give them time and they will become a flock. Not saying there might be some squabbles but they will work them out just keep doing what your doing.

 

[neo71665]

Male animals of all types often attack young. A female raising young is not breeding and that's all they care about. They will try to remove the young to put her back in the breeding rotation.