Fighting drakes

[minasmom]

I have 3 ducks, 2 males and 1 female. They currently share a big pen during the daytime with my 7 chickens and rooster. The ducks and chickens are in their own coops at night.

All of the chickens and ducks were born in April so all around 9 months old. The 2 drakes have begun to fight and try to drown each other in the pool. When I was out cleaning this weekend I saw one of the drakes try to mount the female in the pool and was pushing her head under. I told my husband that I thought we needed to get rid of them, and he read that getting more females might fix the problem.

It's not breeding season so I am confused about why this is happening now and hoping people can give me the best advice.

-Will adding 3 more females help and be a good enough solution?
-Would getting rid of 1 drake be the best move? If so, how do you recommend I do this? I could never kill one. Are there rescue places?
-Should I try to separate them? If so, for how long? I only have 1 night shelter for them so that is a concern of mine.
-Are my chickens in danger?

 

[fatty and friends]

if you can seperate the ducks and chickens during the day, just keep the drakes. all drake flocks are much better. no girls to fight over, no risk of egg related sicknesses, etc

i personally have 3 drakes and 2 duck hens (seperated of course) but will only ever get drakes again

 

[Isadora]

Yes, your chickens are in danger if the drakes have access to them. If a Drake attempts to mate with the chicken, he can injure her or kill her.
Getting more females could solve the problem, but depending on how randy your drakes in question are, you may need to get four to six more girl ducks per drake, which is quite a lot.
Ducks don't have quite a "breeding season" like geese do. Drakes are good to make all year round. They are known to be very aggressive breeders, although of course there are always outliers.

If it were me, I would rehome one of the drakes and see if I could get a few more girl ducks for my other drake so he doesn't overmate the lone female. Also separating the chickens away from the ducks so that the drakes don't ever try to mate with them.

I advertise birds I'm selling on craigslist. You could also try Facebook, putting up flyers in your feed store, word of mouth, etc.

 

[minasmom]

if you can seperate the ducks and chickens during the day, just keep the drakes. all drake flocks are much better. no girls to fight over, no risk of egg related sicknesses, etc

i personally have 3 drakes and 2 duck hens (seperated of course) but will only ever get drakes again

Well my husband has a thing for duck eggs, so thats a no go lol

 

[Bigtom Turkey]

Yes, your chickens are in danger if the drakes have access to them. If a Drake attempts to mate with the chicken, he can injure her or kill her.
Getting more females could solve the problem, but depending on how randy your drakes in question are, you may need to get four to six more girl ducks per drake, which is quite a lot.
Ducks don't have quite a "breeding season" like yeast do. Drakes are good to make all year round. They are known to be very aggressive breeders, although of course there are always outliers.

If it were me, I would rehome one of the Drakes and see if I could get a few more girl ducks for my other Drake so he doesn't overmate the lone female you have. Also separating the chickens away from the ducks so that the drinks don't ever try to mate with them.

I advertise birds I'm selling on craigslist. You could also try Facebook, putting up flyers in your feed store, word of mouth, etc.

This^

 

[indianaducks]

We got our original flock of ducks as ducklings from farm stores from the “assorted duck” bin. We wound up with about a 50/50 split on drakes/ladies. We slowly removed the most aggressive drakes until we got to a more reasonable ratio and I no longer had issues with my drakes. I love the nice drakes that we have but have the ducks for eggs so won’t have a solely drakes flock. I try to keep enough ladies to keep everyone happy and healthy

 

[KaleIAm]

Yes, your chickens are in danger if the drakes have access to them. If a Drake attempts to mate with the chicken, he can injure her or kill her.
Getting more females could solve the problem, but depending on how randy your drakes in question are, you may need to get four to six more girl ducks per drake, which is quite a lot.
Ducks don't have quite a "breeding season" like geese do. Drakes are good to make all year round. They are known to be very aggressive breeders, although of course there are always outliers.

If it were me, I would rehome one of the drakes and see if I could get a few more girl ducks for my other drake so he doesn't overmate the lone female. Also separating the chickens away from the ducks so that the drakes don't ever try to mate with them.

I advertise birds I'm selling on craigslist. You could also try Facebook, putting up flyers in your feed store, word of mouth, etc.

x3

Unless you can make an additional coop for a bachelor pad.

I adopted 3 ducks who were overmated by drakes and they were so beat up and bloody. One of my sweethearts even needed surgeries under anesthesia by a vet. Having a less than optimal ratio can even result in death.

CL is great. You can try Nextdoor, too.

 

[Quatie]

More females can work for some drakes. I had to rehome one of my drakes because he required too many females and stressed my other drake because he was aggressively taking all the females from him. The one I rehomed probably needed like over 12+ females. We had 13 females and 2 drakes at the time, and we're having over breeding issues. My other drake could be happy with one or two females. He has a really low sex drive. So each drake is different.

Considering they are fighting right now, they may not do well even if they are seperated from the female. I would get more females and give it a shot separating the drakes and see if they stop fighting. But I would have a plan b. Drakes can be difficult to rehome. It is possible, just more difficult.

 

[raingarden]

Even if you get rid of one of the drakes there may still be spousal abuse and mating practices that you do not approve of. That's duck culture.

 

[Miss Lydia]

The mating and looking like the drake is drowning is so normal, but i can remember the first time I saw my Muscovy drake in the pool with a female he was drowning her i thought and made him stop. Then I found BYC and read it was normal mating behavior and so far since 2004 I haven't lost one female to drowning.
Saying all of that brings me to this many times more than one drake will try and mate one duck and they can drown her. I have 2 Runner drakes and a Muscovy drake and 12 females . No problems with over-mating. Thankfully my Muscovy drake sticks to his 4 females and my 2 Runners have the rest of the females to themselves.