I am in need of some advice. I am building up a breeding flock and introductions are NOT going as smoothly as I thought they would. I have my 4 original females, and I've added a drake/duck pair as well as an older trio(drake/2 ducks). I need some advice on how to go about introducing these guys. I have my 8x8 pen split down the middle currently.
Right now the DRAKES are fine. No fighting in the boy side of things, unless one of their females is being attacked and then they'll go for the offending female. The male/female pair have successfully meshed with my 4 girls as has the drake from the trio, but it's the two older females that are disrupting everything.
The females bite CONSTANTLY. During the day I have the 6 on one side, and the trio on the other. I only let everyone out together for about 2 hours in the morning before I go to work, and the whole time everyone is biting everyone. It's usually instigated by either of the older females, or two of my original girls (the other two are polite). I have one of my girls isolated right now, because she is SCRAPPY. She is very small, but very feisty and she won't leave one of the new girls alone. And if one of them bites her she will continue to bite and chase until I pick her up. She's like a ducky pitbull. Sooo she's going to be isolated for a couple days, and then I think I'll try putting in one of the new girls with her and see how they do. I also need to break up the two new girls because it's when they're together that fighting happens, so once my girl has simmered down I might isolate one of them as well (or do it at the same time if I can set up another pen in the other room). I've also found the older females will bite at the other drake, which I suppose is understandable...but I need them to breed as part of my project.
Any other advice? How long does it take for things to settle down? It's only been a couple days, so I have hope, haha. Should I just keep the two females on the other side of the barrier for a week and try introducing then? This is my first year with ducks, and my first time adding new birds. I'm worried that if I leave everyone together they'll fight to exhaustion and/or seriously harm or kill one another. Yesterday I picked up one of the females and she was so tired from fighting she couldn't run away and water dribbled out of her mouth. HELP
Here are some photos!
The Devilish Delilah in her isolation pen
The new pair
The other drake
The naughty females
Right now the DRAKES are fine. No fighting in the boy side of things, unless one of their females is being attacked and then they'll go for the offending female. The male/female pair have successfully meshed with my 4 girls as has the drake from the trio, but it's the two older females that are disrupting everything.
The females bite CONSTANTLY. During the day I have the 6 on one side, and the trio on the other. I only let everyone out together for about 2 hours in the morning before I go to work, and the whole time everyone is biting everyone. It's usually instigated by either of the older females, or two of my original girls (the other two are polite). I have one of my girls isolated right now, because she is SCRAPPY. She is very small, but very feisty and she won't leave one of the new girls alone. And if one of them bites her she will continue to bite and chase until I pick her up. She's like a ducky pitbull. Sooo she's going to be isolated for a couple days, and then I think I'll try putting in one of the new girls with her and see how they do. I also need to break up the two new girls because it's when they're together that fighting happens, so once my girl has simmered down I might isolate one of them as well (or do it at the same time if I can set up another pen in the other room). I've also found the older females will bite at the other drake, which I suppose is understandable...but I need them to breed as part of my project.
Any other advice? How long does it take for things to settle down? It's only been a couple days, so I have hope, haha. Should I just keep the two females on the other side of the barrier for a week and try introducing then? This is my first year with ducks, and my first time adding new birds. I'm worried that if I leave everyone together they'll fight to exhaustion and/or seriously harm or kill one another. Yesterday I picked up one of the females and she was so tired from fighting she couldn't run away and water dribbled out of her mouth. HELP
Here are some photos!
The Devilish Delilah in her isolation pen
The new pair
The other drake
The naughty females
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