Girls mounting: need advice for missing head feathers

[sierraforest]

We have two girls and though they each mount one another from time to time, only one causes damage to the other. When Connie mounts Julie, Connie pulls hard on Julie's head feathers to the point that she's now pulling them out or breaking them. We've been dealing with our first case of bumblefoot (in Connie) so we hadn't noticed how thin the feathers had gotten till now. Connie has mounted Julie for a very long time, so I know she's not doing out of stress due to the bumble. Is there anything we can do to prevent Julie from losing more feathers?

 

[ABBandit]

The mounting behavior that you are seeing is more than likely a display of dominance over the other hen. Connie is letting Julie know that she's the head honcho and the one who sends around those parts. As far as preventing Julie from losing more feathers, it would be as simple to just separate them. You should punish the other duck and keep her in a coop all-day so she slowly dismisses that behavior.
That worked with a pair of my ducks, one would bully the other one taking out its feathers. I put the bad duck in a pen all day (w/ food and water of course) and for the next couple of weeks, she no longer bullied her. She did it again and I put her in a pen for 2 days this time. She no longer pulls out her feathers anymore, ducks are super intelligent and understand when they've done something wrong. I hope this helps?