At the moment we have ducks separated into 3 sections:
1) Male Duck Norris and his 2 girls Marshmallow & Princess free-ranging in the backyard (all 8 months old)
2) Female Coco (8 months old) and her male "baby" Quackmire (9 weeks old) in the duck enclosure (at night they go into a smaller enclosure and the first lot go into the main enclosure so they can still all see each other)
3) 2 New ducks we got yesterday - 5 month old female Cayugas Morticia Flapems & Cleoquacktra in a separate pen right next to Coco and Quackmire
All of the ducks except the Cayugas are Pekin x Indian Runners. At 9 weeks old Quack is as big as all of the females. He and Coco have been separated from the rest of the flock since he was born to avoid the others hurting him.
We did trial bringing group 1 & 2 together several weeks ago but Quack was still quite small and Norris started picking on him. It was also right in the thick of mating season and he relentlessly chased Coco trying to mate with her.
Now it seems Norris has calmed down a bit and ihs brain can think of things other than mating, we're going to trial free-ranging everyone together, under supervision, on the weekend.
I'm pretty scared! I've even told my husband that maybe I should stay in the house and let him sort out any domestic disputes between them. I'm likely to break up any tiny tiff out of fear instead of letting them sort things out between themselves. (Our dogs fight badly and we've had to have them separated in the house for a few years now, so I'm a little scarred from dealing with that!).
So, I've told my hubby that he should probably let them work out small tiffs, but intervene if a) anyone seems to be getting really hurt or b) if there is a tiff and one gives up but the winner keeps chasing them down. Is that right? Does anyone have any other advice they can give me? Or stories about what we could expect to probably happen? I tend to be overcautious about bringing animals together because the thought of fights panics me! :/
1) Male Duck Norris and his 2 girls Marshmallow & Princess free-ranging in the backyard (all 8 months old)
2) Female Coco (8 months old) and her male "baby" Quackmire (9 weeks old) in the duck enclosure (at night they go into a smaller enclosure and the first lot go into the main enclosure so they can still all see each other)
3) 2 New ducks we got yesterday - 5 month old female Cayugas Morticia Flapems & Cleoquacktra in a separate pen right next to Coco and Quackmire
All of the ducks except the Cayugas are Pekin x Indian Runners. At 9 weeks old Quack is as big as all of the females. He and Coco have been separated from the rest of the flock since he was born to avoid the others hurting him.
We did trial bringing group 1 & 2 together several weeks ago but Quack was still quite small and Norris started picking on him. It was also right in the thick of mating season and he relentlessly chased Coco trying to mate with her.
Now it seems Norris has calmed down a bit and ihs brain can think of things other than mating, we're going to trial free-ranging everyone together, under supervision, on the weekend.
I'm pretty scared! I've even told my husband that maybe I should stay in the house and let him sort out any domestic disputes between them. I'm likely to break up any tiny tiff out of fear instead of letting them sort things out between themselves. (Our dogs fight badly and we've had to have them separated in the house for a few years now, so I'm a little scarred from dealing with that!).
So, I've told my hubby that he should probably let them work out small tiffs, but intervene if a) anyone seems to be getting really hurt or b) if there is a tiff and one gives up but the winner keeps chasing them down. Is that right? Does anyone have any other advice they can give me? Or stories about what we could expect to probably happen? I tend to be overcautious about bringing animals together because the thought of fights panics me! :/
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fantastic, if it doesn't seem to be going well introducing them all we'll separate our drake and try again. 
