Help! Ended up with 1 female, 4 drakes

[donnasthugducks]

Hi, could use advice on how to handle my very attached ducks that go everywhere in the yard together. At 3 months I ended up with 4 drakes out of the 5 ducklings. I just purchased a second duck house and can separate the males in another level of the yard. Is this fair to the female? Is a 1:1 ratio —leaving her with the least aggressive drake still too much? Thanks in advance for the input!

 

[Quatie]

That is unfortunate. Even 1:1, the female can get over mated. You could keep the female with one male some of the time, but even they will likely need to be separated. You either need to get one or more female, or if you are not looking for eggs, rehome the female.

 

[CrazyChicken Lady]

That probably wouldn't work for the female. You'll need a LOT of females if you want to keep all of the drakes and 1-2 more if you keep one. Or, like Quatie said, you could get rid of the girl and have a all drake flock.

 

[Miss Lydia]

A few years ago my Muscovy hatched out 5 drakes one female. Thankfully a friend helped me find homes for 4 of the drakes(Runners) and I kept 1 drake and the female to add to my flock of 11 which gave me 2 Runner drakes and 9 females, this has worked out well none of the girls are thread bare from over mating. I also have a Muscovy drake and he has 3 females . It may work for you to have a drake only flock separate from a drake and have one drake with at least 3 females together. Many here keep their drakes separated from their females over the heaviest part of breeding season.