Help! My pekin eats until she can't walk.

[Duckee]

My 5 week old perkin eats so much that her crop drags the ground and she can't walk. I don't know yet if it is a drake or not. Would the gender make a difference in eating habits? I'm pretty sure the rouen in the picture is a drake as his new head feathers & some body feathers coming in are very green in the sunlight, his bill is turning green, and he has a deep raspy voice....although you can't tell in this pic. although they are the same age & have been together from a couple days old...could the rouen

play a role in this problem? The rouen eats until he's full and then walks away from the remaining food. The pekin always eats all the food even though her crop is dragging the ground and she's falling over and she still forages for bugs. As soon as her crop recedes she can walk and run as normal again. She seems very healthy otherwise. Is this normal for a pekin? should I still keep food down constantly?

 

[DUCKOBSESSED]

My pekins would eat all day if I let them. I feed my flock in the morning at 8ish and again at 7ish. The other ducks would be fine with food down 24/7 but not the Pekins.

 

[Duckee]

Thanks for the info. That's sounds like a good schedule...I'll try that. I'm happy to know she/he is fine, just a piggy..lol. I guess the name "Big Hoss" is fitting for this pekin...hehe

 

[TwoDogFarm]

We are having the same problem with our six Pekin ducks. They're huge and tend to eat all the food in the feeder. In the same coop, we have four Khaki Campbells, two mallards, two Indian Runners, one Buff Orpington, one Golden Cascade duck, in addition to our four chickens. We had thought about limiting the amount of feed ours eat as well, but we are worried that if we only put a little bit of food out there a couple of times a day that our other ducks and chickens would be starved because the Pekins would eat all the food. We had even thought about separating our Pekins from the others because they can be a little bossy with the others. DuckObsessed, do you have any other kinds of ducks in with your Pekins? Any suggestions on this? Thanks.

 

[DUCKOBSESSED]

I have a lot of different breeds together. I put feed in two separate places. Try raising food so the chickens eat higher then the ducks can go.

 

[Duckee]

Update: Its been over a week since I began feeding twice daily....worked like a charm! Thanks so much for your help

I have another question: I read on a website that a male pekin will have 1 black feather on their back under their wing. Is this true? If so, at what age do they develop this? and how do I locate it?

 

[DUCKOBSESSED]

I am glad it worked for you as well! I don't know about the feather thing my Pekins are all female.

 

[TwoDogFarm]

I haven't heard the black feather thing, although this is very interesting. Two of ours had a couple of black feathers in their tails when they first got their white feathers, but they're all white now. They're still too young to distinguish sexes yet though, but I'm waiting. What I've read and heard is that the male Pekins will develop the sex feather on their tails. This is the little white feather that curls up. Also, their quacks are supposed to be different somehow. I'd like to hear what others have to say about this as I am getting very anxious to figure out if we have males or females as well.

 

[Sfraker]

My Peking male does not have a black feather. He is 9 weeks old so it could come with another molt.

Their is a HUGE difference in sound. You can barely hear the male. He sounds like he has bad laryngitis. The girls are incredibly loud.

 

[duck darling]

They will have a couple of feathers curling their tails at about 17 weeks, then their voice will change. Females are VERY quacky! The drake will have a softer voice as mentioned above. Also their belly hangs differently than the females too. Im no quackspert but that's what I've observed