Help with Drakes

[Bill83]

First off let me paint a picture for you.

We have 6 Ducks

2 Female Khackis - 17 weeks old
2 Male Pekin - 17 weeks old
2 Female Welsh Harlequins - 5.5 weeks old

The one drake, (lets call him jack) is clearly the dominate drake and he is almost obsessed with the 2 khacki females. If the passive drake (lets call him bob) is near one of them Jack will then move in-between them. Yesterday we found Jack on top of both of the khackis in the pond and in the coop. Jack also will chase the welsh harlequins, he puts his head down and charges them until i step in-between them and then Jack(ass) will back down.

When we bought the first 4 ducks we bought them from tractor supply and when i asked about the difference in colors of ducks i was told " they are just different colors" at the time we had no idea they were different breeds of ducks and it just so happened that the two massive ducks turned out to be males.

We are trying to figure out what to do with our situation. Jack and Bob are about 2-3x the size of the khacki's and we are worried they will hurt them. The one khacki's is the size of the 5.5 week old welsh harlequin so they are not big at all.

Getting rid of the drakes is our last resort. A local farm will take them in but we would love for this to just work out without having to re-home some of our ducks we love them and don't want to do this but we also want to insure the 4 females will not be hurt.

If anyone has some advice good or bad please let us know.

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[Miss Lydia]

Drake jail its happening all over the duck forum. @DuckyDonna can tell you about it. Only way other than rehoming to keep the females from abuse.

 

[Bill83]

 

[Miss Lydia]

Might have a drake WH too?

 

[Bill83]

Drake jail its happening all over the duck forum. @DuckyDonna can tell you about it. Only way other than rehoming to keep the females from abuse.

So do we keep them separate 100% of the time until fall? We have no intention to make more ducklings so the males serve no real purpose to us but they are also ours and our responsibility so figuring out how to deal with them would be better than just giving them away

 

[Bill83]

Might have a drake WH too?

Both of the Welsh's were sexed as female before we got them and both are loud as hell so were assuming they are both female.... we hope

 

[Bill83]

ALSO, if we do re-home the two drakes will it negatively effect the two khackis? will they miss them ? will one of them step up to be the dominate duck then ? how will the dynamic of the flock change without any drakes?

 

[DuckyDonna]

Well, I feel your pain! I have a little black/chocolate boy runner and he is the sweetest little thing. So unlike my first drake which was just mean and awful.

So I have 6 girls and him. You would think that would be a good ratio but apparently, 6 girls just aren't enough for him! Everyone of my girls has had their neck feathers pulled out so they've got a big stripe down their long necks. No blood but I prefer not to let it get to that point. He just chases after one duck and another until he gets his way, he's not picky about who he rapes it's just a matter of him catching someone. They all run away from him as fast as their little legs will go. It was really quite comical until I started noticing their poor necks! Oh, and he's not picky about where either. He don't need no stinkin' pool! He just grabs and goes at it on land or at sea!

I have had him sequestered with one of the females he doesn't seem as interested in "that way" for a couple of weeks now. Yesterday I thought he may behave now and put them all together again. Nope, not happening so back to drake jail he went last night.

I have 2 pens and 2 runs which is a good thing but I've also just hatched some babies which puts another twist on things around here. The perfect plan was babies in the smaller pen and inside run and big kids in the bigger pen and outside run until they can all be together. Now with him acting a fool, I've got to have 3 areas so it's a good thing I bought more fencing.

I did build a divider for inside the big pen where I put him at night so he can sleep with his girl and he can see the other girls. The outside runs let everyone see each other all day too. @onaharley was a huge help to me with all this and this divider thing for the pen worked great. It would look better if the barn walls were square but who knew? The little door just slides in from the top. I herd them all in there at night then I get in, close the pen door and I grab Sambo and Dilly and put them in the back part. I think they both must sleep against the little door because that's where all the poo is in the morning.

That is the easy part. In the morning I direct the big girls to whichever run they weren't in yesterday and then I'll let out Sambo and Dilly into the other run.

It's a pain in the butt but you can't just let them tear into the girls. I've seen some horrible things here on BYC of the damage drakes can do to the poor girls when people let it go on too long. My little guy is only 7 months old and the sweetest prettiest little thing so I'm hoping that he'll get tired of it after a while or when the seasons change. Please, GOD! I'm also hoping that none of my 4 babies are drakes!

 

[chickens really]

I'd rehome the two big Drakes. The Hens will not be sad without the Drakes and not much will change as far as behaviour.

 

[Bill83]

Well, I feel your pain!

It really sucks but I think were just gonna have to re-home them. Feels bad...