Hen to drake ratio

[Nitralw]

I think your drake might be a Rouen based on color and size in comparison to your Cayuga.

Thank you!

 

[hayley3]

Backstory: we bought two ducklings. One Cayuga and one Khaki Campbell.. or so we thought. We were pretty convinced they were both female until recently.. our brown one turned out to be a drake so now we have one hen and one drake but I’ve heard it’s better to have more hens than drakes for the hens safety. So what’s a good ratio ... also anyone take a guess of the breed of our drake (brown duck) He doesn’t look like a khaki Campbell and I’ve posted before and there were some golden layer 300 guesses .. but he doesn’t look like those either.

The body of the brown one looks identical to my khaki campbell. My boy has a very green bill but his head is not green yet.

 

[hayley3]

I have a drake that can be 1 on 1 because he's a perfect gentleman - but I also have one that needs 6+ hens. He's a bully and if it weren't the kids -would be gone. (He spends spring in time out by himself) General rule of thumb is 3-5 hens per drake, but I've seen plenty of instances to sway either way. It will really depend on your drake.

So how do you know exactly? Do they start running from him?

 

[Szack]

Looks like a Campbell to me. Brown body and green head. Rangers and Rouens are grey.

I started with 1 Drake and 1 Hen. They were from different parents both Aylesbury. I had them for a year. They were and are in love from the get go. I then added another younger Aylesbury and 2 Silver Appleyards around 4 months old. The Drake is quite loving to the other Aylesbury but the Applyards have bare necks and heads to the point of bleeding. He's a bit of a bully and likes nothing more than to chance them around all day trying to "get lucky". I let it go for about 2 weeks to establish some sort of pecking order but Ive had to separate them to give them some peace while he gets over his hormone injection through the summer!

Id say if you dont intend on getting more ducks they will be fine together. If you want more id recommend getting them sooner rather than later before the flock gets too established. Realistically I wouldnt recommend less than 4 Hens per Drake if you intend to get more Drakes but ideally 6. But a drake will be in his element with lots of girls by his side.

 

[ibarbidahl]

What Szack said. The mating will take a toll on the hens. Another thing I've noticed is the groups we keep without a pool in the enclosure do better than the ones with. For whatever reason the drakes see the pool as an invitation. So with the more aggressive drakes we keep them housed without a "pond."

 

[hayley3]

What Szack said. The mating will take a toll on the hens. Another thing I've noticed is the groups we keep without a pool in the enclosure do better than the ones with. For whatever reason the drakes see the pool as an invitation. So with the more aggressive drakes we keep them housed without a "pond."

Is that only during the spring that you keep them without a pond? Ducks seem to really need water to bathe. I put water in the baby pool and even though they can't really swim they "duck" under the water to clean themselves, like they are diving.

 

[ibarbidahl]

They will do the same with a bucket of water. It's just a duck thing. They don't "need" to swim... they really enjoy it but they don't need it. Just keep it outside their enclosure and keep an eye on them. It's that or separate the hens from the drakes.

 

[corriemartin]

So if you have more ducks, it'd be okay to have several drakes? Like if you had ten ducks, then you could keep two drakes? Would they get along? (I'm asking because at some point we're going to be able to really tell what our ratio is.)