How soon to rehome the drakes?

[zooweemama]

Our flock size is 17. It looks like we have about 4 drakes. We can safely keep 2 with our flock size. That means we have to rehome the other 2. How soon should we rehome them? They are 6 weeks old now. We have a set of 3 week old females (8 of them) so I have safety concerns of the drakes trying to mate them before they are ready. Thank you in advance!

 

[sourland]

If you know that you only want to keep two, pick those using whatever criteria you are working towards and rehome the other two now.

 

[Tahai]

Your drakes are part of your 5 week old crowd? I would wait as long as you can. If you intend to hatch, you'll want to pick the best quality drakes (the quality of your boys always carries more weight in a herd/flock than the quality of your girls). I doubt you want to wait the 2 years for their final colors to settle in, but you could wait until breeding season starts (in 13-20 weeks from now for this batch), and make your best guess then. Also, 4 drakes for 13 hens isn't a terrible mix, though 3 might be better. Too many hens, and you risk prolapses in the boys.

 

[Kevin565]

All of my ducks started breeding around 5 months. If your worried about breeding issues I'd make sure to rehome them before then.However, in seems the younger they are the easier it is to rehome them in some area

 

[Miss Lydia]

I agree with Kevin most people are looking for ducklings so you may want to make your decision soon. I hate this part.

 

[Oregon Blues]

If you already know which ones you want to keep, re-home the others now. The younger they are, the easier they are to re-home.

Fortunately, drakes are a lot easier to re-home than roosters, but still, you are going to have to work at it to find them homes.

 

[zooweemama]

I found them a home! Woohoo! I just need to mark the drakes so I can watch them for a few days and see who I want to rehome. For sure I have 4 drakes at least. 1 Pekin, 1 Cayuga (unless there is another type of all black duck with a shimmery green), Crested something (runner or swedish hatchery grade) and a Buff.

Females we have Pekins (which I love their big fat white butts and sassy quacks), WH, FW Runners, Buff and Golden 300. It appears as though I might have one or two female Cayuga too.

We are keeping the crested because we love him to bits. I am not much of a Cayuga girl personally - so I am okay rehoming the Cayuga dude. And I am torn between the Pekin male or the Buff male to keep or re-home. Ahhh! Since I have females of both breeds and I like both breeds so far.

I wonderrrr...if I could keep 3 males...and actually rehome 1 male and female Cayuga? So that way my friend gets a pair (they don't have any ducks) and I can keep 3 drakes because honestly I want to keep the Pekin + Crested + Buff males.

Any thoughts on this?

If I have sexed correctly I have 4 males and 13 females currently...

 

[zooweemama]

Is 3 males to 12 ducks an ok spread or not really?

 

[Tahai]

I think three is a much better ratio than two.

 

[zooweemama]

Oh no! So I went with my son to tag all the males with zip ties. Females loud annoying quack, males no quacking just low rasping correct? We have 6 males. That leaves me with 11 ladies. Wahhh!

We have 2 male Pekins, 2 male Cayugas, 1 male Buff and 1 male crested.

There is one male Pekin that is ginormous and we are attached to him, plus the Buff and the crested. 3 drakes we'd like to keep...with 11 ladies. Ah man!