Huge pekin trying to mate with mallard

[Lizmo1239]

Hi everyone - new duck owner here! We got two un-sexed ducklings and of course our huge jumbo pekin turned out to be a male and our small mallard we are pretty sure is a female. They are several months old now and the pekin is regularly trying to mate with the mallard, and I’m so worried about him squishing her to the point of hurting her or drowning her. Does anyone have experience with this? We just have the two and they are very bonded. I read they mate pretty much all year, so I’m at a loss if i should just let nature take its course or if this is something I should be very worried about. The mallard is so much faster so we though she’d easily be able to get away, but the pekin just walks on top of her and she gets squished down to the floor.

 

[416bigbore]

Hello, And Welcome to BYC. IMO. I would pay close attention to them so he don't possibly hurt her like you posted. If he is that aggressive you may need to separate them and or add more girls to your flock. Good luck and please keep us posted. Great looking Babies!

 

[3bird]

Welcome!

I would certainly consider separating them if it looks like he is going to hurt her. We have all the same breed (silver Appleyards, large breed), but there is no question that our large drake (Angus) could do some damage to our smaller girls. From roughly April to August, we need to manage him pretty closely. Perhaps ironically, he is "bonded" with one of our smallest girls (Mouse), and while sex can be rough, it's usually pretty quick and in the water. When he targets our other small girls, it is sometimes just to run them down and stand on them. When he does try to mate with them, it takes forever, so we generally keep him separate from those girls when we are not directly supervising. Ideally you would have at least four girls per drake (we have five, and it's still a challenge at times).

At the end of this video, you can see Angus and Mouse to get a sense of the size difference, which is not nearly as much as yours:

 

[Duck mommy 2019]

i think it could be fine if supervised, just depends on the duck. he could be super mean and need 5 girls but could also be fine with just her

 

[Lizmo1239]

Thank you everyone for the very helpful input!! I think for now I’m going to closely monitor them and hope that I won’t eventually have to separate them (I’m not sure how that would even be possible since it’s just them two and seems like they would get very depressed). Luckily working from home now I’m able to keep a close eye on them. The male really is a funny and clumsy guy (he actually only has one eye) and hasn’t shown any aggression or super dominant behavior that I’ve seen - other than standing on the other duck and trying to mate when they’re in water.


I haven’t actually seen them get too far in the process as I always shoo the male off the female right away - I’m thinking I should actually see what happens so I can better know if he’s actually getting close to hurting her - sigh, I really did not expect this to come with duck ownership, who knew!

 

[sourland]

Due to the size difference and possible difficulties in 'connecting', it is very possible that he might inadvertently drown her during the mating process.

 

[Lizmo1239]

Due to the size difference and possible difficulties in 'connecting', it is very possible that he might inadvertently drown her during the mating process.

Thank you, yes I am worried about this as well! I've noticed he only stands on her when i'm filling up their water bowl with new water, and he only tries to mate when they have fresh new water in the kiddie pool - something about clean water! Otherwise I've never walked into the backyard or looked out the window and seen them in the act. Moving forward we will be covering the kiddie pool when we go inside so they can't go in it unsupervised - not worth the risk! Just this morning when i was filling up their water bowl he started to stand on her her - I tried to wait it out to see what happens but he looked so heavy, I had to shoo him off.