I can’t believe the difference (death mentioned)

[TSOWOATNKC]

The three Pekin drakes were absolutely terrorizing every bird in the yard. They were going from bird to bird, pinning them down and raping them constantly. It didn’t matter if the victim was male, female, duck, or goose. They were after absolutely everyone, and when I put them in drake jail they were miserable, and the female pekin were miserable too. They would sleep against the fence to get as close as possible. The drakes were never satisfied, no amount of rape was enough; it was like they were sexual berserkers and were incapable of stopping.

My husband was done with it after I had to get up at midnight the other night because our geese were screaming at the drakes trying to get them to stop. I had to chase down the three drakes and put them in a more secure jail. He dispatched two today. The difference in the yard is profound. Everyone is sleeping and very calm/quiet. Even the remaining pekin drake is so calm, it’s really incredible. The females that were so sad that the drakes were in jail are so much happier and calm too.

My theory was that the three were in competition with one another. That competition didn’t make them fight each other, it made them take out sexual aggression on everyone else. Do you think that could be the case?

 

[Soon2BChixMom]

Just wondering what ratio you had for drakes to ducks? Do you just have the one drake now? How did you decide which two to dispatch? How old were the pekins?

 

[Zinjifrah]

The same thing is true of cockerels, in my recent experience.

 

[TSOWOATNKC]

My initial plan months ago was to have 2 Pekin females to every Pekin male and see if that was OK. Then add more females if need be in the future. We already had 2 males, and 1 female; so I bought 1 female thru Metzer, and I found someone about an hour away that was selling 2 Pekin. He assured me they were both female, they were actually a male and a female. This brought us to 1:1 ratio with 3/3 M/F.

I tried jail, they were miserable and the females were too. I tried bringing in more females (found 7 White Layers), it didn't help at all. In fact, more females seemed to make it WORSE because then they had more victims that they had to get. It was like they needed to rape even more once we had more females. They never fought each other, but all three would try to mate the same female at once. All three would grab them by the head, and then take turns mounting.

We had a total of 11 drakes, a mere 3 were Pekin. We had 22 females of various types too (3 Pekin). The other drakes mate the various ducks. I'm not squeamish about ducks mating, I know its rough. I know its meant to be rough. These drakes were just insane and insatiable, and were going after my GEESE.

I picked the largest two drakes that seemed most aggressive. We cut the corner off a feed bag, stuck them in the bag with their head sticking out, and my husband chopped their head off in one clean blow. I'm guessing that they were all right around 5-6 months old. My husband skinned them, and they're smoking at the moment alongside some salmon. We considered aging them in the fridge for awhile before freezing, but we really don't have the space for doing that right this moment. In future we plan to get a second fridge so if we were to process ducks again we'd age them before freezing.

We didn't buy ducks for meat, that was absolutely never the plan. Absolutely no one wants drakes around here as pets, there are tons of free ones that languish on craigslist. We figured if they were going to be eaten, we'd rather make sure they had a quick/clean death and eat them ourselves. When my husband processed the carcasses, he showed the kids the various innards and made it kind of an anatomy lesson. They're doing OK with it, there were a few tears at first, but they are OK with it. They understand it was necessary and agree that we gave them the best life possible before their deaths.

 

[TSOWOATNKC]

Correction: We had 13 drakes (3 Pekin) and 22 females. I'm working on getting a couple more female Magpies right now so my Magpie ratio is better. The Magpie aren't sexually aggressive AT ALL, it's just a preventative measure.

 

[Soon2BChixMom]

Goodness. You definitely made the right decision. Drakes and roosters are all over CL. I wonder if the one will settle down for good now?

 

[TSOWOATNKC]

It looks promising at the moment that he will calm down a lot. I told my husband that it was like they were drunken frat boys in competition egging each other on. The other birds like him better now too. Before if any Pekin drake passed by any other duck (except the female Pekin) they would "scold" them like they were trying to say "leave me alone! I'm not interested!." Now he can sleep alongside them, when before there was an invisible bubble around the drakes where all the other birds tried hard not to be.

The crazy thing is that the female Pekin were just as sexually crazed! They wanted to be mated by those boys over and over. Even though all three would get on top of the same female and nearly drown them, it was like those ladies couldn't get enough. Now the females aren't constantly laying out for mating and fliriting. Strange, strange, strange.

 

[onaharley]

Very interesting, currently my set up is 3 males to 2 female. I had a male and female Pekin allready, so I ordered 2 females in February to help my numbers. 1 passed in transit. I ran out to TSC and got two Pekin.... hoping they were girls. Well, it turned out to be 1 female and 1 male. The kicker was when my special order female turned out to be a male!!!!

The aggressive behavior has just started. The biggest male Pekin from TSC is making his rank in pecking order, but towards the males. The fighting is absolutely crazy... to the point of causing injury on my oldest drake. Since the special ordered and the Tsc ducks were raised together..... it's like 2 against 1 when fighting. Shear chaos.......

I have tried my hand at rehoming this Pekin but could not do it once I found that his life would be confined to a small pen and alone with no other ducks. So back home we go and trying to figure up a solution to keeping every separated. I can tell my hens are tried..... I hope I don't have to go your route.... thank you for sharing your experience!

 

[TSOWOATNKC]

I really don’t believe those drakes were happy on their rampage. I know the remaining drake seems much calmer and happy.

 

[Soon2BChixMom]

How did it go today?