Integrating the flock

[Mother of duckies]

Hi all you wonderful people!

I need some advice. I just recently brought home two new cayuga ducklings, to add to my mated pair. My drake was overmating my female and I've plenty of room so I brought in cute, fuzzy, peeping, reinforcements. I've introduced them to my two adults a few times now. My hen seems fine with them; she's not maternal or anything, but she either ignores them or happily munches on peas with them by her side. My drake, however, is behaving very aggressively. He has charged them a couple times and even tried to get one in his mouth. Luckily, I've been able to intervene, but I want them all to get along. I'm not willing to rehome my drake. What are my options? Again, I've only introduced them a few times, but so far, I'm feeling discouraged. Should I just give them more time?

On a lighter note, it seems one of my new babies is already beginning to quack, or try to. She's only two weeks old. Is that what she's doing already?!
So adorable! Thanks so much,

Mother of duckies

 

[LaFemmeKatia]

Drakes are like that, and even adult females can get aggressive with babies that aren’t their own.
I would have the new arrivals in a pen where they are separated from the adults but all the ducks can see each other. I would keep them separated until the babies are the size of the adults and feathered and able to defend themselves.
By the time you let them together, they will “know” each other. They will still have pecking order to figure out, but it should work itself out.

 

[FolkSonginC]

Drakes are like that, and even adult females can get aggressive with babies that aren’t their own.
I would have the new arrivals in a pen where they are separated from the adults but all the ducks can see each other. I would keep them separated until the babies are the size of the adults and feathered and able to defend themselves.
By the time you let them together, they will “know” each other. They will still have pecking order to figure out, but it should work itself out.

I agree. I think you don't even necessarily have to worry about them seeing each other and getting used to each other at this stage, once they are bigger and old enough to go out the dynamic may shift. I have found that integrating new ducks into the flock is way easier than with chickens, whenever I have added new ducks they basically just bob their heads at each other and go about their business. When the ducklings are very little though there can be some aggression, but by the time they're old enough to go outside fulltime they're pretty big and I have never seen aggression at that stage. I don't think you necessarily have to wait until they are as big as the adults or fully feathered, I say don't worry about it and just see how things go once they're bigger.