Introducing ducklings to adult drake?

[Scifisarah]

Both of the females in my call duck trio were taken by a red tailed hawk this past week. Luckily I have two ducklings from one batch of eggs, a bantam cochin hen sitting on another 5 eggs that will hatch in two weeks and 5 eggs in the incubator that will hatch in three weeks. My poor drake is all alone and I was wondering how old the ducklings should be before they can be housed with him. I know very young ducklings aren't supposed to be around drakes because he might be aggressive towards them, but I hope I don't have to wait until they are fully grown. What do you think?

Oh, and my ducks will no longer be free ranging - our drake is currently with our bantam cochins and we installed netting over the top. The hawk also ate one of my chickens although I wish they would have eaten all chickens instead of my calls.

 

[L0rraine]

I let our four week old Runners hang with the adult Runners under supervision. The drake has been a little aggressive, but is getting less so. He is fine as long as they stay about two feet away and the ducklings seem to have learned their limits. At night they've been contentedly sleeping with our Silkie chickens, though they are just desperate to be accepted by the big ducks. It seems like in a couple of weeks they will be almost as big as the adult ducks and so I'll see if I can let the pecking order play out so they can be part of the 'flock' (small as it is - I have only four adults).