Introducing ducks

[flockman]

I have 3 adult Peking hens. I also have 4 6 week old Peking ducklings. What age can I start to introduce them to share a coop? Chickens I wait a while yet but ducks are much bigger comparatively.

 

[Amiga]

I have been told to wait till the littles are adult size, then supervise their together time till it is obvious that they will get along reasonably well.

There is usually some shoving, a little feather-pulling, but nothing drastic. If they start to get into a real scuffle, separate them and try again another day. Giving treats at the same time while still separated by a fence seems to help when I introduce new flock members.

 

[flockman]

Thanks, they are getting huge fast. I always forget how fast waterfowl grow. The chicks I hatched a month earlier are much smaller now than these ducks.

I want to wait till they have grown in their feathers so there is not a risk of someone breaking blood feathers. I figure I will wait till about 8 weeks. I will start introducing them through fence now.

 

[DeannaMari]

We introduced our ducks and they were younger, but our "adults" were younger as well. They are only about 4 weeks older, but much much bigger than our younger ones! A system we use is, we have an outdoor pen that we allow the little ones to play around in during the day (kind of like those dog kennel set-ups) and then at night we take them back in, when they get old enough to start swimming in the big pond, we let them do supervised swims and if the other ducks come along, we watch, if somebody starts getting picked on we take the younger ones back into the pen. I tend to over-react when somebody gets picked on though, the older ducks were my parents and the younger ones were mine (2 older to 2 younger) and I have to admit mine weren't willing to take the bullying, they try to bully back despite how much smaller they are.