Good Morning! I am a new member and am in need of some help. I am a duck owner and am always referring to this website for duck advice. I decided to start my own account because we had a bit of a mishap in the night. We rescued an 8 wk old Muscovy yesterday and added it to our flock of 4 adult female Pekins. All ducks were locked up for the night together and the Pekins beat up the new duck pretty bad. I am in need of advice and am thinking that adding an adult female Muscovy might help protect the little one. (So if anyone in the south-of-Chicago area has one available please let me know). Thanks a ton!
Glad you joined us. Sorry, no experience with ducks, just have chickens. But would suggest you post on the Ducks forum and likely you'll find your solution.
Hello there and welcome to BYC! Sorry about your ducks fighting. I am not experienced with ducks, however I know that other poultry need to introduced very slowly into a flock from a cage or fenced off area. You can't just throw them in or they can get hurt or even killed. Stop by our ducks section for more help with this situation....https://www.backyardchickens.com/f/42/ducks Good luck and I hope you can get some harmony in your duck flock soon!
Glad you joined us! I'm sorry about the duck fighting. I'm not a duck expert, but I'm sure members in the Duck section can help you. From my experience with chickens, though, I don't think adding another adult Muscovy would help. Female birds don't usually protect younger birds unless they are broody. The duckling is rather young to be put in with four adult, dominant females. Adding another adult female would only make things worse. I think the best thing you can do is let the duckling mature a little more. If possible, keep the duckling in a place where the other birds can see him, but not reach him. After a few weeks of that, at least with chickens, introductions are usually more successful. Another possibility is getting another duckling of about the same age and seeing if the two young birds get along. Then, introduce both ducklings to the flock at once. That way, all of the older birds' attention won't be directed at a single, small bird. One other word of caution: Even if the duckling did get along with the other birds, it is not a great idea to throw a new bird in with an existing flock. You don't know what diseases the new bird could possible introduce to your flock. If at all possible, quarantine new birds for at least 2 weeks before introducing them. During the quarantine, observe the bird closely for symptoms, and don't introduce it unless you think it is free of problems. Good luck with your flock!
That is great advice thank you so much! We are going to put a separate box in the pen for the new duck at night. Right now we have her separated with a heat light so she can relax and recover a bit. We are new to ducks and did not realize our Pekins could be so aggressive. We actually rescued her from a friend who found her on the side of the road as a duckling (about a week old), she has been staying with him but was deterring his guiney hens from roosting. He thought she was a Pekin because she is white but apron her arrival I knew she was something different . Turns out she is a white muscovy. We would like to keep her so she will eat mosquitos and flies but never wanted her tortured in the process. We are keeping her separated but if we can't give her a happy life we will have to find her a new home. I am hopeful that she will be able to join the flock once she is bigger.
Welcome to BYC! Glad you decided to join our flock. I'm a chicken person and don't know much about ducks (although I've had a few), but I have to admit that ducklings are the ultimate in cute. Sounds like you've been given some good advice from the other members so I'll just say, please feel free to ask any other questions you may have. We are here to help in any way we can. Good luck with your duck.
