Keeping males together in sight of females?

prestoconfuoco

Songster
May 26, 2019
64
48
101
Upstate NY
Hey all,
I know it’s ok to keep drakes together and females together, or both together with a 1:5 (or more) ratio.

I have four females and three males. However, we’ve grown to love the males and while we were originally going to rehome two of them, I’d like to keep them all.

My plan is to create a divided pen with the four females on one side and the three males on the other.

Will this create problems when they are right near each other even if they can’t reach each other? Will the drakes begin to fight each other because they can see the females?

Let me know if you have any experience — not sure how common this sort of thing is!
 
i have 3 drakes and 2 hens, kept seperate. the only time they can’t see each other is during night time, but their pens are in the same room so they can still hear each other. they only rly fought during their first spring and now they are perfectly fine together
 
It is a drake by drake basis, but my drakes are separated most of the time from the females during the heavy mating seasons and the girls are free to walk in/out of the barn where they pass by the drakes. Never had a problem, but my drakes have never really fought either in general.
 
I have 2 drakes and 8 females who live happily together until mating season kicks in. My males started some very frightening fights with each other. Second year in a row where I have created two flocks with 1 male and several females in separate coops. Never considered having the males together separated from the females.
I'll be very interested to learn what others have done.
 
Im wondering this also. I have 2 female ducks and recently rescued two drakes who were about to become duck curry 🥺
I've separated them from my females in their own little pen outside and away from the girls. They can hear them but not see them.
I've just found another drake who desperately needs a new home and I'm wondering if he would be ok in with my other 2 boys. They are both different breeds but have been brought up together I think (outcast from their original flock). Would it be a problem adding another male into the mix?
 
Im wondering this also. I have 2 female ducks and recently rescued two drakes who were about to become duck curry 🥺
I've separated them from my females in their own little pen outside and away from the girls. They can hear them but not see them.
I've just found another drake who desperately needs a new home and I'm wondering if he would be ok in with my other 2 boys. They are both different breeds but have been brought up together I think (outcast from their original flock). Would it be a problem adding another male into the mix?
It shouldn't be an issue, but of course monitor them. Like I said above I keep my drakes separate (excluding when I put one with some of my females when I want to hatch), but other than that I have a bachelor pen. During the day they're locked up in the pen and when I put the girls away I let my drakes out to run around for a few hours. We are building a duck barn and when it's finished the drakes will have their own room that leads out to their own aviary with their own pond. I originally had 2 drakes, but I just added one more and will be adding another two here in the next few months (I didn't have the heart to butcher any and I'm too attached to sell them).
 
Im wondering this also. I have 2 female ducks and recently rescued two drakes who were about to become duck curry 🥺
I've separated them from my females in their own little pen outside and away from the girls. They can hear them but not see them.
I've just found another drake who desperately needs a new home and I'm wondering if he would be ok in with my other 2 boys. They are both different breeds but have been brought up together I think (outcast from their original flock). Would it be a problem adding another male into the mix?

Our plan right now is building a large pen/enclosure that is going to be divided in half so the males/females can't reach each other. I have three drakes together and they are best friends -- there has't been any fighting among them so far. I'm hoping being able to see the females won't encourage any fighting, but based on times when they've been in sight of each other thus far, I think it's going to be fine.

I can't speak for other peoples' situations, but I'm under the impression an all-drake flock is generally fine, because the problem with mixing males/females usually ends up being over-mating the females -- so as long as they are separate drakes can do perfectly well together.
 
Our plan right now is building a large pen/enclosure that is going to be divided in half so the males/females can't reach each other. I have three drakes together and they are best friends -- there has't been any fighting among them so far. I'm hoping being able to see the females won't encourage any fighting, but based on times when they've been in sight of each other thus far, I think it's going to be fine.

I can't speak for other peoples' situations, but I'm under the impression an all-drake flock is generally fine, because the problem with mixing males/females usually ends up being over-mating the females -- so as long as they are separate drakes can do perfectly well together.
It's just one of those things... Sometimes it works sometimes it don't. And sometimes it works until it don't. 🤪
I put my call drakes in a separate pen certain times of the year when I have ducklings or if they're just breeding the girls too hard.
I've not had a problem with them fighting, but where I put them they can't see the girls they can only hear them.
All you can really do is try it and see. It's not going to stop them from having hormones, sometimes they will take those hormones out on each other if there are no hens for them to mate with.
 
Just an update:

Our huge duck pen is not fully complete yet, so we have a small temporary pen and the huge pen that has yet to be divided in half. So we've been giving the drakes and hens turns in each pen trading off (one day drakes get the small pen, one day they get the large one, etc.)

In the past 2 days or so, I've noticed that when the drakes get in the pool, there's been fighting starting -- it was pretty bad this morning. This never, ever happened before, so I do think in my case being able to see the females is what is making them fight or hormonal.

As a side note, I notice they only fight when they're in the water -- I'm assuming that's because they mate in the water. I have two pekins and a welsh harlequin in there -- the bigger of the two pekins starts immediately head-bobbing at the welsh and then was chasing him down/biting his feathers. Even though the two pekins have always gotten along, the bigger one was ALSO going after the (slightly) smaller pekin!

In any case -- they are 100% fine when out of the water thus far, and I put up a board between the two pens so they can't see the females anymore. Hopefully this will temporarily put an end to the fighting!

Then, once our pen is finished I'll divide it in half and either use boards or a tarp to make it so that the drakes can't see through the divider, and hopefully they'll be fine. They've always gotten along spectacularly before now, so I'm hoping without any hint of being able to mate it'll go back to that!
 
Just an update:

Our huge duck pen is not fully complete yet, so we have a small temporary pen and the huge pen that has yet to be divided in half. So we've been giving the drakes and hens turns in each pen trading off (one day drakes get the small pen, one day they get the large one, etc.)

In the past 2 days or so, I've noticed that when the drakes get in the pool, there's been fighting starting -- it was pretty bad this morning. This never, ever happened before, so I do think in my case being able to see the females is what is making them fight or hormonal.

As a side note, I notice they only fight when they're in the water -- I'm assuming that's because they mate in the water. I have two pekins and a welsh harlequin in there -- the bigger of the two pekins starts immediately head-bobbing at the welsh and then was chasing him down/biting his feathers. Even though the two pekins have always gotten along, the bigger one was ALSO going after the (slightly) smaller pekin!

In any case -- they are 100% fine when out of the water thus far, and I put up a board between the two pens so they can't see the females anymore. Hopefully this will temporarily put an end to the fighting!

Then, once our pen is finished I'll divide it in half and either use boards or a tarp to make it so that the drakes can't see through the divider, and hopefully they'll be fine. They've always gotten along spectacularly before now, so I'm hoping without any hint of being able to mate it'll go back to that!
if possible get multiple pools, my boys are fine with each other except they won’t share a pool with each other
 

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