tayjamieson
Songster
Hello!
I have been a little MIA on the forum's lately and I apologize. I seriously appreciate everyone on BYC more than I can put into words, ya'll have helped me through everything while raising my ducklings and chickens too! With that being said,I have a big problem and I don't know what to do.
We have quite a total now of 12 pekin ducks and in the last 3 weeks we have slowly integrated them all together playing in the backyard/sharing a pen at night... boy they have all fought about it BUT luckily things have slowly improved and mostly everyone is cordial with each other.
We practiced the whole method of using a mini pen for the new ducks in the backyard so the original ducks we had could see them and get used to them, then after about a week of that we allowed them all to be together freely in the back yard and the fighting began mostly over the pool. Everyone seems to get along for the most part now except for these two big males who are pretty territorial especially over the pool and they chase off all the new ducklings, everyone is scared of him. A couple of the new ducks try to stick up to him especially when he is attacking another duck but I get nervous and split it up usually because he will rip feathers out and get really rough with them.
The primary issue with these two males is they are extremely rough with the girl ducks when mating! I know that ducks don't have the most "romantic/sweet" mating practices but this is far more aggressive than what I'm used to seeing with our ducks. A friend who owns pekin ducks said he has never had his male ducks rip out feathers of the females or any of the ducks for that matter so that was when I wanted to reach out to everyone on BYC and get some advice on how to fix this. They have ripped all of the feathers out of one of our female ducks named Delilah to the point where the entire back of her neck is bare skin/cracked open/bloody. Since it's gotten so bad we often have to keep the two males in a pen in the middle of the yard so they can't get to her while she's out and about during the day but we don't like having to keep those two males cooped up away from the pool all day long either. In addition we made a pen inside in our shop to keep her separated at night to protect her/allow her neck to hopefully heal up, with our two 2 month old ducklings who are sweet as ever to keep her company. They have bonded so well and have the sweetest relationship with her now.
**If anyone knows how I can treat her neck cuts or can tell me whether or not her feathers can grow back there and anything I can do to help her, I worry that it's painful as well for her.***
So some stuff we have tried; flipping the two agressive males over on their backs when they get too macho with the ducks, to try and show them that they "aren't the alpha" (we read online that this could help calm down their ego and ease their aggressive behavior).
We have tried keeping the two males in a pen separate from everyone else in the middle of the yard so that they are still around the others but they can't go over and attack them, but there hasn't been any improvement and the two males still make a bee line for Delilah every time she comes outside in the morning and try to get on her back to mate. Whenever the girl ducks are running away from them when they are trying to mate, the male ducks will run and catch up to them and grab their feathers or pin their necks down and hold them there for a few seconds until they submit to them, then they hop on their back and again bite at the gals necks. I'm also starting to see missing feathers on the necks of a couple of other ducks so I clearly need to address their behavior issues.
Thank You so much for reading all of that, I feel like I get way too into detail but I'd rather give ya'll too much information than not enough. If anyone has any advice or experience with this issue I would LOVE to hear what you have to say and I really appreciate your time so much!
Hope everyone is having a great day, I wish everyone and their flock a lovely weekend
I have been a little MIA on the forum's lately and I apologize. I seriously appreciate everyone on BYC more than I can put into words, ya'll have helped me through everything while raising my ducklings and chickens too! With that being said,I have a big problem and I don't know what to do.
We have quite a total now of 12 pekin ducks and in the last 3 weeks we have slowly integrated them all together playing in the backyard/sharing a pen at night... boy they have all fought about it BUT luckily things have slowly improved and mostly everyone is cordial with each other.
We practiced the whole method of using a mini pen for the new ducks in the backyard so the original ducks we had could see them and get used to them, then after about a week of that we allowed them all to be together freely in the back yard and the fighting began mostly over the pool. Everyone seems to get along for the most part now except for these two big males who are pretty territorial especially over the pool and they chase off all the new ducklings, everyone is scared of him. A couple of the new ducks try to stick up to him especially when he is attacking another duck but I get nervous and split it up usually because he will rip feathers out and get really rough with them.
The primary issue with these two males is they are extremely rough with the girl ducks when mating! I know that ducks don't have the most "romantic/sweet" mating practices but this is far more aggressive than what I'm used to seeing with our ducks. A friend who owns pekin ducks said he has never had his male ducks rip out feathers of the females or any of the ducks for that matter so that was when I wanted to reach out to everyone on BYC and get some advice on how to fix this. They have ripped all of the feathers out of one of our female ducks named Delilah to the point where the entire back of her neck is bare skin/cracked open/bloody. Since it's gotten so bad we often have to keep the two males in a pen in the middle of the yard so they can't get to her while she's out and about during the day but we don't like having to keep those two males cooped up away from the pool all day long either. In addition we made a pen inside in our shop to keep her separated at night to protect her/allow her neck to hopefully heal up, with our two 2 month old ducklings who are sweet as ever to keep her company. They have bonded so well and have the sweetest relationship with her now.
**If anyone knows how I can treat her neck cuts or can tell me whether or not her feathers can grow back there and anything I can do to help her, I worry that it's painful as well for her.***
So some stuff we have tried; flipping the two agressive males over on their backs when they get too macho with the ducks, to try and show them that they "aren't the alpha" (we read online that this could help calm down their ego and ease their aggressive behavior).
We have tried keeping the two males in a pen separate from everyone else in the middle of the yard so that they are still around the others but they can't go over and attack them, but there hasn't been any improvement and the two males still make a bee line for Delilah every time she comes outside in the morning and try to get on her back to mate. Whenever the girl ducks are running away from them when they are trying to mate, the male ducks will run and catch up to them and grab their feathers or pin their necks down and hold them there for a few seconds until they submit to them, then they hop on their back and again bite at the gals necks. I'm also starting to see missing feathers on the necks of a couple of other ducks so I clearly need to address their behavior issues.
Thank You so much for reading all of that, I feel like I get way too into detail but I'd rather give ya'll too much information than not enough. If anyone has any advice or experience with this issue I would LOVE to hear what you have to say and I really appreciate your time so much!
Hope everyone is having a great day, I wish everyone and their flock a lovely weekend
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