Many breeds okay?

[1lpoock]

Okay so I ordered 3 different kinds of breeds of ducks due to arrive on May 5th. I have coming: 5 Rouens, 5 Khaki Campbells, and 5 Cayugas. I'm just wondering if they will all do fine together even if they are raised together from day 1. They will be kept in a coop that is 5 feet by 20 feet only at night and for feeding. The whole day they will be out in a big fenced in area. Will they be okay together while they sleep at night. Also I ordered straight run, will the males of one breed mate with the females of another or do the breeds recognize each other as mating pairs. If two different breeds mate will they still kind of look the same or will it be a weird looking duck. Thanks for any answers, I'm new to this, help me out!

 

[vfem]

I think these breeds will be fine together... don't be surprised if you get mixed babies from them though! Also, try to be careful and not over do it with males. You may have to remove extra males if you got too many in ratio to the females (when you can sex them of course!)

 

[BeccaOH]

My duckings come this week.

I ordered a trio of Welsh Harlequin (one male), 2 Khaki Campbells, and 2 Cayugas. I only got the one male and only plan to separate him for breeding to the WH girls. I'll let them all live together most of the year and they will do fine, but they will cross breed if allowed (I'm sure, but I'm still new

).

ETS: my neighbor put 2 drakes with her 4 females and the competition in mating got out of hand in her opinion. The females were pretty battered.

 

[1lpoock]

OKay well maybe I will try to house them by breed and fence them in by breed because I want to try and get pure ducklings. Thanks

 

[NewHopePoultry]

If you keep several breeds together, you may end up with mixes,but they would get along.
Keep the male ratio down, usually one male to every 2 females works well.

 

[Wifezilla]

My rouen and my khaki/runner mix were BFF. Now that my runner/khaki is gone, the rouen is getting to know my buff/khaki mix. Other than the rouen wanting to be the boss, they are hitting it off.

 

[1lpoock]

Thats good to know but I am worried now that I will have too many males. I am getting 5 ducks of each breed, straight run. Do you think they will give me more females than males? If there are many males will they fight if they are separated from the females?

 

[Dances with Ducks]

With straight run it's anybody's guess what you will get. You usually will have a problem if your ratio is off. The males will fight, but worse, the females may be injured. You start to see this in July or August when ducks born in April become mature. It gets more intense early the next spring when they hit their first breeding season. You may want to get rid of extra males, or try to find more females. I believe you can order sexed ducklings from these hatcheries, Metzer, McMurray, Ideal and Privett.

 

[Heather J]

I have three drakes and one hen, and haven't had a problem with them being too aggressive, which is funny, because I totally thought I would have to separate the female with a specific male. She is a Cayuga, one drake is a Khaki Campbell, and two are White Pekins. Curly, one of my white pekins, never quite manages to mount her (his neck is curly--thus the name) and I expected almost all of my babies to be park Kahaki because she runs with him the most, but they appear to be almost all white pekin--so Shep has been a busy boy!

My ducks and the geese I raised them with from babyhood all think they are siblings--the drakes try to mate with the female geese, each other, and the gander tries to mate with everyone. My Muscovies were added later, and I've since taken to putting them into the chicken pen at night once the chickens are closed in so they don't get picked on by the others. They all run together during the day.

You can probably let them all run together until mating season, then split them by breed and weed out extra boys if needed. (Unless you have a breed that lays several nests a season like Muscovies usually do, but even then you won't have to worry about it until late next winter). This will give you extra time to decide which ones you want to breed.

Next year I might separate Larry and Moe from the rest of the ducks and see what adorable babies I get! (Yes, my ducks are Larry, Moe, Curly and Shep--and Larry is a girl, I had to name them somehow, and I had no idea who was what gender then.)

 

[Dances with Ducks]

Here is a post that seems to address your question about when to separate different breeds. It's on page 5 by Shadyglade.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=164057&p=5