Need help, new to ducks.

[jwatts]

I have 3 female ducks for a year so far (1pekin 2rouen). I have just adopted 4 male ducks to help fertilize my females. My question is how long does it take to incubate duck eggs? When can I assume the eggs will be fertile? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time.

 

[jwatts]

These are he makes we just adopted. Like I said I'm new to ducks so if someone can school me on this, are these Rouen males? Is that the same as Mallards? We also have a small pond that we have 2 wild duck that come to visit(male and female) The male is a mallard that comes to the pond, are these ducks I just adopted the same? The colors are the same (to me). The wild ones fly over our house, our pet ducks barely lift off the ground. Can someone enlighten me on this? Thank you

 

[jonhpdx]

From my understanding, if they can't fly, they're not mallards, they're Rouens. So that'll be the way you'll have to tell with these 4 new ones.

As far as getting 4 males for 3 females... you're gonna have a bad time. Most duck owners that I've seen posting on this site that have males at all generally maintain a 1:4 or 1:5 duck to drake ratio. You might want to consider culling a few of the males. Otherwise you're probably going to have some problems with the drakes fighting over the females and the females being over-stressed. Just my $0.02.

 

[jdywntr]

First, you have 3 too many males for the number of females you have. 1 male to 3 females should be the minimum. So, I would check with whoever you got them from to see if you can return them or try to sell them yourself. This would be like having 4 roosters and 3 hens. BAD.

This many males will overbreed the females and will injure them and possibly kill them. The males will also fight amongst themselves possibly injuring each other.

They look like Rouens. Same coloring as mallards but larger.

Overbreeding can cause a decrease or stop in laying as the females energy is put into surviving. Rectify the bad ratio first.

 

[countrygirl74]

X2 on the males - you only should keep 1 male for all your girls. Some people on here have lost their females due to drowning from basically being "gang-raped".

As for the breed, I'm guessing you have Rouens. They have the same coloring as Mallards but can't fly as well as Mallards. Mallards are also really small compared to Rouens. If your new male ducks are close to the same size as your current Rouen girls and Pekin, then they're probably not Mallards.

We have 2 Pekin girls, 1 Rouen girl, and 1 rouen male - he covers them all just fine and everyone is happy.

 

[jwatts]

Ok thanks everyone. I have made arrangements last night to get rid of 2 of them. My neighbor will be taking them this weekend.

 

[jonhpdx]

Just FYI, you still might have problems with the two males fighting and over-stressing the females. But it's much better than the 4 you had yesterday!

 

[jwatts]

Just FYI, you still might have problems with the two males fighting and over-stressing the females. But it's much better than the 4 you had yesterday!

Thank you, ill keep a good eye on them. they havent "yet" bothered the females but give it time they probably will. How about the incubating process on ducks? Can i put duck eggs in the incu days before the chicken eggs that way they will hatch on the same days? Thank you