New duckling! Help?

[WVduckchick]

Some bad news guys... today after Billy and Sunnis bath I put them back into the run and our Rhode Island Red attacked Sunni immediately. Jumped on her cut up her beak and ripped feathers from her head it was so terrifying and Sunni couldn’t get away until I ran in there and pushed the chickens off her. They’ve been completely fine with each other until today??? And red has never been aggressive towards Sunni at all?? It was so scary and I don’t know why it happened

Oh wow! I've had slight scuffles with ducks vs. chickens, but not often. One side usually gives up easily, but they have to be able to get away. Poor Sunni. How is she now?

 

[DuckMochi]

@onaharley @WVduckchick sunni is ok but she’s a little beat up. She got a couple cuts on her feet which I put medicine on and the skin (?) on her beak is all shredded up and she’s got a bald spot on the side of her head where Red pulled feathers out. But other than that she’s still her normal Sunni self

 

[DuckMochi]

Here’s a pic of her currently waiting for the tub to fill up so she can wash up

 

[onaharley]

View attachment 1183966
Here’s a pic of her currently waiting for the tub to fill up so she can wash up

Good to here!!! Her waiting for the water is too cute

 

[DuckMochi]

@onaharley shws big enough to stick her head on the edge to see he water but not big enough to jump in yet lol

 

[shawluvsbirds]

I'm afraid that if she were a girl she would be quacking by now.
I hope you can find a solution that would work for you so you can keep sunny and Billy separate from the chickens. Maybe you could make a hoop coop for them or something?

 

[DuckMochi]

@shawluvsbirds That's what I was thinking. I'm pretty sure Sunni is a boy which is completely fine but yah I'm worried about the chickens. Their run already takes up half the backyard.. not sure what we can do for the ducks... we didn't build the coop they had either we bought it and I don't think we have another $200 - $300 to spend for a second one... any advice?

 

[onaharley]

Get some pictures of your set up, so we can get an idea of what your working with

 

[CarleeAnn]

I don’t know what kind of predators you are dealing with but we made our duck coop out of extra cinder blocks. It may look a little ghetto but so far it has been functional and very affordable. You may want to spend some extra money to enforce it (add wire mesh under so nothing can dig in and perhaps put poles inside to ensure nothing will topple it.) Would it be possible to just section off a small run for the ducks from the chickens? We’re they sharing the run previously?

 

[DuckMochi]

@CarleeAnn Our chickens and ducks have been housing together since we got them. Of course Sunni is new to the flock and is still too young to be outside since of the cold at night so she sleeps inside but I have actually put her in the coop with the others once for a bit and they all seemed fine. The coop is one of those nice ones from the store and we have wood shavings for their bedding. As for predators, we don't have any. Scorpions would be the only thing but they don't exactly hunt birds lol... I live in Arizona so we do not have a lot of predators that other bird owners have to worry about.

@onaharley I'll get some pics asap!