New ducklings

[2dancingrats]

Have 2 runner duck drakes. One is seriously wishing for female companionship. My goose is about ready to kill him over his amorous advances (held his head underwater yesterday and I had to intervene).
I can't get any hens this year (at least I can't find anyone selling them). If I get them in the spring, will they ever become a single flock?
Also, my geese have been raised with the two ducks, but are they likely to attack new ducks when I introduce them? Janis is quite aggressive, and doesn't like randy drakes for sure!

 

[FenDruadin]

Well, here are some things to consider. If you have female ducks, your drakes will fight, especially if there are not enough to go around. "Enough" is a minimum of three ducks--EACH. If you're willing to commit to that number of ducks, then it will probably be a great idea to do it, and yes, they can become a single flock, especially because your established ducks are the drakes and they will be so tickled to get to mate that they will accept the ducks readily. The geese--I don't know for sure, but my geese are readier to accept the new ducklings than my drake is. But they're both boys and kind of mild-natured as geese go (and yes, my drake mates with them anyway--silly boy--and yes, they just lie down and "take it"--silly geese). At any rate, I think the geese will be fine with new ducks if you take precautions to introduce them carefully. Especially if it means less "attention" from the randy drake! lol

Just be aware that you drakes will scuffle at least a little, and maybe a lot, over pecking order once there are females to fight over. You may have to be prepared to separate them and take various other measures to protect them from each other. If one is obviously more aggressive than the other, though, you're more likely to have success (because one will simply submit to the other, and the more aggressive will mostly leave him alone as long as he doesn't feel threatened).

Good luck!

 

[2dancingrats]

Thanks. I have been wondering about this since I discovered my ducks were lonely boys!

 

[FenDruadin]

I should add, that some folks run entire flocks of bachelor drakes. As long as there are no females to fight over, this can actually be quite successful. They may *want* to mate, but they don't *have* to in order to be happy. They'll probably "practice" on each other some, but they usually won't fight as long as they are ALL males. As soon as you introduce even *one* female, the brawling begins. So you really have to decide whether you really want to deal with that, or if you're happy letting your drakes be mostly celibate their entire lives.