Old drake is attacking my new 6 week old runners, help

[lavenderlemur1]

I recently brought two new runners to replace losses and for the past week the six week old ducks have been in a pen next to my other three runner ducks and a runner drake, however whenever I let the new ducks in with the old ones the drake goes mental and chases them back into their house and then calls his girls over to eat their food. Even when separated he stands by the dividing netting arching his neck and quaking

I tried to isolate the drake but the two ducklings wouldn't go near the other ducks. They are both ducks as they have quacks.

Any advice would be welcome.

Many thanks
Sam

 

[One Acre Wonder Farm]

My drake does the same thing! I incubated and hatched 8 ducklings. I started letting them free range when they were 3 weeks old. Our drake would chase them and bite them if he caught them. He still does it and they are 9 weeks old. I still house them separately at night because I don't trust him

I wish I had an answer for you, sorry. Just know you are not alone! I hopw someone comes along with good advice for you!

 

[froggie71]

:Our drake leave our ducklings alone, but this maybe because he was recovering in the house after an attack next to their brooder.

It's the big girls that didn't like when we put the ducklings in the duck house. We let them free-range together to try to get them used to each other. Then 1 night put them in the duck house hoping the adult ducks wouldn't notice. The big girls kept the ducklings outside in the run (which is open to the duck house 24/7) for couple of days. Now they get along fine. We have 3 new ducklings that are seperated in the duck house with chicken wire so they can see each other, but not get at each other. When we let them out free-ranging it's the teenage ducks that won't allow the ducklings anywhere near them

Either it's payback, or they forgot what it was like to be the youngest. Good luck.

 

[Dances with Ducks]

I am also working on integrating smaller ducks with the larger flock. The older ones have a need to show dominance for a while, especially the most dominant duck, which in my case is the oldest hen, my drake is still immature. It's fine as long as no one gets hurt, they will usually accept each other eventually. Like others I think its less stressful for the younger ones to let them continue to have some time by themselves in a separate area, but for fewer hours over time. The last thing is to let them all sleep together in the same duck house, but I want to wait until I see a greater level of acceptance before I do that.