Question about separating a pair of ducks

[Rusty Fury III]

Hello All!

I'm getting to the point where I want to get serious about breeding my ducks and getting the best quality of a specific breed, as well as winnowing down the number of drakes to ducks.

We have nine ducks and 4 drakes. Five of the ducks are of no real consequence in terms of what type of offspring I get as I only intend to use their eggs for food. However, four of the ducks are purebred Silver Appleyard and we have two pure bred Silver Appleyard drakes from Holderread's. Those six, I want to breed.

My dilemma is this. Back in March, well before we received our pure bred SAs, we got a mixed bag of ducks we thought were pure bred SAs, yet, were not.

Two of these, not purebred SAs, are a drake and a duck that arrived together in the same week as several other, mixed bag of ducks that we got from two different hatcheries.

These two ducklings that arrived together in March, were raised with fourteen other ducklings over the remaining course of the year. While there was never a problem with the two mixing it up with the other fourteen ducklings; they were ducklings too, all around the same age. They always stayed together, always a distinguishable pair.

Even today, now that they're full grown, they're always together. If those two ducks were separated over night between the two predator proof duck tractors, one would and will always wait for the other to exit the other duck tractor before eating or swimming in the pool.

While they both easily mingle with the other ducks in our flock, they are almost always seen together walking around the yard, sitting close to one another etc.

I want to find a home for the drake as I don't want issues with over mating when the time comes. I feel that 4 drakes to 9 ducks is a bit much, and the removal of the one drake would allow me to get another duck.

With their bond so tight, would there be an issue separating them? The duck, Baby Girl, quacks loudly/incessantly and circles the duck tractor until I release her "brother" Half-n-Half. The drake will do the same until I release her "sister". I've never seen him mate with her, that's not to say it's never happened though.

She's a great egg layer and would like to keep her for the purpose of providing eggs for consumption, not so much breeding. Plus she's got a great personality.

Would she pine for him? If so, would it or could it be detrimental to her/his health? I've read ducks are not monogamous, yet these two seem somewhat inseparable.

Thoughts on the matter would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you,

RustyFuryIII

By the way, our ducks reside in Spotsylvania, Virginia, yeah, okay, so do we!

 

[sourland]

Some domesticated mallard derived ducks do form extremely strong pair bonds. You can count on her becoming extremely vocal if you get rid of him. Why not keep him and her along with the other non purebred duck hens in your egglaying flock ?

 

[Miss Lydia]

I rehomed a Muscovy drake once and let one female go with him. They had bonded when very young like first hatched with her and he was a couple weeks old I could have let him go alone but that bond between the two was so tight I just couldn’t bring myself to separate them.

 

[Rusty Fury III]

sourland,

My concern with keeping him is that I may be a bit over the ratio for the number of drakes I have to the number of hens I have.

Is 4 drakes to 9 hens OK?

Before I thinned out our flock, we had 9 drakes to 5 hens and it got pretty bad until I removed 7 of the drakes. Our girls were getting a bit frazzled and I really felt bad for them until I reduced, drastically, the number of drakes to hens.

I also have a limited amount of space/land as well. While we're on 2 acres, a fair percentage of that is wooded. And while we do have a fair amount of cleared land, it's just not as much as I'd like for flock rotation from paddock to paddock. For the past 10 years, we've been clearing trees, and until I get more land cleared, would like to keep the flock between 12-15 individuals.

In addition, would like to remove the drakes that are not considered "ideal" for breeding with our purebred SA hens.

I love all of our ducks, just want to be a bit more serious about the ones I'm breeding.

Regards,

RFIII

 

[Rusty Fury III]

Miss Lydia,

Yup, I hear what you're saying! I think it's remarkable, that, despite the number of ducks we've had over the past 10 months, these two are almost joined at the hip.

They're the Ozzie and Harriet, the Bonnie and Clyde, the Sonny and Cher of our duck fiefdom. Okay, they don't sing, or rob banks, but they are together, a lot!

May have to re-home them as a pair. Must discus with Mrs. Duck, lest I find myself in hot water!!!

We'll see how it goes...

Regards,

RFIII

 

[sourland]

It almost seems like you need to separate the 'laying' flock from the purebred flock. Otherwise how will you know which eggs are from the purebred hens and worthy of incubation ?

 

[Rusty Fury III]

sourland,

I believe that will be the avenue we'll be heading down. Still interested in winnowing down to 2 drakes though. Would like to do so in a manner that does not upset Baby Girl.

May very well re-home them together, providing I get the green light from Mrs. Duck.

If unable to go that route, will leave things as they are. Providing our drake to hen ratio is good or acceptable. Will have to see how it goes.

 

[Miss Lydia]

I have 2 drakes to 9 females this will be the first breeding season and I am a bit wary. Maybe Mrs would go along with letting the 2 go together and you making up for it by adding an additional female to replace the one leaving?

 

[Colleen Ray]

We have a similar issue. We are very lucky as our original flock (my mom brought home all straight run) ended up being a solid 50/50. We got essentially one of each type male and female. There was a bit of fighting happening during mating season but they settled in and everyone chose a mate leaving only one odd man out, a very randy Pekin drake. They've settled into a routine where they have an "understanding" and have broken into two groups.

We call them the brown group consisting of a Golden 300 drake who is the dominant male who mated with our magpie female, and our khaki Campbell drake who ended up with two girlfriends, the golden 300 duck and the khaki Campbell duck who are besties. Those five roam the property together and hang together constantly. They sleep in a pen together happily too as long as the khaki Campbell drake remembers he's bottom of the pecking order.

The other group has my mated pair of buff geese, my magpie drake, and his mate my blue Swedish female, and my lone gunman, Donald, the Pekin drake. He seems to have an understanding with the magpie drake. They don't fight at all and they get to share the blue Swedish female, named Charity, who goes along with this, and in return, he helps protect her.

But every morning when we let the two groups head out of the barn and out to the pond, Donald, who is the instigator, pumps his little duckie legs looking for the brown group, tackles the first female he can find and has his way with her. Magnum, the magpie catches up and follows up right behind him while the gander yells like an angry papa.

Then, almost like it's a scene from West Side Story, the other two drakes, say, "Oh Yeah? Then we're going after your girl!" The two of them take off and chase down the blue Swedish, the Golden 300 drake first, followed up by the Khaki Campbell. By then Donald and Magnum head back to chase them off, the gander still screaming.

Then the girls shake it off and head off to the pond.

The groups avoid each other the rest of the day.

The same thing happens just before they head into their pens at night. Same order. None of them mess with the 22 wild mallards on the pond at all. It's like they don't exist. They just go through this ritual every day and then it's over and that's it. It's the weirdest thing.

Anyway, the point of all this is, we ordered more female ducklings, Pekins, blue swedish, one more golden 300, etc to breed purebreds next year. We're worried about separating pair bonds though. Do ducks tend to mate only seasonally? Will these bonds switch up with the addition of new ducks this summer?