All right, so we've got the hormones raging here and I need your help to figure out what to do. My flock consists of one rooster, three hens, 11 ducks and 4 drakes. (Of the four drakes, two are Khaki Campbells and two are Mallards).
We've been having issues with the two Khaki Campbell drakes overmating a few of our Pekin ducks. One of the Pekins became egg bound about two weeks ago. I knew something was wrong with her, but I witnessed one of the Khaki's chasing her down and mating with her again and again. (This was before I found out that she was in fact egg bound). When we let them all out to free range on a warmer day right before this, I watched one of the Khakis mating with one Pekin and he grabbed her three times in less than five minutes. The girls are very distressed and try everything to get away from them. I've been advised to separate them from the rest of the flock to give the girls a break, but I'm also worried about them fighting each other and being unhappy if they're by themselves.
Also, like I said, we have two Mallard drakes as well. We bought the Mallards when we got our chickens and last year around this time, they were the only two ducks we had. We had problems with them last winter trying to mate with our chickens and I was worried they would hurt them. They had pulled feathers out of one hen's back where they kept trying to jump her. I thought that this year, things would be better since we have a lot more female ducks, but I think they're entering the mating season again and they're running after that poor hen again. Then, I realized that Mallard ducks mate for life and if they've picked this hen as their partner, we are going to have a repeat year. I worry about them even more now because I have more knowledge of things that could go wrong if a duck mates with a chicken, but I don't know what to do with them. Last year, they continued this behavior until around September.
Another thing I've witnessed has to do with our female ducks. For some reason, they have decided they want to imitate the behavior of the Khakis and they jump on top of each other and pretend to mate with each other. I had to run one of my females off my other female the other day because she just wouldn't stop and I was afraid she would hurt the one on the bottom.
Our rooster has also gone crazy over the past month or so. I have seen him overmating our hens and one of them (this is the same hen that is a favorite with the Mallards) has almost all of her comb gone where he keeps grabbing her. He is usually a very laid back rooster, but over the past month, he has decided that he has issues with me and has jumped on me and flogged me several times. I don't know what is wrong with him either. Like I said, this is very unusual behavior for him. While he never has liked to be touched, he usually is okay with me being in there and walking around beside him.
What can I do to stop this behavior and keep my animals from getting hurt? I really don't want to have to rehome any of them. If anyone has any other suggestions, please let me know. I'm hoping the weather is causing this (we have had warm days-- up to 50 degrees--followed by very cold days--down to -9 degrees). It's making me crazy so I have a hard time believing it's not affecting them too.
We've been having issues with the two Khaki Campbell drakes overmating a few of our Pekin ducks. One of the Pekins became egg bound about two weeks ago. I knew something was wrong with her, but I witnessed one of the Khaki's chasing her down and mating with her again and again. (This was before I found out that she was in fact egg bound). When we let them all out to free range on a warmer day right before this, I watched one of the Khakis mating with one Pekin and he grabbed her three times in less than five minutes. The girls are very distressed and try everything to get away from them. I've been advised to separate them from the rest of the flock to give the girls a break, but I'm also worried about them fighting each other and being unhappy if they're by themselves.
Also, like I said, we have two Mallard drakes as well. We bought the Mallards when we got our chickens and last year around this time, they were the only two ducks we had. We had problems with them last winter trying to mate with our chickens and I was worried they would hurt them. They had pulled feathers out of one hen's back where they kept trying to jump her. I thought that this year, things would be better since we have a lot more female ducks, but I think they're entering the mating season again and they're running after that poor hen again. Then, I realized that Mallard ducks mate for life and if they've picked this hen as their partner, we are going to have a repeat year. I worry about them even more now because I have more knowledge of things that could go wrong if a duck mates with a chicken, but I don't know what to do with them. Last year, they continued this behavior until around September.
Another thing I've witnessed has to do with our female ducks. For some reason, they have decided they want to imitate the behavior of the Khakis and they jump on top of each other and pretend to mate with each other. I had to run one of my females off my other female the other day because she just wouldn't stop and I was afraid she would hurt the one on the bottom.
Our rooster has also gone crazy over the past month or so. I have seen him overmating our hens and one of them (this is the same hen that is a favorite with the Mallards) has almost all of her comb gone where he keeps grabbing her. He is usually a very laid back rooster, but over the past month, he has decided that he has issues with me and has jumped on me and flogged me several times. I don't know what is wrong with him either. Like I said, this is very unusual behavior for him. While he never has liked to be touched, he usually is okay with me being in there and walking around beside him.
What can I do to stop this behavior and keep my animals from getting hurt? I really don't want to have to rehome any of them. If anyone has any other suggestions, please let me know. I'm hoping the weather is causing this (we have had warm days-- up to 50 degrees--followed by very cold days--down to -9 degrees). It's making me crazy so I have a hard time believing it's not affecting them too.