Re-homing 2 Drakes from a 2 Drake & 2 Duck ratio?

[sourland]

They will not miss the aggressiveness of the drakes.

 

[DucksOhio]

Are you sure? Just the two of them seems lonely.

I would definitely plan on maybe 2 more girls...what if something happened to one of the girls? The other would be very lonely.

 

[Welshy]

I would definitely plan on maybe 2 more girls...what if something happened to one of the girls? The other would be very lonely.

Since I have two Muscovy girls, can I get two Pekin girls?

 

[Miss Lydia]

Of course you can! @Daphne_loves_mealworms has two muscovy ducks(females) and a Rouen female all good buds

 

[GardenDucks]

Is 2 ducks and 1 drake a good mix? Or would it be better just to have 2 ducks alone?

This past fall we bought 4 ducklings, straight run, which turned out 2 male and 2 female. They all got along marvelously all winter, but now with spring in the air, the drakes are getting aggressive. Today we separated 1 drake from the group and that seemed to help. Is 1 drake to 2 females is good ratio? Or would it be better to just have 2 females? Should I try separating them into 2 mating pairs, or will that end badly? They are a larger breed, Pekins as far as I can tell.

(I realize that bringing in additional females might be ideal, but I'm not ready to expand the flock just yet).

 

[Miss Lydia]

You can try 2 females with one drake and see how it goes. A really aggressive drake may over use 2 females you'll just have to watch for that. Are your drakes fighting is that what you meant and the reason for separation ? Are you considering finding a home for one of the drakes? you could separate the drakes from the females it's called drake jail during the worst part of breeding season. That could be an option too.

 

[GardenDucks]

The drakes seem to be pecking a lot at the female ducks' necks, and occasionally the drakes peck at each others' necks or flap their wings at each other, but more so that the drakes are pursuing the female ducks. I've been observing this behavior for a couple weeks. Whenever the flock of 4 first goes into the water, a drake will pursue one of the females, peck at her neck, then the other drake will come peck at that same female, then a skirmish, then the drakes will turn this attention to the other female in a similar sequence. Generally it has been more or less playful and short-lived. Everybody seems to calm down after 5 minutes or so of this rough-housing and then they all swim happily and peacefully together for hours.

During winter we've been keeping them all in a fenced garden to fertilize it and they don't have any access to a swimming area there, but we let them out on warm days to go swim. Today I wanted to move them out of their winter garden pen and into a springtime pen which includes a seasonal creek as a small swimming area.

Today when we herded the 4 of them into this new pen, they all immediately gravitated to the water area. We closed the gate and just observed them for a while. Unlike previous observations, the rough-housing in the water today just seemed to be escalating and didn't stop. The boys weren't calming down and being in a fenced enclosure the girls couldn't really get away.

There wasn't one drake who seemed more aggressive than the other, so it was hard to decide which one to remove. We let the "alpha" drake ("alpha" designation based on general observations of flock behavior since duckling days) stay with the girls, and I returned the other drake to the winter garden pen, which I suppose is now "drake jail" as you say. After this separation, the group of 3 all seemed to calm down, and the lonely drake was complaining but otherwise calm.

Maybe tomorrow I'll try keeping both drakes together in jail to see how that flows.