Runner Duck Dead in Pond- No Sign of Injury

[momo18clara]

So sorry for your losses!

I would be concerned about the ratio of males to females, as you may be seeing deliberate or consequential drownings due to fighting and over-breeding. Do you have 3 males & 7 females AFTER the losses, or was that before?

2 males and 6 females is the limit of what will generally work with ducks, and even that is cutting it close and will only work if the two males are pretty friendly with each other. That's 3 females each. At 3 males & 7 females, you've got just barely more than 2 females each... and there will be fighting. Plus, the males have (ahem) "needs" to be met, and they will breed as often as they need to... which will mean a few females being bred too often, sometimes to the point of exhaustion. Because they breed in the water, and the males frequently hold the female's head underwater during breeding, this situation can easily lead to drowning. Males may deliberately drown one another during a fight over females.

I hope whatever the problem is, that you're able to identify it. Losing them is always painful.

I have 3 males and 7 females now after loosing 2. I just lost a female a few days ago and a young male(I was trying to sell him, but I guess I was just a little too late) about a month ago. You may be right about having too many males- I was watching them today and one of my males is by himself a lot.

 

[FenDruadin]

They may have more or less worked it out for now, then, and it sounds like their solution is to exclude one of the males. Until you can find a permanent home for the extra male (having 2 males and 7 females should be fine), you can separate him from the flock to prevent new outbreaks of violence. You won't need much--just a short temporary fence with his own food and water. He'll be unhappy, but in the wild he'd be dead, so you know... it's still an improvement. And meanwhile, you can set to work finding him a home where he'll have his own flock, or in a flock of only males (male ducks seem to do fine in all-bachelor groups--as long as there are no females to fight over, they don't tend to fight).

Good luck, and sorry for your losses.

 

[momo18clara]

Well I spent quite a while watching my ducks and goose today, and the goose never tried any thing(of course I was only out there about 45min because it was really cold!). All of the ducks were mating around him, but he mostly just kept guard and got mad at them if he didn't like what they were doing. I've never seen him try to mate any of the ducks in the 3 years I've had him, but its still worth keeping an eye on him. He was raised with 4 of my runner ducks and has always been VERY protective of them and any babies, so I`m thinking maybe its some of the other ducks like iamcuriositycat suggested or something else entirely.

 

[momo18clara]

I am under the impression that your pond is a natural pond, not a plastic one.

Does anything live in the pond, fish or turtles?

Unless you have either a lot of animals living and going to the bathroom in it or if something large died in it or it has no water plants (which filter the water) it would be unlikely that it is causing the problem.

If any of these things are true about the pond, I would test the water before allowing them back in.

Yup, my ponds natural and it has fish and probably turtles in it. Its also possible that something large has died in it, if by large you mean a large turtle or fish. As for the plants, the pond shrank quite a bit this summer(I think it was the driest summer on record) so a lot of the pond plants died, I`m sure there's still some plants in there tho. How would you test the water?

 

[momo18clara]

Here`s a few pictures of my pond and most of the ducks that I currently have. The pictures are from a while ago, but I thought it might give you a better idea of what my pond is like.

 

[FenDruadin]

Nice pond!! And great looking birds, too.

I definitely think your most likely culprit is over-mating and fighting among the males. Hopefully you'll see the problem disappear as you address the excess male population.

 

[jdywntr]

Fish would be the first thing to die if there was a water quality problem so if they are there, I'd say no water problem.

It is odd though that you are finding them in the pond after they have been out all night. The only reason I'm hesitant about saying its overmating/fighting is that you said they looked fine and if they were fighting/overbreeding there would most likely be signs. I've read that ducks can waterlog if they are on water for too long. I'm not sure if overnight is too long though.

 

[FenDruadin]

Yup, I think you're right about the fish, jdywntr. Good point.


Ducks can get waterlogged, but they'll usually get out before they drown, if they can. Waterlogging usually occurs if they aren't oiling their feathers--for instance, if their oil gland is plugged, or if they are sick and not attending to their hygiene. In such an event, overnight would be plenty long enough to get waterlogged and drown--if the duck couldn't get out. But, a duck whose feathers aren't oiled will look different--kind of bedraggled--so you'd probably notice that--and it's unlikely to happen to two ducks in a short period of time.

The thing about over-breeding (and I'm not saying it is definitely the problem, only that I believe it's the most likely explanation) is that you might not realize unless you're watching them daily, because the fighting/over-breeding won't be constant. And the drowning won't leave obvious marks--it'll just happen one time when one or the other holds the other duck under for just a bit too long... so there's no sign of injury, it's just plain dead. Ducks don't usually injure one another unless the fighting is severe, so you won't see plucked feathers or bald spots (at least, not always or even usually). But due to the way they fight, and their preferred location for both fighting and breeding (i.e., in the water), drownings are a relatively common occurrence in both situations.

The reason over-breeding causes it--besides exhaustion on the part of the female--is that when two or more males are competing, they will often "gang up" on the same female at the same time. While one breeding session at a time might be fine for the poor girl, having three guys on her back at the same time, all three of them holding her head under (for some reason, ducks love to hold the girl's head under water while mating), can be too much.

So it's still my top choice for what's going on, but I've been known to be wrong.

 

[momo18clara]

Well, I`m starting to think it might be a combination of poor nutrition(I`m starting to mix some layer pellets in with the corn now) and too many males(I`m going to either sell one of them or get a few more females). Hopefully this takes care of the problem, but I`ll let you all know if any thing changes.

 

[Poultry Couture]

Good luck!