Should I add ducks?

[sandy sea]

I have aready two one year old female peking ducks and would like to add a male or maybe another female. Will I have a problem with adding more ducks to the two I already have? What is the best way? Age? Should I get a male or just females? The two that I have live in the same area as my chickens. Maybe the drake would cause problems with my roaster or hens?

 

[Duck_feeder]

Quote:
As long as you have enough space for all of them, you shouldn't have any problems introducing more ducks to the flock (unless of course one of them has an incorrigible personality. lol)

The general consensus on introducing new ducks to a flock (or any birds to an established population) is to do it gradually.
1. Quarantine period. You don't want the new ducks to introduce diseases to your existing birds (ducks or otherwise). They should be quarantined for a month prior to initial introduction.
2. Visual/proximity introduction. Once the quarantine period is over, let them see/hear each other for a few days to weeks (depends on how they react). This allows them to get used to each other before they can physically interact. The idea is that they won't see each other as an invader when they finally get to physically meet.
3. Supervised interaction. Let them interact with each other but watch them. They may fight a little to establish pecking order. Unless there is a serious risk of one of them getting hurt, do not interfere - they need to eventually establish pecking order and the sooner the better. If they fight over food or water, make sure there's an extra bowl that's several feet away so they do not need to fight.
4. Full introduction. Once they are interacting peacefully (or at least to the point where you don't fear injuries) during supervised visits, let them live together. They may squabble a bit to argue over specific areas in their pen/run/food bowls.

Adult ducks might pick on ducklings (or even kill them) so don't go past supervised interaction until they are large enough to fend for themselves. 8-10 weeks is probably old enough. The first 3 steps will take about that long anyway.

With males, you'll run into issues related to breeding. Roosters might see the ducks as his girls and the drake might see chicken hens as his girls... that could lead to fights.