So....we have ALL males.

[Kevin565]

Looks like I'm not the only Drake magnet. Out of all the times buying ducklings I've ended up with 1 female duck

. That's why I mainly by adult birds now.

 

[zooweemama]

Looks like I'm not the only Drake magnet. Out of all the times buying ducklings I've ended up with 1 female duck

. That's why I mainly by adult birds now.

No way, dude. I'm with you. I bought 10 French BCM chicks. 10. Got 2 females. :| I paid $18 each for these chicks...so 8 males at $18 a pop. Ouch. LOL So my good fortune extends to chicks too lol. Although the breed of chickens I only wanted a couple of? I ended up with 2/3 being ladies and 1/3 being males. The FBCM I wanted as many ladies as possible. Go figure. haha! Now that I know some breeders- I happily buy started pullets and spend the extra money. ha!

 

[flockman]

So sorry about the all males. I was lucky this year. Out of 8 st. run I had 2 drakes and 6 ducks.

 

[furbabymum]

My first 4 ducklings were sexed. I then decided to get 6 straight run. 1 died on arrival and 4 turned out to be boys. One boy was eaten by the dog so now I'm left with needing to dispose of one extra male. I'm intensely interested in what duck tastes like so I think I'm going to process him. If he tastes awful I'll never be eating duck again!

 

[Kevin565]

No way, dude. I'm with you. I bought 10 French BCM chicks. 10. Got 2 females. :| I paid $18 each for these chicks...so 8 males at $18 a pop. Ouch. LOL So my good fortune extends to chicks too lol. Although the breed of chickens I only wanted a couple of? I ended up with 2/3 being ladies and 1/3 being males. The FBCM I wanted as many ladies as possible. Go figure. haha! Now that I know some breeders- I happily buy started pullets and spend the extra money. ha!

. That's just terrible! Here I was complaining for 7 bucks a ducklings I couldn't imagine having being out 18 a pop. Luckily I can vent sex fairly accurately so I might try a feed store again. Though I have being stalking the holderreads website for awhile

. LOL I had the same thing when I got guineas. I didn't care what the sex ratio was but ended up with 5 females

. However, they were all so mean they had to get the boot

.

 

[Miss Lydia]

. That's just terrible! Here I was complaining for 7 bucks a ducklings I couldn't imagine having being out 18 a pop. Luckily I can vent sex fairly accurately so I might try a feed store again. Though I have being stalking the holderreads website for awhile

. LOL I had the same thing when I got guineas. I didn't care what the sex ratio was but ended up with 5 females

. However, they were all so mean they had to get the boot

.

You can actually vent sex at the store before you buy? Maybe a dumb question but I had never thought of that. I haven't ever bought chicks/ducklings from a feed store before. Been awfully tempted though

 

[zooweemama]

. That's just terrible! Here I was complaining for 7 bucks a ducklings I couldn't imagine having being out 18 a pop. Luckily I can vent sex fairly accurately so I might try a feed store again. Though I have being stalking the holderreads website for awhile

. LOL I had the same thing when I got guineas. I didn't care what the sex ratio was but ended up with 5 females

. However, they were all so mean they had to get the boot

.

Oh man yeah. Been stalking Holderreads for a while too. The next time we stock up on Runners or Welsh Harlequins- that's where I'm going. Learned my lesson- all new birds get numbers, not names. haha! I have 4 roosters that I 'must' keep at this point. I love them haha!

 

[MommaDuck]

Seems to be a big thing this year! I ordered 27 from someone, sold to ma as straight run, and only got 6 females! She simply took them out of the incubator and sent them, no sexing. It's just how mother nature works sometimes!
If you have all drakes, you should be fine. Normally they don't fight unless they have females to fight over. But still keep an eye on them and weed out any that start to act aggressive. And if you do get females, be sure you do your homework on the breeds. Some breeds require 2 females for every male while others suggest more, closer to 4 or 5 for every male. This simply prevents over-breeding and keeps your females comfortable.

Also, I would advise staying away from feed stores and TSC who get ducklings to sell versus ordering them. These companies tend to get the ducklings (and chicks) cheap from certain hatcheries. They are cheap because the hatcheries need to find a way to "get rid of" their extra unwanted males from sexing out females for people. A lot of these males get sent with a few females thrown in. I can't tell you how many people come to me this time of the year (or earlier) because they got 6 unsexed ducklings at TSC and only 1 is a female. It happens every year too!

I wondered about that with the feed stores. I like our ducks but we are thinking about selling them and starting over next year with females. Buying them sexed from Metzer. We thought we would save money this way but we don't get what we want.

 

[zooweemama]

I wondered about that with the feed stores. I like our ducks but we are thinking about selling them and starting over next year with females. Buying them sexed from Metzer. We thought we would save money this way but we don't get what we want.

That is why we did that with our second batch. We re-homed all our extra drakes. Kept 3 drakes and 3 of the females. Then bought 8 ladies from Metzers. Yes we paid a little more but completely worth it to get exactly what we need- especially since we did not plan on eating them.

 

[Kevin565]

You can actually vent sex at the store before you buy? Maybe a dumb question but I had never thought of that. I haven't ever bought chicks/ducklings from a feed store before. Been awfully tempted though

My main feed store your allowed to. It's one of those that's been here forever so they aren't strict with rules. The TSC here you can't even pick up your own duckling

.

Oh man yeah. Been stalking Holderreads for a while too. The next time we stock up on Runners or Welsh Harlequins- that's where I'm going. Learned my lesson- all new birds get numbers, not names. haha! I have 4 roosters that I 'must' keep at this point. I love them haha!

There runners and Welshies are just to die for

. I love there Pomeranian Geese too. Looks like I'll be building more pens next year

. I used to name all of my birds when I started out but when I started getting lots of the exact same bird it got a lot harder to distinguish them. Now everyone gets a legband .