Sores on ducks heads

redoak

Songster
11 Years
Feb 27, 2008
3,267
107
211
Russia, NY
I have 5 peking ducks, 3 females and 2 males. As seems to happen every summer the females are overbred, and are developing sores on the top of their heads where the boys grab them. Is there any sort of a hood, or tape I can put on them to keep their heads from being beat up (similar to a chicken saddle), or do I just need to lock up the boys as has been my solution in previous years?

Any suggestions?
 
Any way you could rehome 1 of your males or get 2-3 more ducks to increase the duck to drake ratio. Put neosporin or bag balm on the hens heads too.
Aprille
 
I have a TON of male ducks. My male to female ratio is not ideal at all, but oddly, they usually don't mate excessively. When they do, I lock up two or three of the boys together inside their coop and keep it relatively dark. This can help tone down their it's-spring-mating-season-time-to-make-babies hormones. Let the females out as usual, as you want them in the light so they do their part (laying eggs).
 
I'm curious to see if anyone has a solution. I ended up dividing my pen in two because the boys would all go after one girl...even when I locked all 3 males for a week with the one female that they didn't favor, you couldn't even tell she'd been mated. The poor girl they liked so much is just now recovering :(
 
I second the opinion of others. Rehome one drake or get at least three more females. The ratio is just not healthy, I'm sorry. Unless you would rather separate one drake out until things settle down the fall season, but usually the drakes aren't very happy with that either.
 

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