suddenly aggressive duck

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sunrunner

sunrunner

Hatching
5 Years
Jan 31, 2014
1
0
7
I've recently moved to Idaho. I have some goats, ducks and chickens. My chicken little was egg bound and I almost lost her. I only have two hens. I have three ducks. I bought them when they were only a week old. I got lucky. I ended up with one male and two females. My ducks and chickens have always shared the same area, no problems. Recently my male duck who I named goose is being aggressive towards me and the chickens. The female ducks are now laying eggs but have been for a while now with no aggression from goose. Just in the past couple days he's been chasing after me, biting at my legs and is confronting me head on. What is going on, what needs to be done?
 
It is spring time and he is only protecting his women
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I have the same thing here with my water fowl
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This photo was taken only last week so I could show someone
how my birds are pulling each others feathers out and I had to
separate them into different and larger areas
hugs.gif




gander007
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Firstly,
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and welcome to Idaho! I too, live here with my 5 hens and 2 ducks. My flock is all-female so they live together in the same run.
Let me just say that my first chicken and duck mixing experience almost ended very badly....I had already decided on buying sexed chicks from a local feed store, but the ducks were not sexed (which is odd, because by all accounts ducks are easier to tell) so I decided to just wing it and blindly pick one. It wasn't until about 3 mos. later that his drake curl began to grow in and he developed a true "croaky" drake voice....but he also became more aggressive, especially with one of my chicken hens. It is natural for males to become more aggressive when they mature, both towards you and towards the females....and some more so than others, it depends greatly on each individual bird. I know people with very friendly drakes and roosters and some with very aggressive, un-approachable ones. The thing that no-one told me, that I MUST stress upon you is to NEVER keep drakes in with chicken hens, you will be sorry...drakes have very different sexual organs than roosters and if they try to mate your chickens they can cause extensive internal trauma. So firstly, I would separate your drake and his hens from your chickens at this point....how old are they? I am assuming they are just starting to reach maturity.
I would also keep a close eye on him with your duck hens, because I have heard many sad stories about drakes being too rough with duck hens too....and the ratio should be more like 1 drake to 3 hens ideally...ducks prefer to mate in the water, I don't know what your set-up is like but I would monitor him closely with them to make sure things don't get too rough. A little dunking and scrambling is normal, and he will hold on at the back of her neck, this is normal too. As far as him getting aggressive with you, the best advice I can give is stand your ground, turn and face him down, catch him if possible and talk quietly to him, feed him treats from your hands...good luck.
 
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I don't know enough about Ducks to tell you much, but I do know that if this bird gets too far out of control, you may need to separate him out permanently. Don't wait for blood to be shed. You can also post this question in the Duck section here on BYC for more info on actions you can take....

https://www.backyardchickens.com/f/42/ducks

Great to have you aboard and enjoy BYC!
 
gander007 said:
It is spring time and he is only protecting his women
ep.gif



I have the same thing here with my water fowl
droolin.gif





This photo was taken only last week so I could show someone
how my birds are pulling each others feathers out and I had to
separate them into different and larger areas
hugs.gif




gander007
old.gif
Click to expand...

Right on he is being a typical male duck protecting his girls during breeding season.
Welcome to BYC!
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