Suddenly aggressive female

[designbyaleks]

This is so insane! I was about to start a new thread about this exact same thing! We have 5 ducks (got them at 1 week old, on june 1) and we seem to have 2 females and 3 drakes. Well today the bigger female went crazy and started running after my super sweet older dog any time he walked within a few meters of the flock! She then ran up and bit him on the butt! Well we have aussies, so he was surprised but wasn’t having any of it and grabbed her (gently) by the neck. She ran away and made a lot of angry noises. The crazy thing is this is my very mellow older dog who often lies close to the ducks and they seem to feel safe close to him and actually stay near by. My younger pup is still a bit wild and chases them around sometimes but the duck had nothing against him, just my older one! This was so out of the ordinary that I put them to bed early (they free range) - to put this female on time out. What the heck is going on? Something in the air?

 

[Wicked Storm]

Maybe she is getting ready to start laying? I think they go through hormone changes and moodiness at this time. I would treat her just like I would a drake that starts doing this behavior. It sounds like she needs to learn who is boss around there.
Pick her up and hold her until she stops struggling, then let her down if you can do so without risking her biting.
Or. .squat over her and pin her to the ground for a few seconds, not hard enough to hurt her, just enough to assert dominance over her. Sounds silly. .but it's seemed to work for me with drakes that have started acting like they might be aggressive toward me. Maybe it would work for a female as well.. As I see the girl ducks also mount and do this to each other to assert dominance.

Exactly what I was going to say

 

[Miss Lydia]

Or if she has been laying maybe thinking about the next stage which is broody? Boy they can be pistols. I’d keep her away from the dogs during this time until you train her to leave them alone. I had to train my 2 geese to leave my dogs alone by using a long pole when the geese would start after the dogs I used the pole to stop them by putting it between them they soon got the idea the dogs are off limits to their bully ways. I never leave my dogs and geese unattended. My one dog has gotten hold of my gander 2x. They have to learn you are top of dominance then husband then kids then dogs. They are at bottom of the totem pole. Ducks that is!