Talking to a brick wall - advice!!

[iFairyx]

Hi all,

We had a group 6 female ducks and 1 male drake (all aylesbury) that were all living happily until
we were asked to take on several more due to their current owners moving to a smaller house, as luck (or lack of) would have it the two turned out to be males.

1 is a very large aylesbury and the other looks like a mallard (but is too big to be one).

The mallard looking thing just will not leave the females alone, he is constantly trying to mate them (or at least 80-90% of the time).
The females began to look really tatty with feather loss on their necks, one had a lot of brusing around her eye
and another had a cut above her nose. So we seperate the two males to give the girls a break.

And heres where the real problem starts, today we go to the farm to find other helpers have placed both the males
back with the group as they "felt bad as they're not getting any" and were happy to tell us that as soon as the placed them
back with the famales "the mallard one was straight on the girls".

Can someone please give me some advice here? I have tried explaining how we do not have enough females to support
the new males - and that we cannot hatch any of the aylesburys until the mallard has gone due to them being mongrels.

Please help with some advice I am pulling my hairs out.

Thanks all

 

[grawg]

I take it the farm isn't yours and looking up duck recipes for the mallard ( I suspect rouen) isn't an option either?

 

[FireTigeris]

Offer to fire the helpers next time they mix animals without your permission.

Explain that not only did they increase the time you have to keep them separate to get purebred again (costing you money), they also put the ducks in danger (which would also cost you money).

then just seperate the drakes out again.

 

[iFairyx]

I started a young farmers club for the local youth - they kids help take care of all the animals and will
be going to YFC shows to compete against other clubs. The adults that placed the ducks back with the females
are helpers at the club - firing them would not really be an option as they are both good with kids etc, so me telling them
to leave wouldn't be in the best interests of the club as a whole (although it would be in the best interest of the ducks).

I just don't know how to make them understand the situation and to not think seperated ducks 'feelings' without considering
whats best for the females.

grawg - Thank-you!! we have been trying to find out what breed he is, I just googled rouen and sure enough he looks just like them.

 

[FireTigeris]

Ok, try this...

"The boys need to be together away from the girls so they learn to behave.

If you put them back in with the girls the girls will get hurt and that's not fair to the girls, I can't send out for the vet for the girls so if they get hurt they may die...

The boys will be ok without the girls, but the girls may get hurt..."

 

[rainplace]

It's time to rehome the boys I'd say.

 

[GrannyCarol]

Yeah, find a home for the Rouen drake, that should help a lot. Either that or offer to teach the kids how to butcher and cook a duck?

 

[Karen09]

I had bought a "mallard pair" from a lady who breeds poultry. What she really sold me was a Rouen drake and a mixed breed of some sort that looked similar to a rouen hen. The drake was diligent in taking care of her but when she went to lay eggs and make her nest, we never saw her again (they were free ranged as we did not have the coops we have now and have a nice creek behind the house. So he then adopted the 6 "mallard ducklings" we had gotten from tractor supply that were trained (as best as you can) to go in the coop at night. So he went in for awhile until the males got to be competition. We did not have any covering over the fense so the mallards would fly out of the pen to get away from him. I asked my husband on numerous accounts to please make him into dinner but he likes the ducks and wouldn't. I had a friend who was going to butcher him and a few of the extra male cayugas I had hatched out (that I was going to cull) but he was too busy also. The rouen drake got rid of a couple of the males (they stopped coming in) and soon one pair (drake and hen) took off to the wetlands behind the house. He then had his lone female mallard (her leg had gotten injured so she could not escape him) and she then nested and hatched out 9 ducklings and a baby chick (one hen layed in her nest and we did not realize it cause the eggs were the same color). I walked by one day and saw a black bird in the nest on its back (it was an ameraucana black baby chick, just hatched) so I snatched it out and put it with some other babies I had just hatched. The mama duck came back and a week later she had 9 babies. Soon to be 8. He was very attentive to her but while she was on the nest, he would go hang out with the cayuga duck trio and get the male all worked up. I had them in their own pen so he could not get to them but he did try to mate with the chickens. He was very annoying in how he bullied anything smaller than himself and tried to mate with all the female poultry I had. He would even reach into the pen with the cayugas to try and grab one of the females. I went on a mission trip and sad to say, a raccoon came and tore open the fence and killed all the cayuga ducks, most of the mallards and the rouen by the time I got back. We have since, put in new fencing and got a lab dog that lives in with the chickens and ducks and haven't had any problems with the raccoons, fox or coyotes. I would personally either relocate him to a new home or have him for dinner. He will chase away the other males and bully or dominate the females to get his desires.