The ducklings need to be at least 4-6 weeks old before introduced to drakes and then only with supervision. Mama has a duty to do so it doesn't matter if she hollers keep her with the lil one. after about 3 weeks she may lose interest all together since she just has the one. Drakes and ducks for that matter can be pretty nasty to another ducks ducklings and some mama will protect to the death some are pretty non caring so it will be up to you to protect baby. Hopefully your newest mama will do better, I think only having one duckling does something to their mindset I had a couple ducks only hatch out 1 duckling and after a couple weeks they were pretty much done, but that was in the summer too so much warmer. Congrats on the new ones, don't forget the pics.Thanks Miss Lydia, awoke this am to 4 new hatchlings! They are precious. Three are very black, and look like they'll have large bibs of white, and white tips on wings. One looks just like a Rouen. Their mother still has 4 eggs. She seemed to be struggling to cover them all, so I added some hay to her area. Weather was chilly today so all moms and babies stayed indoors. The 2 week old is really growing but it is still to small for me to allow the drakes near it. That mom seems to be wanting to rejoin the flock. Yesterday when I took mom & baby to the small fenced area, mom just hollered the entire time, looking for a way out. So I walked the pair back to the enclosed pen area. On the way, my Jumbo Pekin Drake tried pinning the baby. I thought that letting mom raise the ducklings basically guaranteed acceptance into the flock? And after these 2 hatches, my flock size has almost doubled!
Thanks Everybody. I'd be so lost without this site. Now I'm thinking on to Winterizing the pen...
So now I need some neat, cheap ideas for nesting boxes that can go inside their coop with them. I'll have to post pictures of this thing when I'm done - it's monstrous. It ended up eight feet tall because it's a double decker type thing.
