To Kill A Nasty Drake?

[strawberricatt]

I have a drake who was raised with his three sisters, I sold two of them so I have him and one of his sisters. He was raised by a fiercely protective broody (Chicken) named Darling who didn't lose any babies, even his blind sister. However both he, and his sister are becoming very aggresive to my chickens. I don't kill non productive birds, so I have many elderly birds (Upwards of eight years) free ranging. In total I have eighteen birds in my main flock.

Please know that I free range my chickens during the day, so they do live alongside ducks, however at night my chickens go into the coop. The ducks don't have a coop, but do have many places where they can shelter during the day

So now that you have a bit of backstory, here's my issue. My young drake El-Nino is becoming very aggresive. He's not afraid of me or my rooster Reggie. He'll attack my elderly and young chickens ripping out feathers and pushing them over into mud (It's Winter here and we get rain and mud) He's never actually attacked me, but I'm sure he would try it with my young siblings. As for his sister, my parents wouldn't kill her as she has just started laying.

Should he become dinner because of his aggression ? If so, what is the best killing method? My siblings would be sad, but I'm not sure if this behaviour is acceptable or not..

 

[rebrascora]

Your drake is suffering from a surge of adolescent hormones which drive him to want to mate. He does not have enough females to satisfy his desire and the aggression that you are seeing is actually him trying to mate with your hens. This is a dangerous situation, firstly because he could physically injure your hens by grabbing them and treading them when they are trying to resist him but secondly because unlike cockerels, drakes have penises which they insert during mating. Hen's anatomy is not designed for this type of sexual activity and they can be injured internally or he could introduce an infection.
If you pen him with just his sister, he could potentially mate her to death during this difficult adolescent period, so you would be better penning him separate of any females or rehoming him or butchering him for meat.
As regards killing him, probably a tree stump and a hatchet and a confident, unflinching person wielding it.

 

[strawberricatt]

Your drake is suffering from a surge of adolescent hormones which drive him to want to mate. He does not have enough females to satisfy his desire and the aggression that you are seeing is actually him trying to mate with your hens. This is a dangerous situation, firstly because he could physically injure your hens by grabbing them and treading them when they are trying to resist him but secondly because unlike cockerels, drakes have penises which they insert during mating. Hen's anatomy is not designed for this type of sexual activity and they can be injured internally or he could introduce an infection.
If you pen him with just his sister, he could potentially mate her to death during this difficult adolescent period, so you would be better penning him separate of any females or rehoming him or butchering him for meat.
As regards killing him, probably a tree stump and a hatchet and a confident, unflinching person wielding it.

Oh! I forgot to add that I have eighteen ducks and five drakes in my flock... Not a very good ratio I know, but they all split into groups on their own and just roam in their groups, meeting together for feeding twice a day. I have a pen I could separate him into if that would help? It's quite big with foliage, a pond and shelter from the rain. I'd say he is five or six months old at the moment, can't recall the exact hatch date, but it was the last duck hatch of the season. If I did have to butcher him, I'd want it to cause him the least amount of stress possible.

Any ideas on why his sister is attacking the hens as well? She is definitely a she (Quacking and laying eggs) so she wouldn't be attempting to mate them would she?

 

[rebrascora]

As I understand it, ducks are very sexual, so she could be mounting them for sexual gratification or she could just be trying to exert dominance. Being the youngest in the flock of ducks she will probably be bottom of the pecking order but perhaps sees the opportunity to improve her status by dominating the hens.
Approaching it logically I think it would probably be a lot easier and fairer to pen the two individuals that are causing havoc in the flock rather than penning all the hens to protect them from 2 juvenile delinquent ducks! I am surprised that the other drakes do not put these two in their place. My head drake used to do his best to rescue my chickens from the attentions of my adolescent drake until I decided that enough was enough. Sometimes you have to toughen up when you keep poultry and make some difficult decisions for the good of the whole flock.

 

[ButtonquailGirl14]

Your drake is suffering from a surge of adolescent hormones which drive him to want to mate. He does not have enough females to satisfy his desire and the aggression that you are seeing is actually him trying to mate with your hens. This is a dangerous situation, firstly because he could physically injure your hens by grabbing them and treading them when they are trying to resist him but secondly because unlike cockerels, drakes have penises which they insert during mating. Hen's anatomy is not designed for this type of sexual activity and they can be injured internally or he could introduce an infection.
If you pen him with just his sister, he could potentially mate her to death during this difficult adolescent period, so you would be better penning him separate of any females or rehoming him or butchering him for meat.
As regards killing him, probably a tree stump and a hatchet and a confident, unflinching person wielding it.

x2

 

[rachelsflock]

I cull birds that don't play nice with others-chickens and ducks. They get everything they want and need plus protection and if they deliberately harm others they head to freezer camp-it's part of the protection thing for the others. Plus, drakes get too big too fast to mess around with aggressive ones. I've known people who have had chickens killed by muscovy drakes they tolerated aggressive behavior from. They don't even seem to want to mate when it happens. They just want to be rip feathers, skin, dominate, and push their boundaries and the chickens eventually submit and get themselves trashed beyond recovery. That's why your girl is doing it too. She's being a teen aged punk, just like him. I don't mind culling the girls either when they get too violent and don't seem to grow out of it. I hope she quits for you.

Send me a PM if you choose to butcher and want to know how-I've been raising muscovy for the beauty as well as eggs and meat for a while now, so I guess I'm as much an expert as anyone else here (I don't use the ax though as I'm small, the drakes are large, I'm not good with axes and I like my fingers and hands and feet!) I feel like just putting butchery instructions up here would upset others. You could always try to sell him to a non chicken or even a butcher home if you feel it's too much too. You can also find videos of muscovy butchery on the internet. Not sure what to do with the sister that you can't get rid of because of the eggs. That's sticky. I would probably avoid letting those hatch because feisty often begets feisty.

 

[strawberricatt]

I cull birds that don't play nice with others-chickens and ducks. They get everything they want and need plus protection and if they deliberately harm others they head to freezer camp-it's part of the protection thing for the others. Plus, drakes get too big too fast to mess around with aggressive ones. I've known people who have had chickens killed by muscovy drakes they tolerated aggressive behavior from. They don't even seem to want to mate when it happens. They just want to be rip feathers, skin, dominate, and push their boundaries and the chickens eventually submit and get themselves trashed beyond recovery. That's why your girl is doing it too. She's being a teen aged punk, just like him. I don't mind culling the girls either when they get too violent and don't seem to grow out of it. I hope she quits for you.

Send me a PM if you choose to butcher and want to know how-I've been raising muscovy for the beauty as well as eggs and meat for a while now, so I guess I'm as much an expert as anyone else here (I don't use the ax though as I'm small, the drakes are large, I'm not good with axes and I like my fingers and hands and feet!) I feel like just putting butchery instructions up here would upset others. You could always try to sell him to a non chicken or even a butcher home if you feel it's too much too. You can also find videos of muscovy butchery on the internet. Not sure what to do with the sister that you can't get rid of because of the eggs. That's sticky. I would probably avoid letting those hatch because feisty often begets feisty.

Thank you! I and have never killed a duck before, but have watched my stepdad and biological dad butcher and gut muscovies and chickens. Do you pluck or skin? I've helped do both but have never seen any benefits to either?
Should I fatten him up before butchering(If I do)? I'll be sure to PM you. As for the sister do you think giving her someone else's eggs will work? I have read that aggression is genetic, so if she hatched someone else's eggs and raised the babies would they grow up to be aggressive?

Sorry for all the questions, if you would prefer to talk over PM that's okay, just tell me.

 

[rachelsflock]

It's okay. I can talk.
I scald with dishsoap in the water and pluck. The skin is nice to have. It makes things moist when cooking the breast meat. It is very labor intensive though, so there's not shame in skinning. My parents at their place skin all theirs. My dad bought me a big traffic cone to use as a kill cone while I was expecting my second child, kind of as a joke and that's how I dispatch. He didn't think I could do it, I think. We cut the end off of in the appropriate place so we could pull the duck's head through for bleeding out and it keeps them still and non scratchy. We zip tied the cone to a chainlink fence as a stand. It's still used every summer and fall to process. Butchering is still an emotionally exhausting thing, you should be warned. Don't be discouraged though, just prepared.

I don't fatten. Mine are usually fat Yeah, I over feed. One year I accidentally made them so fat on 20% protein that they were packed with fat and difficult to clean, so I guess you'd have to figure out the optimal fatness for your preference.

You can totally give the sister the other ladies' eggs. Maybe, maybe, just maybe, if you don't want to mess with it, I'd at least make sure the drakes that she runs with are very nice and then don't save drakes from her litters. You may still get occasional feisty birds, but fewer.

Feel free to PM me any questions, or if no one is bothered I can answer here. Doing a muscovy is kind of a big job, especially at first.

One of the things I discovered last year was that they break down like geese better than they do like a mallard type duck. Here's a video. It's not of killing, just processing the bird into food looking parts. Less messing with the guts. BUT it still involves plucking. Just not sticking your hand into any deep, black, messy holes.

Also, always use a nice butcher knife. They have amazing skin and tough feathers (because they pull on each other and have big sharp claws).

Last thing off the top of my head is to enjoy baby muscovies and your sweet guys and girls. The ones you designate as pets or breeders are so much fun.