Too Many drakes???

[Bleenie]

My 2 boys have been just fine with eachother & their 17 hens, at leats until a couple of the hens started laying

. They will go at eachother for a few minutes at a time(never hurting eachother though), the bizarre thing is they mostly do it when i am out there.

They'll be seperated later on so it's not a big deal for me. Just in case you have to break any of the boys up, be VERY careful. My boys would never purposely hurt me but i did get a nice, fat bruise from Sid's wing last week & a claw put into my hand today. It's almost safer to let them 'work it out' (with mine anyway). but you have 4 boys so just keep a close eye on them and also make sure your girls arent getting the crap beat out of them.

 

[MakNat]

Yeah, I know I really need to find them new homes... Its just the doing part I have a problem with..

 

[ruth]

At this point I must have close to 40 ducks - Mallards and Rouens and mixes. Half male, half female. So far, no problems. Almost all have finally discovered our pond and the Mallards fly there and back and the Rouens walk. They all still come up the yard to eat and some will still go in the coop at night with all the chickens. I hatched all of them and of course, they multiply quickly, but they all get along. I've never seen drakes fighting with one another and I've never had an injured female. When I, or a hen, hatches baby ducklings, I've never seen another duck bother them. I turn the baby ducks loose at one week old and they do quite well totally on their own, motherless.

The chickens on the other hand are a problem - I have way too many roos and they have torn up and/or killed way too many hens (by all jumping her at once) though they rarely fight amongst themselves. I'm guessing I probably have 30 roos.

On our farm everyone freeranges. There are no cages, pens, etc. So I think that's the answer to eliminating fighting. They have lots of space to get out of one another's way.

 

[Goat_Walker]

With non scovie breeds 2 -3 hens per drkae is fine. But muscovies are not like regular ducks. They have alot more personality and emotion to them and a hormonal temperment that put non scovies to the test. As I posted before one drkae can easily take care of ten hens - meaning that 4 drakes to 4 hens can be a problem. The three other drakes wont stay out of the picture when breeding season comes so it could be a danger to the hens AND the other drakes.