took in some "rehome" hens and a duck, my story with rehoming

so someone in my neighborhood is on my Facebook and saw all my posts about my little friends (who would have thought of chickens as a service animal?) anyways, being we are in a neighboring town to Fort Stewart, we have lots of military coming and going, her family is PCS'ing to Hawaii and couldn't take their birds with them.

So she contacted me to see if we would be willing to re-home their 2 hens and their male duck. they forewarned me that the male is "dickish". She also stated that she gets 2-4 eggs per day, depending on the hens moods. So today we went over to pick them up. She introduced us to "Ma" a black hen (she didn't know the breeds), and un named red hen, and Howard the dickish duck. I immediately observed their home they are accustom to. Anyways we put them in a dog crate and drove across the neighborhood to our home where our babies already were.

I opened the dog cage and got the girls and the duck out. they immediately wanted to put as much space between us and them as possible. I hung out for a while just observing them. The new friends wanted really nothing to do with us, and our little clan of 8 month old chicks and 2 month old ducks. I had left to go help a friend at the junk yard.

Thats when the text messages started. The un named red hen that I named "Henrietta" decided to fly the coop. She decided she needed to check the neighbors yard out. My son had to bring her back twice. No big deal, she is distressed from change of environment.

THEN the text message came that I didn't want to get. Howard, the dickish duck attacked my little 1 month old female duck. Bit her a bunch, but she had the aid of "ma" and my big bruiser 1 month old male duck named Donald(he seriously is big, 1 month old and is bigger and heavier than Howard). Donald let Howard know that he rules this yard and "little Bit" (the little female duck).

I finally got home, and got to witness this little butt head firsthand. He would grab a hold of the females combs and twist his head and neck all around, bit their necks etc. No, uh-uh this is not going to work.I immediately grabbed Howard by the neck and was gonna take him for his final gasps before he met the knife, before the wife stopped me and told me to contact the woman first to see if they wanted him back first. I calmed down and contacted her. He is going back tomorrow. In the meantime I have to keep him separated from all my babies.

SO, I just wanted to share my little experience with you all, and to just understand what you could be getting into when you do a re-home. I am sure the 2 ladies will warm up to us a little more once they get used to us and continue to see the chicks and ducks interacting with me (I spend most of the day laying out in the grass, interacting with them)