Two male ducks one beating the other

[Brooksbarn]

whatever you do, do NOT get any hens. the boys will get along better with no girls, if this is their first spring they’re most likely still figuring out the pecking order and that’s why they’re fighting.

separate if it gets too bad, make sure they have multiple food/water setups, and if possible keep one pool per drake. they will fight the most in water, so it’s best they have their own swimming areas

Yes it is there first spring. Ones not a big swimmer he normally goes in does his thing for I’d say 30 mins and he runs off to cause trouble lol but thanks for the info you guys are awesome

 

[Brooksbarn]

Runner and crested

 

[BelovedBirds]

Runner and crested

is it the crested one being bullied?

 

[Brooksbarn]

is it the crested one being bullied?

No he’s the bully

 

[Brooksbarn]

report back I separated them for two days I put them back together today and watched them from a distance for an hour and half saw the crested only attack once in the hour and half

 

[BelovedBirds]

No he’s the bully

okay that's good, very important. As Crested ducks actually have a hole in the back of the skull, so any injury to that area could be disastrous- I would have been worried if he were being bullied, but since he is the dominant drake I wouldn't be as worried. Perhaps keep an eye on him though? It sounds like typical dominance so I wouldnt worry too much, just keep an eye on them and give the runner drake separate feeding sessions--personally I would still try and give them their own pools, and see if it makes any difference. But what works for you, if it works, that's okay

Let us know if there's any updates! Good luck with them

 

[ruthhope]

My 4 drakes are still skirmishing -- when they start making one drake's life a misery in the coop, I now put the bullied drake, a crested pekin, in a dog crate in the coop with his own food and water so that he is undisturbed in there. I previously took the bullied drake into my house, but the ducks want to be together -- even the bullied one. So, I tried dog crate protection in the coop. It worked although allegiances also changed with previously bullied pekin teaming up with alpha male muscovy, and other muscovy no longer so close the alpha male muscovy

Then I got a fourth drake, a regular pekin. I introduced using see no touch and then supervised short meetings then out in the garden free ranging together. After 10 days, I let new pekin drake stay in the coop overnight as he went in the coop of his own volition. He was then bulled by the 2 muscovies and excluded from food. I left them for 3 nights, but tonight changed the arrangements as the regular pekin is losing weight.

Tonight I put the regular pekin in the dog crate and let the crested Pekin take his chances with the muscovies. He was initially bullied by one muscovy, but quickly jumped up on to the higher level next to his buddy muscovy. That resolved the problem for the night as the second muscovy would have to get past buddy muscovy to continue pecking at the crested pekin

It's all very distressing for me, but my son [who has a flock of females] thinks I should just leave them to work it out. I am still working on sleeping arrangements to reduce the bullying in the coop, but I do leave them to work it out in the garden during the day.

 

[Miss Lydia]

The crested Pekin I'd be worried about since there isn't skull under the crest and if they start grabbing onto it can seriously injure him. @thumper650 has dealt with only drake flock and maybe able to give advice on how to handle this, When I had 4 Muscovy drakes we built stalls inside our coop so the drakes wouldn't be beating each other up at night. They also had tops framed in wood with hard ware cloth. In the day time they had their own part of the fenced property to roam with their own females. I know this is a different scenario but at night when everyone is suppose to be sleeping the stalls worked out great to keep the peace.

 

[MartinFamilyHomestead]

How many you think?

You need to have roughly 4-6 hens for every drake. The drakes will fight if there is less and you out the hens at risk to be over bred and injured, they can even die. Some flocks work with an off ratio all depends on the flock and it can be completely fine then one day it just isn’t. Our flock we are pushing it with our ratio and should probably have one less drake or maybe a few more hens but it has been fine so we are keeping it until it isn’t. We are aware though and have a plan if the drakes are fighting.

You can keep an all male flock as well. They will fight to establish pecking order. You should decide sooner rather than later if you are never going to want a hen/eggs though. It would be harder to change your flock in the future if you have multiple boys and have to get rid of some after you are attached to them.

If you want some hens and do not want to get rid of either of your drakes but can’t add 8 hens, I would at least start with 6 and see how they do with them. From my experience if something happened to one of your drakes or you got rid of one of them bc the fighting is too rough, you can get away with a lesser ratio bc there is only one drake and he doesn’t feel the competition of having another one around. If you had one drake I think getting 2 maybe 3 hens to start would be okay and obviously adding more to the mix if they do seem to be over bred. That is my experience alone though, some may disagree.

I actually hate to say this, but for the longest time we actually had 2 drakes and 1 hen after loosing some of our flock and we just weren’t ready to add more. We never had trouble. Our drakes were great, didn’t fight it over breed our hen. I don’t want to give you advice that probably won’t work bc the ratio is really important to keep in mind. But if you don’t want to get rid of either drake and the fighting gets bad enough and you can’t add8 hens, try adding however many you can house. If they end up over bred and hurt then give away or sell and go back to having the problem with just 2 drakes. Hens are always easy to get rid of unlike males.

 

[thumper650]

I had the exact problem with my 2 adopted pekin. I separated them from March to August with a fence they can see through. It's made of hardware cloth with wood, so it doesn't have sharp edges. They can see, but not touch.
The second year I ended up with 2 runner drakes. I was expecting to make 4 pens for all my bad boys, BUT, they are separated into team runner and team pekin. So the runners have one side of the pen and the pekin on the other. Occasionally they'll fight over the pool. Water to ducks means sexy time, so I let one in the pool at a time. I'm like a ducky life guard.

August-March they're all together and very peaceful.

If you can't get a bunch of duck hens for them, get used to building little fences like I do.