When do drakes need to be separated and how do I choose who stays?

[TwistedTayy]

So we started off with 15 straight run 7.5 week old welsh harlequins (and some other creatures but thats irrelevant for now). 6 hens and 9 drakes, one drake was murdered by a loose neighborhood dog, leaving 8D/6H. Still no where near a good ratio, though another survivor is a White layer hen so the grand total is 8 drakes and 7 hens.

1) at what age do I start to be concerned with rehoming the extra drakes (or otherwise removing them from my flock)? I have been noticing quite a bit of squabbling amongst the drakes. I assume it has to do with establishing a pecking order as the one killed by the dog was the obvious "king drake" and the 4 others that were injured (and subsequently quarantined) were also high in rank. They were reintroduced on saturday (8 days removed from the flock) and there was some downright fighting happening (the biggest troublemakers were the hens, surprisingly). Every now and then though I see drakes going toe to toe. Our female Pilgrim is quick to reestablish the peace, however. But she could hurt them too if they dont chill out fast enough.

2) How should I choose which drake to keep? Ive seen posts that talk about choosing one in the middle hierarchy but I can really only pick out the "one with the darkest head" or otherwise glorious feathering. I would also like to breed true to type (APA) but I am also willing to admit that it may take a few generations and genetic diversity to get there. Should I go purely by personality? These are from My Pet Chicken (can't remember where MPC gets their waterfowl stock from) so I'm not sure how they typically perform somewhere like a poultry show (that also wouldn't start happening for probably... two years but maybe next summer... step one, keep birds alive and cared for).

 

[HeatherKellyB]

Hi! I'm sorry you haven't received any replies yet. I'll tag some folks that may be able to help. I wish you the best

@Miss Lydia
@shawluvsbirds
@Isaac 0

 

[shawluvsbirds]

So we started off with 15 straight run 7.5 week old welsh harlequins (and some other creatures but thats irrelevant for now). 6 hens and 9 drakes, one drake was murdered by a loose neighborhood dog, leaving 8D/6H. Still no where near a good ratio, though another survivor is a White layer hen so the grand total is 8 drakes and 7 hens.

1) at what age do I start to be concerned with rehoming the extra drakes (or otherwise removing them from my flock)? I have been noticing quite a bit of squabbling amongst the drakes. I assume it has to do with establishing a pecking order as the one killed by the dog was the obvious "king drake" and the 4 others that were injured (and subsequently quarantined) were also high in rank. They were reintroduced on saturday (8 days removed from the flock) and there was some downright fighting happening (the biggest troublemakers were the hens, surprisingly). Every now and then though I see drakes going toe to toe. Our female Pilgrim is quick to reestablish the peace, however. But she could hurt them too if they dont chill out fast enough.

2) How should I choose which drake to keep? Ive seen posts that talk about choosing one in the middle hierarchy but I can really only pick out the "one with the darkest head" or otherwise glorious feathering. I would also like to breed true to type (APA) but I am also willing to admit that it may take a few generations and genetic diversity to get there. Should I go purely by personality? These are from My Pet Chicken (can't remember where MPC gets their waterfowl stock from) so I'm not sure how they typically perform somewhere like a poultry show (that also wouldn't start happening for probably... two years but maybe next summer... step one, keep birds alive and cared for).

If I were you I wouldn't keep any more than *possibly* two drakes. Probably just one would be better. I would start trying to Re-home them now before problems get worse.
How to choose which ones to keep is up to you.
If you can tell your girls have a favorite boy I would keep him.
A lot of times when you remove an A-hole drake, another one just takes his place as the A-hole.

 

[JenInNev]

I feel your pain. I actually had a home for my a$$hole drake but pulled out ... was like a drug deal where I show up with the duck in a town 2 hours from here in the middle of the desert. But ... your situation is much more complicated.

Find homes asap. And only keep 1. Your hens will appreciate it.

 

[Quatie]

If you want to rehome, I agree start as soon as possible.

You can keep them in two flocks, a drake flock and a female flock. If you are able to do that, then you can hold on to them longer and see how they develope and rehome them later. You may want at least 2 drakes so you can separate them long term. Since you are breeding, it will give you a back up drake in case anything happens to the first.

You have to decide what you want. If breeding to form is the most important thing to you, then pick your drake based on that. Once you decide what is most important to you, pick the drake or drakes that fit it.

 

[shawluvsbirds]

If the drakes are already fighting though... They will most likely take out their sexual aggressions on each other. Drake flocks can work sometimes if they were raised together but it's not always a solution.
I would suggest putting them somewhere they cannot see the females at all. And even then there is a good chance they will turn their sexual aggressions on each other, which can have a bad ending.