White crested sex

[onaharley]

 

[onaharley]

My pen is 10 by 10 ft. The separation door is on hinges and swings back and forth. Ted is always locked up at night by himself, he can see everything and everyone but can’t touch the gals

 

[DuckyDonna]

Ok, so your pen looks like a designer pen! I know people that don't live that good!

 

[onaharley]

Ok, so your pen looks like a designer pen! I know people that don't live that good!

Haha! Why thank you, it's just a piece together pen with recycled materials. My husband did all the work.

 

[Kris5902]

Ok, probably a very dumb question here... aside from the crested girls being extra vulnerable, it sounds like drakes are super aggressive and I’m wondering if this is a general breed thing or a captivity thing?

We have three different species of wild ducks here... classic Mallards, and some ones that are black and white, and one other type that’s on the other side of the island and I don’t see often enough to describe. There are often many more drakes than females in the flocks, and way more ducks during summer than fall (Eagles Decimate the population here and seem to get the girls first... 35 mallards this summer, now down to 5... 3 drakes and 2 females, they don’t really migrate they just move between our two large ponds)

Is Drake aggression and over mating also something that happens in a natural setting? Is it just a ratio thing? Is the captivity a factor in that the females are trapped in with aggressive and rapist males?

 

[Miss Lydia]

From reading it’s both wild and domestic the Mallards can actually gang up on females and drown them in a wild setting and those kept domestically and all drakes other than Muscovy( I can vouch for only 2 breeds since my drakes are Muscovy and Runner) seem to be over sexed. Very high hormone levels. I am very thankful neither of my drakes have ever been aggressive over the norm which is grabbing head neck feathers to hold on which can cause some feather loss during mating that is normal and my drakes do like to stand on their females especially my Muscovy he’ll just stand on one and then get off. Nutty thing but both have enough females that they seem to space out their affection on each of their girls and they would never get in the pool at the same time and gang up on a female like other domestic drakes will do it just has never happened here. Muscovy and Runner drake if this was two Runners I am sure they would be on the same girl I have seen it many times here on BYC. Don’t want to miss lead my Muscovy drake and Runner drake have high hormones just like any other drake but these two breeds don’t work together to rape a female like two domestics will. Having enough females can usually help too except sometimes even then a drake will still have a favorite and constantly breed just this one until she is abused so much,but a good keeper will get her out of that situation before it gets bad though.

 

[Kris5902]

From reading it’s both wild and domestic the Mallards can actually gang up on females and drown them in a wil setting and those kept domestically and all drakes other than Muscovy( I can vouch for only 2 breeds since my drakes are Muscovy and Runner) seem to be over sexed. Very high hormone levels. I am very thankful neither of my drakes have ever been aggressive over the norm which is grabbing head neck feathers to hold on which can cause some feather loss during mating that is normal and my drakes do like to stand on their females especially my Muscovy he’ll just stand on one and then get off. Nutty thing but both have enough females that they seem to space out their affection on each of their girls and they would never get in the pool at the same time and gang up on a female like other domestic drakes will do it just has never happened here. Muscovy and Runner drake if this was two Runners I am sure they would be on the same girl I have seen it many times here on BYC.

Wow, between that and the Eagles here it is really a miracle there are ANY ducks left! I’ve seen the eagles get three in one day before, they also take baby goats... nasty birds. (If the goat kid noises are kind of frantic and moving way too fast for a baby goat, it’s an eagle flying with it. The poor things scream when they are dropped) They treat our ponds like an all you can eat duck buffet.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Of course they do they are feeding young and themselves to. If it’s available they will find it.

 

[Kris5902]

I’ll have to see if I can observe some duck mating behaviors this year, I’ve suggested getting some and my husband just laughs... they tried ducks here once and lost them all within a month, but I think they are adorable! Thanks for the info!