Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Thank you for your previous advice. I have some other issues now. One of my duck eggs did make it through the entire hatch process and Tucker (Female) is now 6 weeks old. She has all her adult feathers and I figured now would be the time to make the move from the garage to outdoors. She has her own pen and last night went okay, however my current ducks don't seem to want Tucker around. She is the product of at least two of them but the males are especially mean and I've had to separate them constantly. Their pens butt up to each other so they can see but cannot get to each other. I have two drake Pekins and two females and now the female duckling. How can I curb the aggressive behavior of the males. They don't seem to be fighting each other over the duckling although they do at times pick at each other over food. One had to be physically pulled off the duckling yesterday as he jumped on her and was biting her neck.

Males can be aggressive and mean -- could they possibly be trying to mate with her? I know she is young, but......
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PHaron

It could definitely be a mating thing, but they are more aggressive toward this little female than the other two which are of the same age as the males. I originally started this group with 4 (2 boys/2 girls). The original ducks are about 7 months old now and the duckling is 7 weeks. I assumed that the ducks would somehow know this duckling was one of their offspring and be nice. I've tried a couple of times to let the duckling out with just the female ducks and they seem to tolerate one another. Whenever I let even just one male out, he immediately runs over to the duckling and makes a growling/hissing noise and bites at her. He's even jumped on her. This causes the duckling to scream like she's being killed which only creates increased aggression with the boys. Recently I've taken to gently but firmly tapping the males on the top of the beak whenever they come running at the duckling. I cannot say it is deterring them though. I'll be trying again this weekend to have them all out together so I can supervise. I know that males will sometimes kill a duckling, but this one is nearly full grown now. Is that still possible?

hi, i myself hae had the same proble. i have 3 adult rouens and over the summer aquired 3 new baby ducks. i had te same agressive behavior and kept them seperated. even now that the babies are full grown ( actually larger than the rouens ) the rouens still attack them every chance they get. your best bet is to keep them seperated . i had tried to let mine spend a few minutes together each day supervised by myself and still the males would attack. it is possible since your are the same breed that it may work out. good luck!!

6 weeks your duck would only have juvi feathers adult feathers dont come in until their first real molt..

as for the aggression it's a flock thing the dominant birds are putting your new one in it's place and they probly wont stop till the new one accepts it's given possition(atleast 5 ft away from the flock), dies or disappears all together.
I had the same problem with 4 of my birds offspring accept my drake is trained like a dog and my duck was part of the younger flock, they never did accept eachother and my original drake was trying to guard my duck from the younger birds.. if you can get your newer bird a friend, or a number of friends it might make aclimating it a little easier, just make sure the birds you get for the younger bird already know how to coexist in a flock.

Thanks for all advice given. It's been about 3 1/2 weeks now since we put the duckling outdoors with the others and unfortunately they are still having to be kept in separate housing arrangements. To solve the problem we have fenced an area for the younger duck to have on her own and be able to enjoy being out of her pen during the day. The others can't get to her and she has her own kiddie pool for swimming, etc. It's a shame though that she does not have access to the pond. I had hoped the others would accept her and teach her to swim, but they'll probably drown her!