Hiya. So here's the breakdown - we have 9 ten month old ducks. 6 males / 3 females. That was an unfortunate roll of the dice and a few boys will be "going down the road," but just this morning I noticed one of our males (or so we thought - but his sex feathers are gone now) was away from the rest of the flock by himself. I thought he was just teasing or menacing one of our chickens - but then I noticed him by himself in the middle of the yard and then shortly after he was the only one that went back into the coop. Until now they have always stayed together and even followed us if we were holding one of their buddies. Well, I was able to grab Sunshine, who by the way we thought was one of the dominate ones. He has abrasions along the back of his neck and on one side of the base of his neck there are definitely feathers missing - not a lot, but it is also swollen looking. No puncture marks. I brought him in the house to check him out more and spritzed the area with peroxide, but it didn't bubble up - nice and clean. I took him back out and as soon as I set him down both males and females started nibbling at the neck! This is all very sudden and I'm really not sure why. As I started writing this I went out to check him again - he was sitting on our porch steps. They haven't done that since they were babies. So, I've put him in a smaller run in our front yard - the ducks can still all see each other, but I figured he needed a break. Any thoughts?
