Some advice on female duck bullying

[Snostorm]

So we have 3, 2 year old Mini Appleyards, 2 females 1 male, we know the optimum is 3 females to one male but we are in Flockdown in the UK due to bird flu so they have to stay in their 2x3m run atm which we think a 4th duck would cause space issues. We think this is exacerbating the issue.

One of our female ducks Echo is bullying our other female duck delta, she will push her out of the way with her beak when she's trying to eat or drink, follows her around and doesn't let her forage, will jab at her with her beak so she can't relax, stops her from getting into our kiddie pool pond to clean etc.

She hasn't gotten to the point of pecking yet, but it's getting more and more common the last few weeks.

Anyone have any ideas on how to chill them out?

Delta has been laying solidly for the last 2 months whereas echo hasn't been. They both stopped around October to November, they stopped at different times, but delta restarted laying in December, not sure if that's chasing echo to be jealous. Echo hasn't shown any symptoms of illness, so don't think not laying eggs is related to that

Thanks!!

 

[ruthhope]

Hi Snostorm

A couple of observations: a 2m x 3m run is big enough for 4 ducks although more space is better

My son has three pekins: a drake and two females. They are fine with this ratio. For 8 weeks in the summer, the drake was swapped with one of my pekin drakes [as mine was bullying another drake.] With the new drake, the ratio remained fine with the females. Thus, I am sure that there ar plenty of 'ménage à trois' duck set ups where all goes well!

My suggested procedure with your meanie girl is to separate her from the other two. I use a dogcrate in the coop to separate ducks [to protect them from bullying or to lock up the bully.] My ducks are able to free range during the day and I can sometimes get away with letting the bully out during the day where there is plenty of shrubbery for ducks to get away from each other. But I also set up temporary dog exercise pens for drakes in drake jail. In your situation with bird flu and having to keep your ducks inside, can you temporarily partition off 2m x 1m for the meanie duck?

I have also resorted to moving a bullying drake to my son's back yard and when he was returned to my flock after 8 weeks, all was well.

It's all a case of breaking a habit and then perhaps all will be well.

Good luck!

 

[Snostorm]

Hi Snostorm

A couple of observations: a 2m x 3m run is big enough for 4 ducks although more space is better

My son has three pekins: a drake and two females. They are fine with this ratio. For 8 weeks in the summer, the drake was swapped with one of my pekin drakes [as mine was bullying another drake.] With the new drake, the ratio remained fine with the females. Thus, I am sure that there ar plenty of 'ménage à trois' duck set ups where all goes well!

My suggested procedure with your meanie girl is to separate her from the other two. I use a dogcrate in the coop to separate ducks [to protect them from bullying or to lock up the bully.] My ducks are able to free range during the day and I can sometimes get away with letting the bully out during the day where there is plenty of shrubbery for ducks to get away from each other. But I also set up temporary dog exercise pens for drakes in drake jail. In your situation with bird flu and having to keep your ducks inside, can you temporarily partition off 2m x 1m for the meanie duck?

I have also resorted to moving a bullying drake to my son's back yard and when he was returned to my flock after 8 weeks, all was well.

It's all a case of breaking a habit and then perhaps all will be well.

Good luck!

Thanks so much for the advice!

We have an old tree stump for enrichment in the middle of their enclosure so we can't really partition off anything. We do have a dog crate so could try that, how long should we put her in the crate? I'd imagine during the day for a few days and let her out in the night time? Not too sure as she's the most scared of us already aswell so don't want to do it for too long.

 

[ruthhope]

Thanks so much for the advice!

We have an old tree stump for enrichment in the middle of their enclosure so we can't really partition off anything. We do have a dog crate so could try that, how long should we put her in the crate? I'd imagine during the day for a few days and let her out in the night time? Not too sure as she's the most scared of us already aswell so don't want to do it for too long.

A dog crate is only large enough for overnight separation from the others or for short periods [less than 5 minutes] of time out.

How big is your duck house? I have confined two of my drakes to my duck house during the day and let the others free range -- but only temporarily for a few days. Then I got two temporary dog pens and made a little enclosure round the front of the duck house. each morning, I let the other ducks out to free range, then I let the 2 drakes I needed to separate out from their dog crate in the coop and gave them the coop and the enclosure made by the dog pens as their drake jail. The enclosure made by 2 dog pens was large enough to include a kiddie pool inside and the two were perfectly happy there separate from the other four for about 2 months.

[I have since rehomed the two in drake jail and resolved the problems with my flock.]