Drakes fight to the death?

[chris330r]

I went out on my patio early this evening to see 2 of the drakes i've been feeding for years in the water locking necks and fighting. They've done this before over the years and it always ended with one quickly rowing his wings like a rowboat away from the winner so I decided to watch to see who would win this time. The loser did row his wings quickly to get away and it looked like it was the end of the fight, and I was about to go back inside, but the other came back quickly and pounced on him.

He kept the other duck underwater for quite a long time and a few times the other one tried coming up for air but the top duck wouldn't let up. I began to get concerned at this point and started tossing bread into the water to try and distract him and break it up, but the top duck wouldn't budge. Long story short....the duck was killed and floating in the water just a few minutes later. I've never seen anything like it before and i've been feeding these ducks for over 10 years now.

The winner of the fight just stood at the bank of the water watching the corpse intently and did so for about an hour. I guess he was basking in his victory and thinking he's now king of the lake? Well he's not with me because when he finally came up to my patio I shooed him away and will never feed that killer duck again. I remember when he was a baby back in 2017 and I always fed him but no more. Whenever he comes now i'm going to shoo him away.

I understand that there's a strong hierarchy in the duck world, but I didn't think they actually murdered each other to become the top duck and he'll never get food from me again. Is this normal behavior in the duck world or did I just happen to witness an extreme case of duck hierarchy? The poor thing is still floating out there now and it looks like the fish are starting to tug at it. At least they'll be eating good tonight.

I'm just really sad and wish I hadn't seen it because I believe the duck that was killed was the current king of the flock who i've been feeding for many years and i'm going to miss him. He was a good one.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Muscovy are fierce fighters. It happend here where there were 3 Muscovy drakes that lived in our mt river down below us. At first it was only 2 and they seemed to get along good. Then all heck broke out the one drake began picking on the one that showed up and beat him up so bad he died. Then he went after the one I named Ernie. So I made the decision to bring Ernie home to live with us. So Bert[the killer] started coming up and going after Ernie. I finally had to get my DH to get rid of this drake. Then Ernie lived with us for almost 12 yrs with his girls I got for him. Yes Muscovy can and will kill another drake. I have had as many as 4 Muscovy drakes and they could never be out with each other, they all had their own space and their own girls. I have the son of my first Muscovy drake [ernie] and there is no way I could bring in another Muscovy drake he would never leave him alone.I do have to say I have had a Runner drake for 7 yrs and my Muscovy drake never messes with him at all. Thank goodness
I am so sorry you had to see this it really is upsetting. These drakes lived across the river from us and the people who had them just let them go and most were killed off by predators. That is how I knew how old Ernie was.
Maybe if there are no females this might go better for the drakes. @ruthhope has Muscovy drakes. AND no females.

 

[CluckNorris4eva]

I’m so sorry!!! I don’t have ducks but losing chickens is always hard. *hugs*

 

[chris330r]

Muscovy are fierce fighters. It happend here where there were 3 Muscovy drakes that lived in our mt river down below us. At first it was only 2 and they seemed to get along good. Then all heck broke out the one drake began picking on the one that showed up and beat him up so bad he died. Then he went after the one I named Ernie. So I made the decision to bring Ernie home to live with us. So Bert[the killer] started coming up and going after Ernie. I finally had to get my DH to get rid of this drake. Then Ernie lived with us for almost 12 yrs with his girls I got for him. Yes Muscovy can and will kill another drake. I have had as many as 4 Muscovy drakes and they could never be out with each other, they all had their own space and their own girls. I have the son of my first Muscovy drake [ernie] and there is no way I could bring in another Muscovy drake he would never leave him alone.I do have to say I have had a Runner drake for 7 yrs and my Muscovy drake never messes with him at all. Thank goodness
I am so sorry you had to see this it really is upsetting. These drakes lived across the river from us and the people who had them just let them go and most were killed off by predators. That is how I knew how old Ernie was.
Maybe if there are no females this might go better for the drakes. @ruthhope has Muscovy drakes. AND no females.

Thank you for sharing that story. I feel better knowing it's just a common (yet unfortunate) thing in the duck world and I guess there's nothing us humans can do about it. It's their world and they make their rules.
For years all these drakes would get along for the most part, with a little fight in the water every now and then...but it never resorted to killing like it did today. There are more drakes than females so I fear this killer drake will now try and eliminate the others to have the females to himself.
Hopefully now that he's eliminated the king drake, he'll leave the others alone now that he thinks he's king. To me though, he's just an evil little duck now and i'll never feed him again.

 

[ruthhope]

Muscovy are fierce fighters. It happend here where there were 3 Muscovy drakes that lived in our mt river down below us. At first it was only 2 and they seemed to get along good. Then all heck broke out the one drake began picking on the one that showed up and beat him up so bad he died. Then he went after the one I named Ernie. So I made the decision to bring Ernie home to live with us. So Bert[the killer] started coming up and going after Ernie. I finally had to get my DH to get rid of this drake. Then Ernie lived with us for almost 12 yrs with his girls I got for him. Yes Muscovy can and will kill another drake. I have had as many as 4 Muscovy drakes and they could never be out with each other, they all had their own space and their own girls. I have the son of my first Muscovy drake [ernie] and there is no way I could bring in another Muscovy drake he would never leave him alone.I do have to say I have had a Runner drake for 7 yrs and my Muscovy drake never messes with him at all. Thank goodness
I am so sorry you had to see this it really is upsetting. These drakes lived across the river from us and the people who had them just let them go and most were killed off by predators. That is how I knew how old Ernie was.
Maybe if there are no females this might go better for the drakes. @ruthhope has Muscovy drakes. AND no females.

I currently have three muscovy drakes and a special needs pekin drake [that thinks he is a muscovy]. My muscovy have pecking order tussles in the spring but nothing much.

Last year the tussles were between Daffy and O Pato, my two juvenile rescues that had lived amicably together for 6 months. Indeed, Daffy preened O Pato when they were first together as older ducklings. I let them sort out their pecking order as there was no blood loss just a few feathers ruffled. This year, Daffy and O Pato haven't had any tussles. But I have had a new muscovy drake rehomed with me from the end of December. Butter, the new boy, is a juvenile and is as big as Daffy [bigger than O Pato. I haven't seen Butter and O Pato scuffle but Butter and Daffy try and peck at each other -- particularly in the coop. I have Daffy housed in a fenced off area at night where he and Butter can see each other and both have tried to bite eachother through the bars -- both have injured their beaks in the process. But their scuffles aren't like Daffy and O Pato last year when those boys went at each other with their feet first for a few days. Daffy and Butter are just irritable and squabbly, not fighting. One often chases the other round the garden for a while -- they don't catch eachother! They take it in turns to be the meanie boy.

The three's relationship with Ping, the Pekin that thinks he's a muscovy is interesting. Sometime last year -- when both were a year old or nearing a year old, Ping and O Pato became inseperable. Ping is not a clever boy and is ruled by instinctive mannerisms, and doesn't shut up bossing the other ducks around all day and on occasions during the night. He is a third the size of the two biggest muscovy. He has taught O Pato the pekin head bobbing and he makes aggressive lateral head movements towards both Daffy and Butter, who mainly ignore him. But every now and then all three muscovy -- including bonded friend O Pato -- will bite Ping when he is really annoying them. They would bite him in the confines of the coop at night too, but Pingy Wingy sleeps in his own bedroom suite: a dog crate. Pingy is very happy in there and nips in as soon as I go and open the door in the evening. He also nips out smartish in the morning as he can understand Muscovy langauge [perhaps body language not the huffing] and he knows he has annoyed the muscovy boys overnight and that they will try and bite him as he passes. He always goes behind the muscovy not across the front!!!

Ping and O Pato are very loyal to eachother. When O Pato was in time out last year [confined to a dog crate for a shortwhile for coming up behind me and attacking me] Ping always sat by the side of the dog crate. Similarly when I have need to pick Ping up -- to examine his feet, or to give him a cuddle as he is a lovely fluffy boy -- O Pato always comes over to check out what I am doing. We are currently visiting Northern Virginia and the boys are sleeping in temporary accommodation fixed up in a garden shed. I have two dog pens that link to Pingy's dog crate and can be folded to make a separate compartment for Daffy. This is on top of a large, blue tarp that comes up the outside of the dog pens to stop the pine shaving bedding scattering through the shed. Down one side of this arrangement is a large oblong wooden picnic table, that currently has a lot of gardening equipment that was throughout the shed before the arrival of the ducks piled up on it and spades. forks, rakes etcetera stood by the door. One morning, I confined Pingy to the pen after the three muscovies had gone outside [I was busy sorting out water pots and feed bowls and it was expedient to retain Ping inside until I could shepherd him out past three muscovy boys that were certain to try and bite him. Did I mention that Pingy is very annoying?!!! Well Pingy was inside the pen with me. shouting and O Pato came dashing in to find out what was the matter. He couldn't get into the pen but dashed along the side, squeezing past the forks and rakes and under the picnic table with all the junk under there, so that he could see and talk to Pingy through the bars. I was proud of O Pato being so concerned about his friend!!!

Two years ago when I first got Daffy, Pingy and O Pato, I would sit on my back steps with them and made it quite clear that Pato and Daffy were not to bite little, silly, Pingy. Daffy ended up with a thread-bare chest -- he still had his underdown but lost many of his juvenile feathers because Ping would stand there bossing him around , while tugging on his chest feathers. Daffy just stood his ground [except very occasionally when he was super annoyed by Ping and he would lunge and try and bite Ping.] Ping is actually a great scaredy cat -- he provokes the muscovy but then runs and hides behind me when the muscovy resort to trying to bite him!!

So this is the saga of drake on drake aggression in the absence of female ducks. It's all quite manageable and there is certainly no sign of fighting to the death amongst my boys. Who is king of the castle -- well Ping thinks he is but actually it's O Pato. O Pato isn't being challenged for that position by Daffy or Butter this year. This might all be different next year!

 

[Miss Lydia]

Thank you for sharing that story. I feel better knowing it's just a common (yet unfortunate) thing in the duck world and I guess there's nothing us humans can do about it. It's their world and they make their rules.
For years all these drakes would get along for the most part, with a little fight in the water every now and then...but it never resorted to killing like it did today. There are more drakes than females so I fear this killer drake will now try and eliminate the others to have the females to himself.
Hopefully now that he's eliminated the king drake, he'll leave the others alone now that he thinks he's king. To me though, he's just an evil little duck now and i'll never feed him again.

Hopefully, you'll never have to see this again.

 

[ruthhope]

Thank you for sharing that story. I feel better knowing it's just a common (yet unfortunate) thing in the duck world and I guess there's nothing us humans can do about it. It's their world and they make their rules.
For years all these drakes would get along for the most part, with a little fight in the water every now and then...but it never resorted to killing like it did today. There are more drakes than females so I fear this killer drake will now try and eliminate the others to have the females to himself.
Hopefully now that he's eliminated the king drake, he'll leave the others alone now that he thinks he's king. To me though, he's just an evil little duck now and i'll never feed him again.

He isn't really evil. Ducks, like all birds, are just acting on instincts that have developed over the millenia for survival of the breed. I have that boy who appeared to be psychotic in his violence against me last year. He was just acting on instincts pumped up by drake hormones. Yes, I was frightened by him, and had all sorts of horror scenarios going through my head. But he wasn't evil, he was just acting on hormone fueled instincts and we worked it out. I am so glad we did, he is a sweetheart this year and so protective of his special needs pekin drake side-kick!

 

[chris330r]

He isn't really evil. Ducks, like all birds, are just acting on instincts that have developed over the millenia for survival of the breed. I have that boy who appeared to be psychotic in his violence against me last year. He was just acting on instincts pumped up by drake hormones. Yes, I was frightened by him, and had all sorts of horror scenarios going through my head. But he wasn't evil, he was just acting on hormone fueled instincts and we worked it out. I am so glad we did, he is a sweetheart this year and so protective of his special needs pekin drake side-kick!

I do understand he was just acting on his instinct and am viewing the situation through human perception so to me he is evil lol. Though I did do a search on this and read that male drakes will right hard, but for the most part they only subdue the other and rarely fight to the death like this.
After the loser duck was floating dead in the water, the dominant duck continued to pluck at it's wing feathers for a good 10 minutes I guess to make sure it was dead. It just looked like overkill and this duck was so full of hatred!
This morning he was sitting right at my patio door with his chest puffed up waiting for his bread but I shooed him away with a broomstick. The duck he killed was in fact the old king of the flock because he is always here first thing in the morning and today he was nowhere to be found. I really liked him too.
He was really old though and probably didn't have much fight left in him. I believe he's been around for a good 8 years or more so I guess he enjoyed a good long life...but i'm going to miss him.
He would always sit in the shade outside by the air conditioner unit and while away the day. It's going to be sad not to see him in his spot anymore.

 

[chris330r]

Hopefully, you'll never have to see this again.

I was thinking about that last night before bed....how I wish I didn't walk out on the patio at that very moment the fight was going on. Had I missed the whole thing, I would have just assumed the king duck just moved on or died a peaceful death somewhere.
I used to enjoy watching them fight in the water because it always ended with one getting away...but I won't watch anymore. If I see them fighting ever again, i'm going right inside. I just don't want to see it.

 

[Miss Lydia]

I never want to see it either that is why I only be keep 1 Muscovy drake here now. It was just too stressful to have more when there are females involved.