Duckling Pecking Order Help

[kennysquackers]

To preface, I have six 5 week old ducklings who have been raised together since day 1. Two Indian runners, two cayugas, one khaki Campbell and one blue Swedish. They were all ordered and should all be females. Also, sorry this is long hahah!

Last week, my blue Swedish started nipping at the others and I just chalked it up to be boredom due to not getting outside as much since we had torrential downpour rain with tornados and it was cold. At first I thought it was just normal pecking order behavior but it got to the point where she broke a blood feather of my khaki and because of it bleeding, others got curious and was nipping. I ended up putting the blue Swedish in our brooder jail where she could still see the others. And got my khaki out and tended to her and got her cleaned up and bleeding stopped before putting her back with the others. And then there were no issues with others nipping. After 24 hours of being in duck jail, I put my blue back and everything’s been fine.

Fast forward to today. She’s back to doing the same bullying and going after tails and wings. Mostly wings which I thought was pecking order from what I read. She tried going after my runner and nipped her butt but backed off because one of my sweet cayuga’s came running between them yelling at the blue Swedish. Then I saw the blue 5 minutes later peck and grab onto my other cayugas wing to where the wing got “pulled out” but she didn’t get any feathers.

She’s back in duck jail and I’m thinking of keeping her solo but still where she can see each of the others for maybe a week? They aren’t fully feathered so they can’t go out into their coop or run that has ample of amount of room. And when I’m home I let them free range while I work outside. They stay close and get along outside. I’m just trying to make it through the last few weeks until they are feathered so they can be happier outside and get along I just don’t want another broken blood feather because I hate seeing them hurt.

Does this sound normal pecking order? At what point is it not normal? I saw females can be just as dominant as males. I don’t think her head is dark enough to be a drake anyways. So I do think she is a female. But I will attach a few pictures to this if anyone thinks otherwise! Also had to add her hanging with the Cayuga with her tongue out and with my runner mid quack

Any advice or tips are so appreciated!

 

[KathiQuacks]

My girls will at most shove each other, do small chases, and have short 1 v 1s, biting each other’s chests.
Curiously picking at wounds is “normal,” but not wanted. Long chases, purposefully pulling out feathers, causing bleeding, and distressing others is not acceptable, imo.

Duck jail sounds like a fine idea. I separated 1 of my male ducklings who was biting blood feathers, and he was much better after a few days. Not perfect, but better. Separating will also give your others time to properly heal and relax.

You should be able to tell male vs female by voice.
Females will be making peep-honking sounds & have an occasional loud quack. Males will have a raspy peep-peep. Males get their dark heads between 8-12 weeks.

 

[kennysquackers]

@KathiQuacks do you think I should try to keep that one separated for at least 3 days? The blood feather is already healed because I actually took my khaki and my two runners (since they are similar in size) and gave them a small group outing and it allowed me to get pressure on it to stop the bleeding, clean it with water to get excess blood off and spray with vetericyn.

I think I under estimated how quickly they grow for their brooder. It just keeps getting bigger right now they are in a 48” inflatable pool and it’s worked flawlessly for them up until this pecking. lol. It’s like it’s too small but our weather here is still terrible the past two weeks and they aren’t fully feathered so outside foraging trips have been short lived lol.

Our run should be finished this weekend and hoping since next week it will be much warmer I will be able to have them outside longer while I finish their duck den house.

I did order all females from a hatchery but I’ve always been curious if any would end up being wrong haha! To me, they are all loud haha! Thank you so much for your response!

 

[Yardmom]

They need more space. Ducklings feather slower than chicks, but are ready to be off heat sooner. At 5 weeks old It is time to get them out to their coop full time.

 

[KathiQuacks]

@KathiQuacks do you think I should try to keep that one separated for at least 3 days? The blood feather is already healed because I actually took my khaki and my two runners (since they are similar in size) and gave them a small group outing and it allowed me to get pressure on it to stop the bleeding, clean it with water to get excess blood off and spray with vetericyn.

I think I under estimated how quickly they grow for their brooder. It just keeps getting bigger right now they are in a 48” inflatable pool and it’s worked flawlessly for them up until this pecking. lol. It’s like it’s too small but our weather here is still terrible the past two weeks and they aren’t fully feathered so outside foraging trips have been short lived lol.

Our run should be finished this weekend and hoping since next week it will be much warmer I will be able to have them outside longer while I finish their duck den house.

I did order all females from a hatchery but I’ve always been curious if any would end up being wrong haha! To me, they are all loud haha! Thank you so much for your response!

I’d do 2-3 days minimum, and then see how she does.

Ahh, any way you could increase the brooder size? My case did not seem to be a space issue, but I know it can be in some ducklings. 5 week olds should have closer to 3 sqft per duckling in the brooder.
Definitely get them outside more or full-time once the run is built and weather clears up.

 

[kennysquackers]

They need more space. Ducklings feather slower than chicks, but are ready to be off heat sooner. At 5 weeks old It is time to get them out to their coop full time.

I wasn’t putting them in the coop since they aren’t fully feathered and our weather has been getting to be below freezing still at night. And sometimes high of low 50s during the day. They haven’t had heat on inside the house but it stays around 68° in our home. I’ll work on a bigger brooder until it gets more consistent weather outside!

 

[kennysquackers]

I’d do 2-3 days minimum, and then see how she does.

Ahh, any way you could increase the brooder size? My case did not seem to be a space issue, but I know it can be in some ducklings. 5 week olds should have closer to 3 sqft per duckling in the brooder.
Definitely get them outside more or full-time once the run is built and weather clears up.

I think I was mistaken on the pool size. I think it’s 5’ circumference, but that still is 1.5 aft too small! I’ve been looking for different ideas for a bigger brooder since it looks like we still have at least a week of colder weather. I know their coop I built is almost 9’ wide by 7.5’ deep. Because I figured I would probably get more ducks eventually. Hahaha!

I’ll start brainstorming on what to use for a brooder to have a bigger area. Everyone else seems content as far as getting along in it except my blue Swedish!