Mating vs Drowning

[AdamD77]

Today my girls were in the pool and one mounted the other and had her head under the water for about 10 seconds, then I panicked and broke them up - I know that during mating/mounting it is possible for the mounter to drown the mountee, so I was wondering:

How common is this?
Have you ever had to intervene to prevent an incident?
How long roughly should a duck be able to hold its breath under the water during mating before it's necessary to break them up?

I'm sure I didn't need to do that, but I do worry so would like to have a better idea for future reference

 

[duckking]

I'm in the same boat (pool?). Except I have a huge Rouen drake trying to mount a mallard. It's got me very worried......

 

[AdamD77]

Haha, yeah I just had a look at your topic, I must say a Rouen drake and Mallard duck does sound pretty worrying! Let's hope people have some answers...

 

[desertdarlene]

It does happen now and then, especially if multiple males are mounting her. I think ducks can hold their breath for a long time, though, but not too long. I would intervene if I see she's getting ganged up on and not getting a breath, but sometimes it's hard if they're out on a lake or pond and you can't get to them.

I worry about large ducks mounting small ones, too. But, sometimes muscovies will mount mallards on the water and the mallards survive and do fine.

 

[sourland]

As dd states the biggest problem is when multiple drakes try to breed the same duck. This can be a recipe for disaster.

 

[duckking]

I have 1 drake and 4 females, so I hope that is a good ratio.....It's just that he's so BIG.....

 

[Miss Lydia]

When I first saw my Muscovy girls doing this I started to intervene but just kept an eye on them, I don't know why they do it, maybe dominance? but it's been many years and they haven't drowned each other yet, The boys do it too but the girls just hold their breathe and make it through, as long as it's one on one I don't think there'd be a problem.

 

[destinduck]

This is very common normal duck behavior. Don't intervene or you can hurt your drake badly by breaking his penis (not joking on this BTW) Thus becoming a sterile boy. As long as you don't have multiple males at once on her,let them be. Ducks can hold their breaths a long time. Also here's some interesting trivia. Because of the design of both ducks genitalia it is the female that decides who the father will be out of multiple partner copulations. In other words she gets pregnant when and who she wants.

 

[EweSheep]

Let me see if I got this right.

If the female gets mated by several males and you say that the males have penises, would she allow peneration to "choose" the male to fertilize her eggs? I just can not see how she can "choose" the sperm herself unless she "closes" herself to the rest of the suitors.

 

[destinduck]

That's basically what she does. But without going into massive detail which I dont want to do (but you can) the design of her genatalia IS what makes this possible, I will say this though the boy is impressive in his own right.