Runner duck over mating?

[Jenthecanadian]

I have a lovely Muscovy girl that I believe is being overmated by one of our runner drakes. He constantly follows her around and mates with her. He first tried in the pool but I think he couldn’t, erm, make it work mechanically, so now he chases her around on land. I didn’t realize he was singling her out so much until today. She’s usually pretty assertive and will tell him off, but with mating season he seems to be ramping up. She’s exhausted and let me pick her up. From reading through other forums I’ve come up with with the following :

- I’m going to separate her for a few days to give her time to rest. When I put her back in, I’m going to supervise. If they still attack her I’ll have to separate her until breeding season is done.

- I need more females. I currently have two runner drakes, one runner female, and two female muscovies. We don’t have room for more girls right now, but I’m trying to convince my husband to get more. This has been an ongoing thing! I’m not willing to cull any drakes.

Any other ideas? How long will breeding season last? Last year they were separated for breeding season, but that was because the muscovies were new and we were doing the slow integration. Will my girl recover?

 

[fatty and friends]

seperate them, you can just put the boys and girls in seperate areas (that’s what i do) and then they’ll be fine even if they can see each other (that way is best because once mating season is over it’ll be easy to put them all right back together)

 

[cheezenkwackers]

She will recover but you are making it worse by removing her, I would remove him. You also might want to separate the two drakes or split the flick some other way. She is at the bottom of the pecking order. If you separate only her, the message you send is that he successfully ran her off. He is not going after her because he is sexually frustrated but because he is a drake bully. His hormones will go down at the end of summer and they can go back together in September. I had a hen die from similar drake injuries. I eventually rehomed one drake but still have to send my current drake (who has 5 hens) to drake jail at this time of year. In my opinion, drakes are hormonal bulllies and small flocks take a lot of work.

 

[Jenthecanadian]

Thank you both. Is this part of your spring routine every year? It’s never been a problem when it was just my runners, but with the muscovies it seems to be an issue. What’s odd is that the rest of the year it’s her pulling tail feathers and bossing the boys

 

[cheezenkwackers]

Yep, my drake is 5 years old and it hasn’t gotten better. That is strange that she usually bosses him but those drake hormones turn Dr.Jekyl into Mr. Hyde.