What to do with two drakes?

[Money Pit Zoo]

I have two five month old Pekin drakes that I got straight run at TSC. I was getting kind of fed up with duck keeping (for no eggs, no less!) so I was going to cull them and have a yummy duck dinner, but upon making that decision, I just can’t bring myself to do it - they are too cute! I have tried my best to find them a new home (or new freezer camp) and no one wants them. So now I’m questioning two things that I am hoping some duck-experienced people might chime in on.

Are two drakes able to be happy together? They fight daily with each other, biting at feathers, feet, whatever they can grab. I saw one forcing the other’s head underwater repeatedly yesterday. They try and mount each other. No blood yet. I expected there would be some fighting. But is this too much? Are they to be doomed to a life of frustration with just the two of them? They spend the majority of the days peacefully hanging out in their pen.

I don’t really want more ducks, but I know I only ever want happy ducks. Therefore, if two lone drakes can’t be happy and I’m not willing to eat them, would 4 females for the both of them be enough? Or is that dooming everyone to an unhappy life full of fights and overuse?

 

[KathiQuacks]

It is possible for 2 drakes to get along, especially when raised together, but there will of course be at least some fighting every now and then. Separation through a fence may be necessary when they’re most hormonal.

The biting, pushing underwater, and attempting to mount already sounds like some sexual frustration..

4 females is not enough, no. Personally, I’d recommend closer to 8 - 10 females for 2 males.

A female-only flock, or a mostly female flock with just a single male, is going to be the calmest flock you can get.

 

[ruthhope]

@Money Pit Zoo My flock are all drakes. I have had 2 pekin clutchmates who were tightly bonded but one bullied the other. I ended up separating the bully and sending him to my son's flock (son's drake came to me and got on OK with the boy who had been bullied.) After about 12 weeks, my son wanted his drake back and so bully boy came back. He and his clutch mate were so glad to see each other. They immediately went back into tight bonding behavior, but when the bully tried to bully again, the other was having none of it. He defended himself, and refused to be excluded from the wading pool etc. And the bullying stopped. I was able to rehome them as a tightly bonded pair.

So I think that at worst, your boys will need separating each spring when their hormones are rising. But separating them once for 2 - 3 months might be enough to break the aggressive behavior

 

[nao57]

Once they have this behavior of demanding dominance over each other its hard to stop. So if you keep them you want to get squash that behavior at once. You can try separating them but letting them still see each other, like through an wire fence or something.

However, not all drakes will be this aggressive. I'd done a lot of experiments with trying to figure this out. And in several batches of ducks that I did, usually there was only 1 or 2 males that were very aggressive. The others could fall into line with being somewhat tame and peaceful. But once 1 of them starts to realize it can dominate the others its hard to 'tame' it out of them. Some of them I put into freezer camp just because it was injuring hens. I couldn't risk having that, and I tried to fix the behavior a bunch of times, and the 1 in question wouldn't learn from its mistakes.

Now... if 1 drake perceives itself to be sort of like an alpha, this has a chance for the aggressiveness to surface. I don't think its an absolute that it will occur though.

Your best chance is to find a couple ducks that are very mild mannered and docile and work with them. its easier to do that than to work with some that are already not docile. And if they are aggressive you can't trust them to not injure hens; that's what I learned. Once the aggressiveness comes in, what often happens is that they'll find a hen, and often ignore other hens to the point of mating all the time with the 1 hen they are obsessed with to the point of constant injury; so this can happen still even if you have enough hens per drake.

BUT having more than enough hens per drake does much increase your chances to avoid injuries.

These kinds of problems are why its easier to limit how many drakes you have. And to also focus on hens. There's a reason people do this; to keep them acting more mild mannered in behavior. You do have an increase in bad behavior from aggression being possible whenever you have more drakes than a minimalistic drake approach.

And PEKINS are a very good choice because they are heavier. So this makes them slower. So if your hens are non-pekins they can get away from a drake male pekin easily if he's too aggressive. And if the hens are pekins they are a bit sturdier also. I've found pekins to be very useful and of value compared to other duck types that I've tried.

HOWEVER there are many upsides to ducks. 1 of them that gets ignored often is that people say that out of all the different kinds of animals you could possibly have, DUCKS are the least likely to injure small children, or children in general. And this is even more so than chickens. So they are interesting, and useful. And kids love ducks. They do seem to like them more than chickens.

 

[Miss Lydia]

We had another member who had an all drake flock and in hormone season the boys were in separate fenced areas but next to each other I don't remember how he did night time but dog crates would work especially for just 2. If you love your boys and are happy with them why not just make accommodations that work during the worst of the hormones then come September try putting them back together again and see how it goes. It's really sad so many drakes are given up when they really are cool birds they are just acting like drakes.

 

[Lori-in-Californa]

I have two five month old Pekin drakes that I got straight run at TSC. I was getting kind of fed up with duck keeping (for no eggs, no less!) so I was going to cull them and have a yummy duck dinner, but upon making that decision, I just can’t bring myself to do it - they are too cute! I have tried my best to find them a new home (or new freezer camp) and no one wants them. So now I’m questioning two things that I am hoping some duck-experienced people might chime in on.

Are two drakes able to be happy together? They fight daily with each other, biting at feathers, feet, whatever they can grab. I saw one forcing the other’s head underwater repeatedly yesterday. They try and mount each other. No blood yet. I expected there would be some fighting. But is this too much? Are they to be doomed to a life of frustration with just the two of them? They spend the majority of the days peacefully hanging out in their pen.

I don’t really want more ducks, but I know I only ever want happy ducks. Therefore, if two lone drakes can’t be happy and I’m not willing to eat them, would 4 females for the both of them be enough? Or is that dooming everyone to an unhappy life full of fights and overuse?

I had one drake and 7 ducks and my drake was still a sexual predator. He kept injuring the girls, though he was very civil and social with me …so it was very hard for me to cull him. Gave him 3 years and still a predator.
They all play mate with each other, my gurls mount each other and do the head/neck pushing thing. (I read that this causes the ducks to turn up their tails so they are easier to mate.)
My guess is 2 drakes will injur each other, but that is based on the injury the drake does to the gurls…so maybe not an accurate indicator. I have read that two males will establish the dominant drake, and then settle in.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Rehoming is also an option. Or drake Jail

 

[Butterbeandip]

Hi,

Sorry, bit late to reply to this thread but I thought it would be helpful to share.

I would highly recommend buying a stuffed toy (they have large pekin stuffed toys on Temu around 90cm in length) - leave it in a paddling pool/shallow water and your aggressive drake will mate with it rather than his brother.

I have a pair of drakes and having a ‘gf’ keeps them totally calm and happy… can’t emphasis enough how well it works.

Good luck!