The Accidental Smallholder Forum

Livestock => Poultry & Waterfowl => Topic started by: twizzel on May 01, 2014, 12:11:26 am

Title: Do drakes fight as bad as cockerels?
Post by: twizzel on May 01, 2014, 12:11:26 am
I hatched out some khaki Campbell ducklings about a month ago. Got a feeling there are more drakes than ducks out of the 5 of them! The friend who gave me the eggs has a colleague who wants some ducks as pets, not fussed on breed or sex. Would homing some of the drakes with her cause fighting issues like can happen with cockerels?
Title: Re: Do drakes fight as bad as cockerels?
Post by: FrostyM on May 01, 2014, 12:51:38 am
We were sold 3 khaki campbell "ducks" which turned out to be drakes. After the eggs were slow in coming we looked into it and they turned out to be drakes. We never spotted or fighting or trouble of any sort. And they were in with a single duck which you would have thought would have caused fighting. It's my only experience of keeping drakes together but it seemed to be fine. I don't know if this is always the case but it was no problem for us.
Title: Re: Do drakes fight as bad as cockerels?
Post by: shygirl on May 01, 2014, 06:52:31 am
none of my drakes have been fighters though ours have been of different breeds - but dont introduce a solitary duck to them or her life will be hell.
Title: Re: Do drakes fight as bad as cockerels?
Post by: Daisys Mum on May 01, 2014, 07:02:46 am
I have given away drakes before as I've had too many, mine are runners and no they don't seem to fight, I think if there are no females there is nothing worth fighting over!
Title: Re: Do drakes fight as bad as cockerels?
Post by: clydesdaleclopper on May 01, 2014, 09:16:38 am
No they don't fight but if there is a girl among them she will probably end up with internal injuries from excessive male attention.
Title: Re: Do drakes fight as bad as cockerels?
Post by: HesterF on May 01, 2014, 10:05:37 am
I've got five ducks and four drakes in together in my Silver Appleyard pen and there is the odd skirmish and a couple of the ducks have worked out how to escape unwanted attentions by scooting under the netting but nothing major. Certainly drakes all together should be fine - just as cockerels all together are fine if there's no hen in sight. But is that really what they want? No eggs?
Title: Re: Do drakes fight as bad as cockerels?
Post by: sabrina on May 01, 2014, 11:07:11 am
I  ended up with 3 drakes and one female. The buzzard got the female when she was young. I had to rehome the drakes as they kept trying to drown each other. Not nice watching one bird hold the other under water. Sometimes two would gang up on one. they all went to separate homes and that was the end of us having ducks.
Title: Re: Do drakes fight as bad as cockerels?
Post by: shygirl on May 01, 2014, 11:15:35 am
I  ended up with 3 drakes and one female. The buzzard got the female when she was young. I had to rehome the drakes as they kept trying to drown each other. Not nice watching one bird hold the other under water. Sometimes two would gang up on one. they all went to separate homes and that was the end of us having ducks.

thats how they mate too, drakes can kill ducks by drowning during mating. poor boy.
Title: Re: Do drakes fight as bad as cockerels?
Post by: Nethermoor Pigs on May 03, 2014, 01:13:50 pm
We had 3 drakes and one duck at one point - once they had established the hierarchy there were few squabbles.  Not ideal though for the duck - bit too much!
Title: Re: Do drakes fight as bad as cockerels?
Post by: northfifeduckling on May 04, 2014, 06:02:51 pm
We had 2 drakes at some point until the 2 collaborators in rape drowned one of the girls. One on his own is plenty of male attention for the girls.  :&>