I’m sure you don’t see this very often. 😉 This is speckly hen and one of our duck hens fighting. The duck hen has a brood of some 16 ducklings and she doesn’t like old speckly grabbing their food and pecking them. These fights are usually quite harmless because the animals can flee for safety – they are not confined in pens or coops.
Old speckly hen has always been quite a bully, sometimes resulting in duckling fatalities because of repetitive pecking – so honestly, she had it coming.
Generally, ducks are not as bloody and violent in their fights compared to chickens. Without the sharp claws and beaks, ducks can’t really inflict wounds and can really just rely on their weight and the strength of their wings to subdue their opponents. So, this fight just ended with old speckly hen running away and mommy duck hissing at her. I doubt that speckly hen learned her lesson though …
Shortly after feeding the ducks this afternoon, I noticed this unusual behaviour amongst a couple of mature female ducks. These are mature egg-laying duck hens. They have just finished eating when they began to mimic the sweeping motions of feeding with their beaks. Here are two videos showing this peculiar behaviour. The second video shows the ducks stretching their necks, moving their heads upwards.
I assumed it was part of a mating ritual but the first video might dispute this, where there is a mature male duck (drake) nearby, drinking from a plastic basin, and inadvertently pushing one of the duck hens aside, a bit of a scuffle ensuing.
This fish floated dead* in the pond so we decided to give it to the pigs. They didn’t want it. To the chickens, they didn’t want it. To the ducks, and this was their response. Yet another behaviour that we can only speculate upon. A similar behaviour occurred earlier this year, when a female duck was killed by the alpha drake, see Do Ducks Know How To Grieve.
*We have a not so large tilapia pond. Quite a number of small tilapia have appeared. I wasn’t able to catch any of the large tilapia lately because they have become smarter (and less hungry since it is chesa season and some of the fruits have fallen into the pond). As the fish population grows, the older and bigger ones die.
In early 2015, I saw the oldest drake in a group of about 15 ducks forcibly mating with a female duck of about the same age. I have read in various literature on ducks that the mating behaviour of ducks can be quite violent. So I assumed, despite the distressful appearance of the female duck, that what was happening was quite normal, just the way of nature. Besides, the ducks are free-range, so ducks can flee when they are threatened by other ducks.
Unfortunately, in just a matter of minutes, I saw the female duck lying dead on the ground and the drake walking away. It was horrifying! I couldn’t believe it. I felt sorry and upset that I was wrong in thinking that the female duck would be alright.
A small group of ducks begin to gather near the dead one.
Then some five minutes later, I saw a group of ducks converge near the dead duck. The female ducks were the first to gather, followed by the second (younger) drake. Soon, the ducks positioned themselves near the dead duck, looking on as if they were grieving.
A most curious behaviour of ducks gather near the dead duck, looking on, as if grieving.
This went on for about fifteen minutes until the older drake, the culprit, arrived. The other ducks looked at him.
The culprit arrives (encircled in the photo) and the others take notice.
Twenty minutes had passed when the young drake began to confront the older drake, causing the other ducks to slowly disperse.
The younger drake confronts the culprit and the group begins to disperse.
That same day, I decided that we must cull the older drake. With him around, there had been constant fighting and forceful mating. Such behaviour not only distress the ducks but have also killed younger ducks that got caught in the fight. This decision to cull turned out to be a very good decision.
At the moment, we have two drakes that service some 10 female ducks. The two drakes also get along very well with each other, the older teaching the younger one about mating and looking after the females. It is necessary to cull in order to stop unnecessary stress in the duck population.
