Bachelor Keeping
Giving a group of boys a chance in life
Having a group of drakes can really be something special. Seeing the boys without a hormone surge for females makes their personality really sparkle!
Many drakes, like roosters needs home every year, month, day. Many of them go to slaughter. Considering open up your home to a group of drakes saves not just one life but atleast one more.
Why is it harder to rehome drakes or roosters?
This is cause of the male to female ratitio. For one drake you need atleast four females, to have a flock in harmony. For roosters its usally one rooster needs ten females.
What is a bachelor group then? This term is used for when you have a group of poultry who is only boys and lives completly without any female interaction.
Plus side of boys
Having a group of drakes without females have many advantages.
- They dosent sound as much as the females. Since the drakes sound are more raspy, compared to the females loud quack.
- The drakes are better hunters for pest control and are even better hunters when they dont have to think about the females.
- They will get more personal, with a bigger personality. Compared to if they would be alone with four females.
Rooster bachelors
Roosters only have their biggest hormonal phase around 6 months of age to 1 year. One of the more tricky situations with roosters they they dont all work togheter. Breed and personality will play a big part if they can work togheter.
You have a bigger chance of sucess having a bachelor flock of roosters if they have grown up togheter. Without hen the roosters will form their own pecking order.
A group of roosters will become more affectionet to its owner when they dont have hens to think about.
I have had time to gather some experience within this year about bachelor ganders.
To be honest it aint that much to think about, they are much easier than drakes. Main point: the fights are so much more violent.
During their maiting season I have found my geese all bloody after a fight, but its mostly from hitting their beaks.
Most damage comes from when they fight during the night. There for seperate them during the night so they still can see each other.
Geese maiting season lasts from Febuary until end of April.
Gander relationship is amazing to see. They truley love and protect eachother like they would love and protect a female.
What suprised me the most is when they started building nests even tho they dont have any females. They have that strong of family bond.
The ganders have really good protection instincts there for make exellent guardians for other poultry.
What to think about with all the testosterone
No female in sight!
This is the most important part. Its not enough having them just seperated. They shouldnt have any visual of a female.
They will fight to the death if they still have a visual over a female. This is even more important when it comes to roosters, cause of their claws and beaks. Dont get fooled tho, drakes can hurt one another really badly.
Amount of space
The space is gonna be important for both drakes and roosters. Imagine their keeping as little sibblings, they are gonna get on each others nerves. Giving them a huge amount of space are gonna give them the optition to move away from squabbled or just avoid an annoying sibling.
Also its a way to make sure they drain their energy by exploring and moving around in a proper space.
Make sure they have space where they can hide if they need to avoid a fight. I think this is more important for roosters. Give them for example a perch they jump up on.
For drakes I learned later on that you can assist the one lower in the pecking order by having 2 pools. The one thats lowest aint gonna be allowed in the "big pool".
Be ready for seperation.
Spring until late summer is maiting season for ducks.
The first spring for your drakes will not be any problem. They will be best friends! BUT the second one, they will be enemies. The hormones for the drakes will be at its highest the second maiting season. Even if they dont have any females, they will fight or chase each other.
Compared to the roosters, drakes hormones act much diffrent. How to explain it best: they get such a huge surge of hormones that they become rabid ducks. They dont know what to do with them self.
If they dont have a female at this point they can target the one thats lowest in the pecking order for its sexual frustration. There for its really important to observe the dynamic of your drakes when maiting season comes and be ready to take the decision when to split them up until they calm down.
Bachelor of drakes goes always better in pairs or a even number. If you start with 3, like I did and learned the hard way, that one drake is gonna be the vitcim of bullying during maiting season. Increasing the number to 4 for an example, will make it easier with a seperation or they will form natural pairs/groups.
Here comes an advantage to have atleast 4 drakes. Cause when you do need to split them up you can divide them in pairs and no one needs to be alone.
They can still use the same run. You only need a see thrue fencing keeping them from hurting each other. Compost fencing is an amazing thing to situation like that. If you dont have a good flying breed.
When it comes to bachelor roosters where I dont have any personal experience I can only write what I would prepare my run for if they cant get along. Dividing the run with fencing thats removable and with the proper height so they cant fly over.
Fights
For any bird society, pecking order is important. For both my roosters and drakes I there for let them settle their fights as long I dont see blood.
While pecking order aint that much more important among ducks its crucial among roosters. If you step in between when you dont have to, they are gonna start new fights until their have setttled their order.
Mounting each other
You will see them still mounting each other during maiting seasons.
I think there is two options why they do this: one is sexual frustration. The other is a form of dominance, just like dogs do.
So dont think one of your drakes is a female.
Just like females, if you have one that gets mounted regulary during maiting season are gonna start to ger nacked around the neck. This will also cause stress to a male that aint biology programmed to be mounted. Here is where seperation is gonna be needed for a while during maiting season.
Dancing
You will start seeing your boys moving in a odd faschion, synchronized and making a kind of farting noise.This is the males maiting dance.
They will dance even without females. I have had them dancing for me but also I have heard the dance is kinda competition amongst them self. Who is the must suited to have a mate.
Bachelors in a group of 100
This is rare. In my research about peoples experience with bachelors flock. A lady answerd me that she has a flock of 100 of bachelors. Here their hiarchy becomes abit diffrent. I think what she wrote was kind of faschinating in how their group dynamic work.
She wrote: " I have a bachelor flock of over 100 and the dynamics are very different from a small bachelor flock. The biggest changes are how breeding season is handled since with a large flock, select drakes are going in and out of breeding pens. As you know, Runners are active breeders that do not require water to successfully mate. Re-introducing a breeding drake or two into the bachelor flock will result in fighting and often death during the breeding season so extra care must be taken.
Within a large bachelor flock, you will see smaller social groups or clans as I like to call them. These clans are usually formed at a young age but it is also not unusual for them to reject and accept new members at any time which makes the clan dynamically more fluid. Most of the time, male to male aggression in a large flock happens between drakes of different clans. Unlike a small bachelor flock where the aggression will be between a couple of drakes from the same clan. In a small bachelor flock, death is not usually the result of two drakes fighting. In a flock large enough to have clans, death is often the result because other clan members will join into the fight against one drake. This is why a large bachelor flock needs to handled very differently from a small one."
I wanna end this post with quotes from two instagram accounts that also have bachelor flocks. That where so kind and wrote a message to me about their experience with bachelor flocks.
"I'm not really an expert but I feel like people think they're just savage. They are not but they do nip (especially in the spring).
I think people need to be more understanding of them and give them the benefit. If people don't like the biting then they could try wearing gloves.
I think it should be noted that they should have plenty of space as I suspect the smaller the space the harder it is for them to get along. But I've only had my boys for a couple of years so I am still learning myself.
They're all different. Alba is pretty docile whereas Inky will chase you down. People should not feel like they are all naughty or all good either. x"
"To Begin with, having boys only wasn't the plan. We thought we were getting girls to lay eggs. But we took ducklings. And by the time they grew up and turned out to be boys we were totally in love with them. So we called them a "Boys Band" and we love them dearly.
They are much quieter than girls.
They are very calm. We let them roam freely around the garden, so they spend all days exploring and sleeping and bathing.
They have their own micro - pond (a sort of a swimming pool). They love it dearly, this is their most treasured possession. We change water there every couple of days, and they go INSANE when they get fresh water.
They don't destroy plants and grass. Only when it's damp and rainy they make mud puddles when searching for worms.
They are extremely picky eaters, they eat ONLY sweet peas and poultry food. They also like lettuce, fresh kale. And of course THE WORMS - from spring to late fall they follow us around the garden expecting us to dig up some worms for them."
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