Hi all! I tried the "search" function for this but couldn't figure out which keywords would get the results I was looking for 
I'm a newbie homestead dreamer, and like many people, step one was getting chickens last year. So far, we've had pretty good luck with our chickens. We took some losses last year - mostly Bantams who kept flying over the chicken yard fence - but for the most part our girls and roosters (Jersey Giants, Rhode Island Reds and a couple Brahmas) are good at sticking together when they free range, and heading together back to the coop well before dark.
We decided to try ducklings this summer and our luck was not nearly as good. When they were about a month old we lost 3 of 4 within 48 hours. We took a few days to read up and figure out how to prevent it from happening again, and in the meantime, our duck (a Swedish Blue) has decided he's king of the chickens. He runs around with them quacking while they cluck and can be quite bossy, even with the roosters who are about three times his size. He doesn't go in their coop, and we are still bringing him inside at night because we're so afraid of losing him to a predator, but we can't do that forever.
At this point I'm not quite sure what to do about introducing new ducklings to the older duck who is running with chickens. I'm afraid he'll be aggressive with them or that they won't bond with him, because they'll be so much smaller/younger than him right now and because who knows, maybe he has a bit of an identity crisis going on. But I also know ducks are social creatures who need other ducks around, and while he seems to be at least coexisting with the chickens that's not the same as him having his own kind to live with. How would you handle this?
I'm a newbie homestead dreamer, and like many people, step one was getting chickens last year. So far, we've had pretty good luck with our chickens. We took some losses last year - mostly Bantams who kept flying over the chicken yard fence - but for the most part our girls and roosters (Jersey Giants, Rhode Island Reds and a couple Brahmas) are good at sticking together when they free range, and heading together back to the coop well before dark.
We decided to try ducklings this summer and our luck was not nearly as good. When they were about a month old we lost 3 of 4 within 48 hours. We took a few days to read up and figure out how to prevent it from happening again, and in the meantime, our duck (a Swedish Blue) has decided he's king of the chickens. He runs around with them quacking while they cluck and can be quite bossy, even with the roosters who are about three times his size. He doesn't go in their coop, and we are still bringing him inside at night because we're so afraid of losing him to a predator, but we can't do that forever.
At this point I'm not quite sure what to do about introducing new ducklings to the older duck who is running with chickens. I'm afraid he'll be aggressive with them or that they won't bond with him, because they'll be so much smaller/younger than him right now and because who knows, maybe he has a bit of an identity crisis going on. But I also know ducks are social creatures who need other ducks around, and while he seems to be at least coexisting with the chickens that's not the same as him having his own kind to live with. How would you handle this?
