Subject: Mallard duck behavior

From: [email-masked] (K. Daniel Warco)
Date: 17 Jul 1995 00:24:11 GMT

Hi All,

I have 13 mallards.  There are 3 males and 10 females.  They are kept in 
a large fenced in area.  I have 4 plastic swimming pools that I change 
the water in twice a week or more.

In the last 2 weeks, twice I have heard a bunch of noise from the ducks.  
When I go to investigate I find all of the ducks in a circle.  Two of the 
ducks are in the circle with one on it's back and the other pecking the 
heck out of it.  It looks as though the one on it's back is nearly dead 
hardly moving at all.  When I enter the pen all of the ducks scatter. The 
one on it's back gets up very slow and limps really bad.  After a minute 
or so she gets with the others as if nothing happened.

Is this normal duck behavior?  I have had 5 of the ducks for over a year 
and have never seen this before.  The other 8 are offspring and about 4 
months old.  The two ducks "fighting" are both female.

Has any one else ever seen this behavior?  Are the ducks just setting the 
pecking order and are they really hurting one another?

Thanks in advance.

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