24 Hungry Hens and an Aggressive Duck

Our chickens eat a lot; they go through a 50 lbs bag of feed in two weeks!  I used to get my exercise by slinging the feed bag over my shoulder and marching it from the metal storage bin in the garage to the plastic storage bin in the chicken coop on a biweekly basis.  However, since we found out that baby is on the way, this type of heavy lifting has been delegated to Ian (or anyone else I can coerce into doing it - but usually Ian).  So, when I notice that our coop feed stores are running low, Ian comes galloping down like the white (in this case camo) knight of chicken food to save the day and feed the masses.

The chickens are very appreciative - cooing and chirping as they watch their green bin and metal feeder get filled to the brim with delicious grains.

One fowl that remains particularly foul despite the arrival of delicious, fresh food is our male indian runner duck, Leah. (Side note: We named him Leah when we first got him thinking he was a she and the name stuck.)  I have this recurring problem of Leah switching from nice and friendly to nasty and aggressive.  He was in a bitey stage in June before we left on our trip, upon our return he was back to friendly and now over the past few days, he is back to bitey.  He nips at the legs of my pants when I enter the coop and yesterday he bit me hard right on the hand when I went to retrieve an egg that had been laid on the ground.  It hurt and it is really not fun to visit the chicken coop knowing that I will be chased around by an unappreciative and downright nasty duck!

I looked it up online and this seems to be a common issue with male runner ducks.  Other duck owners suggest the problem is that Leah is trying to be the alpha duck and to teach me to be a submissive part of the flock that he rules.  Yeah, like that is going to happen.  The proposed solution is to show Leah that I am the boss by either picking him up each time he tries to bite me and carrying him around on his back or by holding him down on the ground on his back in a submissive position.  Either way, I am only supposed to have to do this a few times before he gets the message that biting is not appropriate duck (or dog or human or Christmas tree) behaviour.

I will give it a try since I have nothing to lose and it may avoid duck l'orange being a feature dish on next week's menu.  Who would have thought I'd ever be reading up on how to discipline an unruly duck?  I'll keep you posted on whether it works.