Dave after his operation (Picture: Kennedy News and Pics)

When Josh Watson’s duck Dave couldn’t stop having sex, he was reluctant to intervene.

But Dave’s antics led to him injuring his penis and getting an infection – so now it’s had to be removed.

Before his injury, Dave was mating with his friends Dora, Freda and Edith up to 10 times a day.

Josh noticed that the end of his penis had ‘died’ and took him to the vet.


Dave was prescribed antibiotics and painkillers and his owners were told to wash his penis daily, before pushing it back in – but sadly it didn’t help.

Dave continued trying to have sex and eventually, they decided the only thing they could do was remove his penis.



He still has about one centimetre left and he can urinate as ducks only use them for mating.

Josh, from Torquay, Devon, said: ‘He’s doing fine now, he’s quite resilient for a duck. The only downfall is that he’s lost his willy. I think he feels pretty upset about it.

‘I think he’s a nymphomaniac. He’s got a high sex drive basically. So I think that’s what caused it.

‘He tries to mate with his female companions a lot. Every chance he can get.. I’d say between five and ten times a day, maybe more.’

Josh added that most ducks calm down once mating season is over but Dave never has.

He said: ‘He doesn’t stop throughout the year. Over winter he’s meant to calm down. The ducks stop laying eggs but he doesn’t stop mating. He just carries on.

‘I think his female companions do like him. They obviously sometimes get fed up with him and wander off.

‘He does try at every available opportunity but sometimes he gets turned down.

They decided the operation was the best thing for Dave (Picture: Kennedy News and Media)

‘One of them really doesn’t like him probably because of that. But the other two are quite receptive.’

Josh has returned from Bristol and has been kept away from the other ducks to help him recover from his surgery.

The couple keeps the ducks as pets on their lawn, with an enclosure for them to sleep in at night.

Vet Sonya Miles, who operated on Dave, said some ‘overuse’ had caused his penis to prolapse before he injured it and it became infected.

She said: ‘It turns out Dave had been over-amorous with the ladies that he lives with which had caused his penis to prolapse.

‘This resulted in his penis getting traumatised and then pretty infected. He’d basically injured the tip of his penis and had a wound on it that had got infected.

‘Normally it goes back inside him once he’s finished [mating] but it stayed out and obviously when it’s out it’s bashed and stood on and pecked at and god knows what.



‘Female ducks can actually be quite aggressive and if they don’t want his attention then they will peck at anything including his penis. I think [his penis] took the brunt of it, unfortunately. It’s brutal.’

Sonya said that they felt they had no choice but to remove it to make him more comfortable.

‘All of us knew that as soon as we saw it there was really only one thing we could do and that was to remove it before it got any worse,’ she added.

‘It was very much a team effort. One of us saw him in, one of us did the surgery, and our exotic [species] specialist nurses made sure he stayed alive and was comfortable.’

Now he’s had the operation, Sonya said it won’t have too much of an impact on him in the future.

She said: ‘He won’t be able to successfully breed which isn’t a problem for the way he is kept but it means he’ll lead maybe a slightly joyless life in comparison [to before].

‘On the face of it he was actually pretty oblivious to the fact that he’d lost his manhood. He was up and about and eating and doing his normal duck things immediately post-surgery.

‘I imagine once he realises what he’s missing he may be slightly more concerned. He’ll definitely still try to mate. It’s not going to stop him.

‘But at the end of the day it’s not going to stop him having a completely normal life. It’s not going to bother him too much.


‘I felt sorry for him more than anything but also really pleased that his owners were so caring. It’s nice to have a client who is willing to do that much for their pet.

‘A lot of people go “oh it’s just a duck” but he’s not – he’s a loved pet.’

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