A pet owner had to have his duck’s penis removed after it tried to mate with its female companions 10 times a day.
Josh Watson claims ‘over-amorous’ Dave the Duck’s private parts first became infected in October after he wouldn’t stop trying to mate with his friends Dora, Freda and Edith.
The pet bird was prescribed antibiotics and painkillers and Josh, 39, of Torquay, Devon, was told to give him an intimate wash every day.
But the ‘nymphomaniac’ refused to give up his ways and his owner was forced to refer him to the exotic species department at Highcroft Veterinary Hospital in Bristol.
Experts decided there was no other option and the duck’s penis was removed on Thursday.
Dave the Duck had to have his penis removed after it became infected as a result of mating with his friends too often
The ‘nymphomaniac’ refused to give up his ways and his owner was forced to refer him to the exotic species department at Highcroft Veterinary Hospital in Bristol
Josh 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.
‘It’s not even mating season at the moment and obviously over mating season he gets more of a drive to do it.
‘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.
‘One of them really doesn’t like him probably because of that. But the other two are quite receptive.’
Since returning from Bristol, Dave the duck has been separated from his peers to fully recover after his surgery.
The dental service engineer and his partner’s four three-year-old ducks no longer lay as many eggs as they used to and have become pets.
The duck spend their days on the couple’s big lawn and in an enclosure at the top of the garden at night.
Pictured: Experts decided there was no other option and Dave’s penis was removed on Thursday
Josh said: ‘The end of his penis had basically died and it was pretty horrific. It looked weird – it was quite worrying.
‘It started not going in and we’d give him a bath to keep it clean but then the tip started going gangrenous and getting infected so that’s when we had to take him into the vet.
‘They gave him some antibiotics and told us to bathe it every day and we pushed his willy in twice a day to make sure it was going back in and to keep it from going septic but that obviously didn’t work.
‘They referred us up to the vet in Bristol and they decided it was best to chop his willy off. I think he’s got about a centimetre left so it’s not usable I’m afraid.
‘He hasn’t actually mixed in back with the females yet so I don’t know if he’s tried to have a go or not. I don’t know whether he would do.’
Vet Sonya Miles, who operated on Dave, said some ‘overuse and him being far too amorous’ had caused his penis to prolapse before he injured it and it became infected.
The 31-year-old said if they hadn’t removed his penis the infection could have spread elsewhere in his body and put his life at risk.
Ms Miles, of Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, said Dave would have been in quite a lot of pain and discomfort if it hadn’t been picked up and that it’s a common injury among drakes.
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.
‘Even though I don’t have a penis it sort of still makes you want to cross your legs.
‘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.
‘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.
‘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.
‘I think he chases so many female ducks around probably just because he can, to be honest.
‘He’s just one male with a load of ladies. He’s going to definitely enjoy that scenario I think.’