Wood duck boxes

[coachg]

With the drought this year it's been easy to clean out my wood duck boxes and put in new pine shavings. I was able to walk to all. Only 4 were so muddy I had to wear my high top boots . I have 14 boxes on 9 ponds . Cows had knock 3 off their posts so I was able to rescue those with minimal effort. Signs of egg shells in 9 boxes . I built the boxes out of cypress lumber . 5 boxes are over 10 years old . Only one of those needed to be replaced.

 

[coachg]

 

[coachg]

My favorite duck !

 

[M.Magis]

How large do you drill the holes? I have a pair in one of my ponds each spring, I figure they would prefer a decent box rather than where ever they've been nesting. There are no hollow trees so I don't where they've been nesting.

 

[coachg]

3x4 oval is recommended Good plans on DU website.

 

[M.Magis]

Thanks, I'll try to get one or two built this winter.

 

[coachg]

Just a heads up , please read about putting up the boxes , maintenance, etc . Building is the easy part , there is a commitment once you put them up . But very rewarding !!

 

[M.Magis]

Thanks, I'll check it out. I don't mind clean out and such. But I don't need any more critters relying on me for survival.

 

[coachg]

Just a few pointers , 1 . Don't put boxes on trees , 2. Need predator guards or some way to keep snakes / raccoons out of the boxes 3. Don't put too close . Multiple Hens will dump their eggs in a box and no hen will incubate them . 4 you need to put nesting material/ shavings in the box. I try to every year but sometimes it's every 2 years . That's the most important ones I can think of . The ponds I have more than one box on are long or have L shapes that you can't see one box from the next . Best reward is to see a brood of 10-12 little ones swimming with mom .

 

[puzzled in oregon]

There was a really little baby Wood Duck that showed up in my drive a couple years ago. My Dog grabbed it before I ever saw it.
But have no idea where it came from.. There is 2cnd or third growth timber on the north side of the house, and it is a good 1/8
of a mile south to a pond.

 

[M.Magis]

I've seen woodies nesting a surprising distance from standing water. I was turkey hunting once and a wood duck flew over head about 50mph through the timber and seemed to just disappear into a tree about 40' up. I looked closer and there was a 4" hole in the trunk up there she had flown into. I have no idea how they fly so fast through the trees.

 

[puzzled in oregon]

Then the timbered area is probably where it came from. Can the little ducks usually fly by the time they leave the nest ? Hope
so, 40' is a long ways down.

 

[greybeard]

I had 4 on my old pond, on top of 8' tee posts. I used 1 1/2 two hole conduit anchors to hold a piece of PVC to the back of the boxes, drilled a hole near the top of the teepost so it would stay put on to and set the whole thing down on the tee post. Had several nestings that I know of, but every one of the boxes floated off in the big 2017 Harvey flood. I found only 3 of them.

In the far distant, you see a line of trees. That's national forest. On evening late, I heard my wife yelling at the dog and when I went around to the front yard, she was trying to herd a whole bunch of baby wood ducks that had come running out of the forest and were heading toward the pond by running under the house to avoid the dogs.
Not many made it.
They weren't safe in my pond either. More than once (and some people don't believe it) I saw ducklings go skitting across the water when I walked up and a big bass come up and grabbed one.

I only have one pic of 1 of them before I put it back on it's post. You can see the teepost between the pine trees.
I liked the idea of the boxes, but the truth was, I had wood ducks all over that place even without the boxes.

 

[M.Magis]

Then the timbered area is probably where it came from. Can the little ducks usually fly by the time they leave the nest ? Hope
so, 40' is a long ways down.

I wondered the same thing. I always assumed they nested over water, but I guess that's not always possible. Of course I can't guarantee these ones made it either, they were up there a ways.

 

[coachg]

They nest where they can find a hole in a hollow tree or a nesting box . And no the babies can't fly but they will jump from high places and sort of glide to the ground. It's amazing ! I know of a nest on top of a Mtn with only a small wet weather pond nearby. Google baby wood ducks leaving their nest. Cool videos !

 

[tcolvin]

With the drought this year it's been easy to clean out my wood duck boxes and put in new pine shavings. I was able to walk to all. Only 4 were so muddy I had to wear my high top boots . I have 14 boxes on 9 ponds . Cows had knock 3 off their posts so I was able to rescue those with minimal effort. Signs of egg shells in 9 boxes . I built the boxes out of cypress lumber . 5 boxes are over 10 years old . Only one of those needed to be replaced.

We raised a bunch of wood ducks by incubating the eggs for sale a couplec of years. They say that only about 2-4% make it in the wild. We made cages about 15 foot long, 8 ft wide and tapered from 2 ft on narrow end to 4 ft on the end that went into the water. When the hatched egg babies got big enough (they were fed in a cage built on to the incubator and I forget but maybe 6 weeks they were moved to the water cages and fed there until it was flying time. We had three large cages and would have a going away show when release time came. People from all over would come to see the top of the big cage was open they would jump up and fly out in the water. There would be over a hundred or more. After they left the cage they would after a short time leave the pond and fly off somewhere. Every evening for the longest they would all fly back in for the night and stay. When you were out riding the golf cart across the dam and around the pond you would sometimes have to stop and wait from them to cross in front of you. They did this for all of one summer and when winter came they left. Sometimes a few (maybe 20-25) would come back and walk around the yard for awhile then fly off again. I remember before the water cages were installed I would go around twice a week and check the boxes for eggs. Sometimes mama would be in the box and if I hadn't recorded the eggs I would hold one hand over the hole and open the top of the box and slide her to one side and count the eggs.(she would just set there as I slowly close the lid and kept my hand in place over the hole for a minute or so, then just slowlycwalkbogf to the next box. I kept good records of each box on a plastic white tab I had made to keep records on. I even timed how long the babies would stay in the box before they would jump out and made me a hole clover that when I knew the next morning they would jump when mama would call them out, I would put it on late that evening with mama in the box with the babies and leave it on for the night. The next morning I would get my grand kids up and take them out to the box they would be in. I'd get them a good seat for viewing and I'd take the door cover off and go back with the kids and have them to be quite. With in 10-15 minutes mama would hit the water and swim around and start calling the babies out. They would jump out into the water and start swimming around mom. After a little bit mom would take them up in the wooded area out of sight. You would see them sometimes off and on until they got big enough to fly. It was a very interesting hobby. We probably over time turn 5-600 wood ducks loose over a 3,year period.