MountainGaurdian
Songster
I live in a very rural area of north Idaho and I have a great many predatorial birds to contend with here on my farm.
The Eagles and Herons fishing in my ponds is not a problem I enjoy watching the Eagles hit the water of my largest pond down behind the barn and pull out a 22 inch large mouth bass, that is a sight to see. I also enjoy watching the male blue heron sit in the pine tree behind my house and dive in catching cat fish to eat and take back to their nest.
I have learned how to deal with the chickens, I keep all of my excess roosters anymore and I let them out in the early spring while hens are locked up laying eggs and nesting. The roos are pretty quick at learning to watch for the red tail hawks, chicken hawks, bald eagles, red kites, gyrfalcons, barn owls, screech owls etc, I lose a few but the ones that make it are pretty savvy and by the time I allow the hens out and about in the late summer they keep the hens pretty safe from the birds of prey. It also helps that my chickens are a cross between well flighted bantams and full size breeds and nearly all of them can fly reasonably well.
The problem that I haven't been able to figure out yet is ducks, I have yet to ever have ducks survive through a full summer season. I have five ponds here on my farm ranging in size from 35 feet in diameter on the smallest pond to the 110 foot diameter 14 foot deep pond behind the house to the 300 foot by 170 foot pond 14 feet deep with an island down behind the barn. With these ponds I have plenty of wild Canadian geese and a returning pair of wild ducks each year but it has been my dream for many years to see these ponds covered in domestic ducks. I like birds, I love it here with all the wild birds, but I also quite enjoy domestic birds as well.
The first year I tried ducks I started out with 18 full grown ducks, and didn't have a one by the end of the summer. In the years since then I have tried a total of 19 more full grown ducks and lost every single one of them. I had a woman gave me a call today and in spite of her great efforts to keep her duck from having babies she has 14 baby ducks running around now and she is offering them to me. Raising them as young uns is easy I have that down, but I need to come up with a plan for next year that will keep them safe from aerial predators. I want ducks at least on the mid sized pond behind the house, my bedroom window opens out over the pond and I love watching the birds out on the pond from my window in the morning.
My first and initial thought was too create a couple large bald eagle sculpture out of mache, I used to make large creatures and what not in HS out of mache and I am quite skilled at that. If I were to make a couple realistic eagles and hang them 30 or 40 feet above my pond on a line hung between a couple pine trees maybe I could scare away other predatorial birds?
I could even go so far as to make wings that move in a breeze on the sculptures. This might likely keep the Canadian geese, wild ducks and wild turkeys from visiting the pond behind the house but they would still visit the other four ponds.
Anyone here ever use fake predatorial birds to spook off other predatorial birds? I also have an outdoor speaker mounted to the house and if needed I could even record an eagle cry on the computer and play it on a timed loop over the speaker or something.
The Eagles and Herons fishing in my ponds is not a problem I enjoy watching the Eagles hit the water of my largest pond down behind the barn and pull out a 22 inch large mouth bass, that is a sight to see. I also enjoy watching the male blue heron sit in the pine tree behind my house and dive in catching cat fish to eat and take back to their nest.
I have learned how to deal with the chickens, I keep all of my excess roosters anymore and I let them out in the early spring while hens are locked up laying eggs and nesting. The roos are pretty quick at learning to watch for the red tail hawks, chicken hawks, bald eagles, red kites, gyrfalcons, barn owls, screech owls etc, I lose a few but the ones that make it are pretty savvy and by the time I allow the hens out and about in the late summer they keep the hens pretty safe from the birds of prey. It also helps that my chickens are a cross between well flighted bantams and full size breeds and nearly all of them can fly reasonably well.
The problem that I haven't been able to figure out yet is ducks, I have yet to ever have ducks survive through a full summer season. I have five ponds here on my farm ranging in size from 35 feet in diameter on the smallest pond to the 110 foot diameter 14 foot deep pond behind the house to the 300 foot by 170 foot pond 14 feet deep with an island down behind the barn. With these ponds I have plenty of wild Canadian geese and a returning pair of wild ducks each year but it has been my dream for many years to see these ponds covered in domestic ducks. I like birds, I love it here with all the wild birds, but I also quite enjoy domestic birds as well.
The first year I tried ducks I started out with 18 full grown ducks, and didn't have a one by the end of the summer. In the years since then I have tried a total of 19 more full grown ducks and lost every single one of them. I had a woman gave me a call today and in spite of her great efforts to keep her duck from having babies she has 14 baby ducks running around now and she is offering them to me. Raising them as young uns is easy I have that down, but I need to come up with a plan for next year that will keep them safe from aerial predators. I want ducks at least on the mid sized pond behind the house, my bedroom window opens out over the pond and I love watching the birds out on the pond from my window in the morning.
My first and initial thought was too create a couple large bald eagle sculpture out of mache, I used to make large creatures and what not in HS out of mache and I am quite skilled at that. If I were to make a couple realistic eagles and hang them 30 or 40 feet above my pond on a line hung between a couple pine trees maybe I could scare away other predatorial birds?
I could even go so far as to make wings that move in a breeze on the sculptures. This might likely keep the Canadian geese, wild ducks and wild turkeys from visiting the pond behind the house but they would still visit the other four ponds.
Anyone here ever use fake predatorial birds to spook off other predatorial birds? I also have an outdoor speaker mounted to the house and if needed I could even record an eagle cry on the computer and play it on a timed loop over the speaker or something.
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