Post Pics of your DUCK NEST 'BOXES'

[Bleenie]

I am looking for ideas for my Muscovy girls nesting "boxes" for next year. I would love to see some ideas or what you guys use for your ducks to nest in.

 

[CityChicker]

If you would like to see what our ducks like to nest in, I would have to take pictures of everything in the yard, but their nest boxes... LOL, it is the most frustrating part of waterfowl breeding (domestics anyway). Mine seem to like to nest on the bottom of the pool, in the middle of the yard, in the food bowl, on top of the house, under the house, anywhere but in the nest boxes. Most of my ducks have combination duck houses/runs they are locked in at night and most that I currently have generally will lay inside the houses (not that they have much choice), but we don't even bother with separate nest boxes anymore like you would have in a chicken coop. Even when they go broody, they tend to nest wherever they see fit which is usually the most inconvenient place imaginable. Our tame "pet" ducks are the absolute worst. I swear that sometimes they must not even realize they are about to lay an egg because we find eggs everywhere, certainly no where you would think a bird would intentionaly lay an egg.

We have gradually gone to keeping the birds in smaller and smaller groups. Right now, I have a lot of birds in single pairs and trios. They each have their own house to go into at the end of their run, most of the houses being 2' x 4' duplexes (and these are bantam ducks). This has seemed to work well on a number of levels including forcing them to nest where we want them, even if not in nest boxes per se. It has helped tremendously with the cleanliness of the eggs as well. When you have larger groups of birds or have them run together in larger areas, you will find eggs everywhere! Muscovies might be different though, I'm not sure.

 

[keeperofthehearth]

Scovies do seem to like nest boxes of some sort. Some of my girls prefer to nest up off the ground a bit and others choose ground level nest sights. Best luck I've had is to have a box w/a roof over it, be it a shelf a bit above or a lid on the nest box. I'll post some pic's later today when I have a chance to go take some. I bought some plastic stackable bins that work out really well. They are big, easy to clean and you can move them around.
Here is a pic of our original Scovy house DH built. Problem is ALL the Scovies want to sleep in the nest boxes, both boys & girls. They pack themselves in like sardines until one of the big boys or dominate girls pushes some of them out.

That also doesn't allow the brooding ducks access to the nest boxes which was our original intent. It only worked out for our First Scovy hatches but now there is always competition for who gets to sleep in them. We do have some who roost but I think if I had cubbies built/stacked along a wall of a shed, that's where the majority of the Scovies would sleep.

 

[Le Canard de Barbarie]

My muscovy nest boxes are 12" X 12" X 18" wood boxes with a 6" to 8" round hole cut into it. This emulates what wild muscovies use.

The middle nest with a drake sitting on it has a hen looking out:

In the wild:

 

[MDC]

I use 55 gallon barrels cut into quarters with a landscape timber bolted to the opening. I have significantly better hatch rates when my birds nest on the ground.

Nest Boxes

 

[Bleenie]

My birds will be penned up when it comes time, so they wont get a chance to lay all over the property, lol.

i saw the "Natural box"(with the circle entrance) online and really liked that, I also saw the drum boxes but i think they might be too big and i would end up having more than one hen nesting in one drum.

My black hen, before she stopped laying, would jump up into the chicken nest boxes and lay in there...at least until she realized i kept taking them.

 

[Le Canard de Barbarie]

This isn't mine, though, but this sure is a nice nesting box for a muscovy. It even has a removeable lid.

 

[keeperofthehearth]

Bleenie, here are a few of my plastic nest boxes that my Scovie girls will use.
This first one works well since it's large enough to hold a whole passel of ducklings + mom. You can see two Scovy eggs in there though I do collect them at this time of year. I have one in the chook shed also but am thinking of giving it to the Scovies.

The green bin is very much sought after by both my Scovies and Chooks. I have a few more in my chook shed.

The last one is being used by a EE that jumps the chook fence every day and runs all the way over to the duck house to lay her egg. If the duck house isn't opened yet she paces around until I get there to open the pop door.

My Scovy girl, Gwen, used this one early this spring to hatch out her first clutch.

 

[KellyandKatie]

very helpful, thank you