Question about wood ducks

[KansasKid]

Well i doubt that a pile of leaves is going to provide enough height once he crunches the leaves down to get to the box assuming that the box isn't right off the ground. My boxes are all about 5'5'' tall except the one that i have setting on the ground that has a ramp to it.

 

[HeatherLynn]

Our pond is actually right on the edge of a heavily wooded area. Part of it even dips into the woods a bit because we didn't bother clearing. Its the side that drains to another spring fed pond in the woods down hill. I would like him to have them but I think he would like to sit and watch them on the pond without having to hurt them. He would consider pinioning hurting. He is 75 and stubborn and no amount of reasoning on they do it young..... well it won't fly with him. So I think aviary or a nice painting are my 2 options now. Although he will probably put up a box or two just in case some want to stop by.

 

[KansasKid]

Well i have some aviary ideas in my thread in my signature that can give you some ideas.

 

[kangababy]

You could build a small 10x10 avairy for them and just having them around might attract other wood ducks if htye have nesting area and food.
The wild ones would still be able to come and go and you would have yours to look at.

I don't pinnion but either this year or next we will probably try it with some of ours we raise to see if we can get more wild birds to come in.. We have geese that come in by the dozens and wild teal from time to time.

 

[goosedragon]

Quote:
The thing with wood ducks is that in the wild they tend to be shy. I have an wooded area around a small pond With 4 wood duck houses. I placed the houses so I could keep an eye on them from an upstairs room using a scope. Well all 4 houses Produced ducklings last year, I could watch from my 'blind' but never saw a one when I was outside the house.
pinioning involves cuting the tendon on one wing, so they can't use that wing to fly. Done to ducklings they recover fast and you can buy them already fixed. I agree with your father and would not pinion a bird.
Calls or Australian spotted ducks can be had without the restrictions placed on wood ducks. They are small ducks that were produced by breeding. They are very cute and can often be purchased from breeders, if they happen not to meet Show specifications. Good show birds are pricy, but the off specifications ones (often refered to as culls) can be had at reasonable prices (some will even give them away) Breeders tend to try for a lot hatched and then sort thru them for the few that have show potential.
Frankly both the ducks and the eggs are too small to eat so they are hard to get rid of if you don't have the heart to kill them. I used to sell "Pond Ducks" to people that wanted to have some ducks on their ponds. Both breeds were favorites with my customers if they just wanted them for apearance and not for meat or eggs. Both are great flyers so if you buy adults clip the feathers on one wing so they have a chance to get used to your place. This is not permanate the feathers will be replaced and they are back to normal. Good Luck!

 

[sianara]

I've got a pair of Australian Spotteds. I don't clip their wings however, I do have them in a fairly large yard 14' x 25' that is net covered for the non snowing part of the year

(which we currently are NOT in). Their house/run is 4'x16' and I'm fairly confident that it's predator "proof" since it's made with hardware cloth and plywood. Anyhoo, I just piped in to say you could also go the larger netted yard route without actually building an aviary which would probably be more $.

Keep us posted on what you end up doing. I'm curious and hope your Dad gets his wish. Ducks are great!

BTW I don't know if this is unusual or not but my female lays a HUGE egg. They usually are a little over 2.0 oz each. I was amazed at how big they are for such a little girl...

 

[HeatherLynn]

I talked to my dad. He is going to put up wood duck boxes, maybe see what we can do to provide a better environment to attract wild ones. He said he could not bear to alter them so they could not fly. He will be happy if some wild ones come hang out on his pond. So I have been given the task of researching to see what he can do to attract some again.( apparently last year was the first time he had seen any on our pond and that got him started on this.) Will me having ducks discourage them from coming back?

 

[KansasKid]

I think if you have a bunch of domestic ducks on there it might discourage them. When during the year did he see them? I had pair during the summer that were locals and that didn't want anything to do with my domestic ducks, they wanted to be secluded (possibly to brood)

 

[greekbioguy]

wood ducks are very beautiful birds but they tend to be a bit shy . i have two pairs ,an old one and a 2 year old one, the old hen is pinioned (i consider her my special needs duck)all the rest of my ducks are excellent flyers and their aviary is almost 3 m tall and closed on the top . they will not lay a single egg unless u provide nest boxes for them. i put my nest boxes 1,5- 2 m of the ground (u will need a ramp if you get pinioned birds) , the direction of the entrance hole of the nest box should be east-southeast and have view to the pond (they simply will not use a nest box if the position is not to their liking,the first year you will need to change the position of the nest boxes many times until you find out what position they like ). babies will drop out of the nest box one by one the first day ,do not worry about them getting hurt in nature they drop 10m (30 feet) or more ,they are super light and fluffy so they just bounce once they fall (actually they need to fall down in order to start eating, they evolved so they will not eat until they drop to the ground in order to avoid eating the dirt and wood shavings in the nest)
do not put them in the same pen with domestic ducks especially mixed mallards because the drakes will mate with the hen until she dies
i used to have some mallards for many years before i got my mandarins and wood ducks , my aviary is 60 square meters but that did not stop the mallard drakes from almost killing my wood duck and mandarin hens(from day one i understood i had to choose between mallards and the rest so i gave away my mallards and only keep mandarins and wood ducks now)
never mix species of ducks that have a significant size difference because larger species will probably try to exterminate the smaller species .evenly sized species can defend themselves from each other. for example there is absolutely no way for a wood duck pair to defend itself against a mallard drake (mallards are at least twice as big as wood ducks and domestic ducks are even bigger)