Hey guys, I'm from Louisiana too. Central Louisiana, right outside Alexandria near the biggest speed trap in the state, Woodworth. Anyway, we have about an acre pond and released 10 mallards on it two summers ago and they quickly disappeared one by one until there was just one hen left. She's still here, I don't know what she knows that all the others didn't, but she knows how to stay alive. Just two weeks ago, we added 15 mallards, not fully grown yet, but almost there. They're pretty tame, so they follow us to their cage and we give them food and water at night and lock them in to hopefully keep something from snatching them. We're in the process of building a larger cage off of the ground with the main door being a ramp when open, so they can climb up and get water or food or shade or hide during the day if needed, we're also going to make the rear of it two levels, the top level will be pretty much all closed in and have a few nesting boxes in it. Besides that, I'm also building one or two floating platforms to anchor down out in the middle so they can have a safe place to hang out and not have to worry about dogs or foxes or coyotes. I'll put a roof and some type of walls with entry ways right in the center of the main platform, so in the center there should be shade and shelter and outside it would be open to the sun and the water.
My first idea was to make a frame out of PVC pipe to set the platform on so the wood stays up out of the water, then use boat bumpers, (the big oblong white rubber ones full of air) and tie them underneath for floatation and stability. But I've also read online that people are floating them on top of layers cut out of those sheets of foam insulation for houses. I'll experiment and see what does the best and is the most stable.
For the second floating platform, I've read about people floating a large, homemade wooden box on their pond filled with soil and different types of plants and grasses, which would be like a floating island. If it works and the ducks don't just ruin the plants, then it would be another place for them to stay away from dangers and could be nice to look at with the right kind of plants, grasses, and maybe some flowers (if they last).
Anyway, that's our plan for sprucing up the pond a bit and help keeping the ducks happy and safe from predators as much as is possible. I know this isn't really the what the topic of this thread is about, but seeing some fellow Louisianians, I thought I'd go ahead and post here. If anyone has any recommendations and/or questions, get back to me.
I plan on starting feeding the fish in our pond as well, I'll be looking for some Game Fish Chow this week. Hopefully they'll have it at the Co-op or Petrus Feed and Seed or this new feed store they opened up in Alexandria by the mall. Petrus is in Alexandria and has pretty much everything. That's where we get our duck feed from and actually where the mallards came from too. I'm hoping they'll have a good supply of alum., lime, gypsum, etc. to clear up the muddy water and start catching fish again too. Look forward to learning all I can and communicating with others on the forum, I just joined today.
