Can any of you Rube Goldbergs out there give me some ideas on how to keep wood ducks away from my fish feeder? We are still out on the road supporting our troops with their fire power, but my neighbor reports that the ducks know EXACTLY when the feeder goes off, and about 60 birds arrive and gobble it all up. I am thinking some PVC pipe frame with anti-bird netting. Also, what is the floating 'ring' called that we place in the water to keep the pellets from blowing to shore when windy? This could be incorporated to make a good cover. We will be back on the ranch in a couple of weeks for 10 days or so and it sounds like I need to do some serious pond projects...

"Feed Ring"

Hula Hoop

Double-camp, feed your fish at night.
You probably have mallards coming to the feeder. They are less likely to show up at three in the morning, especially if they roost elsewhere.
Another idea is to feed the ducks behind your dam with corn or something that costs less than fish food. Feed the ducks a few minutes before your fish feeder goes off. The ducks will be a long way off, eating their own feed. The reason I suggest feeding them below your dam is because when they eat, they poop. Feeding below your dam, the poop goes away from your pond, rather than in it.

I seemed to remember that someone discussed using a hula hoop before as a feed ring.

As I mentioned the last time using a hula hoop seems like a great alternative, it's inexpensive, it's practical and between feedings you can provide yourself with hours of fun doing this with it....



(I knew that I had a practical and logical reason for keeping that photo.)

Ah! Feed Ring and feed at night! Good ideas. The Hula Hoop won't work as I use a Reminton game scatter-feeder on pontoons (30 gal garbage-can hopper) which has a pretty healthy diameter pattern. Bob, I agree with the below the dam feeding corn routine, but we are always gone, as we haul DOD stuff for our troops OTR for months at a time. So, I'll try the night-time feeding. I have 100' of 2" poly-pipe that I can connect and make what I believe will be a large diameter feed ring. Stay tuned! We'll be home in about a week.

Jeff: On second thought, maybe I could just hire her to feed the ducks with the corn???

I like the way you think! I would imagine of course that some form of uniform would be involved......

I was thinking that the Hula Hoop was the uniform, but then my wife reminded me that it WASN'T,,, Theo must have read her mind, because those hocky uniforms was EXACTLY what she was thinking too!

Lusk must not have bought corn lately...