Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Ducks using your pond?

What is the best way to increase wild duck activity on your pond?

One word "decoys" and of course keep a flat feeder of cracked corn on hand.

Dumb Question, do you spread the cracked corn over the water or on a grassy area near the bank?

If your not hunting the pond and just want to see them, than live ducks are the best at bringing them in.

I'm a long ways from you, but here at a flea market called Canton Trade Days, I bought four Rouen drake ducks for $30. They ate all the spiders and bugs arond my pond and have brought in a Canadian goose who now lives here. We also get wild ducks visiting from time to time.

Eddie

I'm not going to hunt the pond, just want to watch them, add something to the landscape so to speak.

What happens to your ducks when the lake freezes?

Here at a local store in the spring they sell baby white ducks, but I would like the ones that are natural looking, like the ones you have, you said those ducks are Rouen Drake Ducks, I'll have to look that up, I assume they sell hens as well? Do you feed them?

Freezing isn't a problem here, so I'm only guessing about it, but there are ways to keep an open area for them. I've been duck hunting in marshes where there was just a small cirlce of water that the ducks used. Some would nest on the ice if it was too crowded!!!

I feed them some deer corn that I just put along the shoreline. The goose eats first, then the ducks finish it off, but not always. They seem to find lots of stuff to eat under the water and along the shoreline. I have no idea what they are getting from the mud, but the sure seem to enjoy it. If they see a spider on top of the water, the go crazy to get it. At first, I had thousands of spiders, but after a month, I couldn't find any.

You might want to check my spelling, but I think its right. You can easily buy them as ducklings or even the eggs if you want to go that route. I didn't want allot of ducks running around, so to control there levels, I just bought drakes. Babies are cute for about a month, then they turn into pooping machines. I'm hopeing the four ducks won't cause too much trouble in a 3/4 acre pond.

If you do a search here, there were two guys that had a fairly long lasting thread about there rouen ducks. It was a few years ago and I forget who it was, but it was very informative and intereting. The thread wasn't about rouens, but ended up turning into it. That's when I first learned of them.

They are meat ducks, which means they are too large to fly. You don't have to worry about them leaving, but they look real close to wild mallards. For me, they are perfect.

Eddie

I had two Muscovy ducks as of a few days ago, now I only have one. I looked everywhere for it and found no signs of 'yotes or other animals attacking it near the pond. The only rhing I can figure is it flew away or a hawk got it. Funny thing is the two ducks always stayed together so you would think the other would have flown away to. I wander if the cold weather made it fly away?

Anyway they where flea market ducks, $16 for the pair.

Donnie

Be aware that flightless ducks no matter the size are easy pickin's for owls, foxes, coyotes and various other predators. You can keep flight mallards around simply by feeding every once in awhile. They won't leave as long as they have food and water.

Decoys work for a little while to bring in ducks, but after they figure it out, they will avoid the pond.

A search for "ducks" provided so many hits as to be confusing. Narrowing it down to "ducks" and "feed" provided several good threads, including this fine discussion on webfooted flying rats, err, ducks: More about waterfowl on your pond

Would rice in the shallows do? Maybe get a few crawdads to take up residence too. Japanese millet? If the water gets low in summer, rye around the edges will be good to plant in the fall.

Rice will swell and could cause harm. I fed mine poultry feed, cat fish food and dog food. They did fine on those.

Donnie

Waterfowl typically like "open" areas so they can watch for predators approaching the waters edge. Keeping the edges mowed/hayed and keeping trees cut down could also improve your odds. Sago pond weed is also another food source waterfowl enjoy.

I was thinking more of planted rice, so it would be a natural foraging arrangement, not to put processed rice down.

I bought four ducks expecting to loose one or two right away. They had never seen water before and refused to go into. I tried to chase them in, but they were too fast for my old, out of shape, fat body. Luckily we have a 5 year old that derived a great deal of pleasure chasing them every time they came out of the water. It was a test of wills between the ducks and the five year old. Guess who won? hahaha

I have a small island on that pond just for this reason. It should offer them some protection from preditors while they sleep. I never planned on the goose joining them. The ducks are rather deep sleepers. I can walk right up to them when they are all asleep and probably catch one if I tried. With the goose there, nothing gets by without it seeing it. It's the most alert animal I've ever encountered!!!

We have coyote tracks all around the pond, but after three months, we haven't lost a duck yet. I just don't see how anything can sneek up on that goose!!!!

When the ducks are asleep,he's standing guard over them. He'll honk to wake them up, or just splash the water. I've never seen the goose sleep.

I also feed them floating catfish food, but haven't tried any other types of feed. When the catfish were still feeding, they had to wait for the ducks to finish first. They only eat for short periods so it's not that much.

Eddie

I have a silly question. Do ducks have crawls, like doves and ther birds? Seems like my duck's necks will swell like they do.

Donnie

eddie,


so that goose never leaves, can he fly?

Yes, the goose fly all over the place. When he sees me come out, sometimes he'll fly across the pond to me. He loves to stand on the end of the dock and then fly off of it. A few times we've gone out there and he's not there, but he'll show up within a few minutes. The lake is filling, so we're wondering if he's out checking it out??

He walks around too. Sometimes he'll be in the front yard eating the grass there, or just walking up and down the road. I have no idea why.

The last time my mother in law was here, he took a liking to her. He walked up to her and her car and just sort of waited there while she was in the house. Then when she drove away, he flew alongside her window all the way to the gate. She said his head was even with hers just outside the window!!!!

He landed at the gate, stood there awhile and then flew back.

He's just a character that we hope will stick around, but who knows what will happen.

Eddie

looks cool, i like the pics, did you put a blue band on his right leg?

I wonder if I can find someone to ship me some Rouen Drakes as ducklings this spring? Next Day Air?

My wife loves taking pics of birds and just about everything we see on our land. She has a Cannon S2 digital camera with a 12x optical zoom. If anybody is looking for a high quality camera with a fantastic zoom that's easy to use, this is the camera!!

She has hundreds of pictures of the goose and ducks, so I'm going through all of them to find a few to share here. hahaha

The band on the goose is plastic, but we can't read anything on it. I've thought about catching him and cutting it off to see what it says, but I'm also worried he might leave if I did that. I've heard people tell me he's a local pet, he's from Caldwell Zoo here in Tyler, and that he's a wild bird that some Fish and Game department someplace caught and put a band on. I've never shot a banded wild goose, but I have shot a few banded ducks and those bands were metal.

We have no idea where he came from or why he's sticking around. hahaha

To find Rouens, try the local free classifieds.

http://www.americanclassifieds.com/index.cfm

Here it's calles the American Classifieds, and they come out every thursday. You can go to there website and do a search for what you're looking for and maybe get lucky. I found lots of other types of ducks this way, just no Rouens. I also looked on Ebay and there are some there from time to time, but none close to me.

Eddie

Here's a few more pictures of the Rouens. They were fairly drab when we got them, but recently with the colder weather, there colors have realy come out!!!

You can see the difference in these pics. Also note that two of them are pure Rouens, and two are cross with mallards.

You can also see that I had a few decoys out there. They didn't accomplish much of anything. No ducks came to visit that we ever saw and the only real advantage to them was to use as a marker for deep water. When the kids and I go swimming in there, they know not to go near teh decoys as that's where the bottom drops off.

The goose didn't like the decoys and would attack them to the point they were all upside down. They are not in there anymore. hahaha

The last picture is of me and my kids on our dock. We enjoy sitting on it while the catfish feed and then we just watch the ducks and goose do there thing. For some reason, the kids laugh hysterically when the ducks are feeding and there buts are up in the air!!!!

Eddie

Eddie,

Do you have any Whistling Ducks at your pond? We have maybe 5 Mallards(all Drakes) and 30 Whistlers. They love my deer corn!

Ladder, You can order all the ducks and geese you want from the website's below in the spring. They will air ship you baby chicks next day. They have both been in business for a long time and stand behind their birds. You will have to keep them in a brood ring with a heat lamp for awhile. They have instruction on how to raise baby chicks on the website's


http://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/

http://www.cacklehatchery.com/page2.html

Just wanted to give you a heads up. If you have larger turtles in your pond be careful. I have seen turtles snatch baby ducks under for a meal! A DNR guy told me about it....and I did not believe him. That is until I seen it first hand!

As for ducks compared to geese. I really do not mind the ducks so much. The geese on the other hand can be quite messy if you get a lot of wild ones come in!

Tim,

Have you bought any ducks from those companies?

The second one, Cackle Hatchery, is all sold out of everything and doesn't say when they will be taking orders.

The fist one has a real nice website and I ordered there catalog. From what I can tell, they'll start shipping birds in April, which is about perfect.

Price per bird is very cheap, so I'm thinking that might be the way to go. It's nice to buy them here, but at $7.50 each versus $3 each, mail order sounds like a deal.

I just wonder how much hassle it is to raise them and if they will all arive in good shape?

Anybody done this before?

Eddie