Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain Wild Ducks and Minnows

A couple of weeks ago I posted on creating a food chain for larger LMB. In that post, I said that I had not seen a large minnow population in my 4 acre pond. I started noticing that 50-75 wild ducks hang out on my 4 acre pond. Does anybody know whether they can destroy a minnow population? I can't figure out where all the minnows are. I plan to restock the pond with minnows. By the way, I live near Columbus, Texas. Thanks. Trevor

Trevor, For the most part, ducks will eat vegetation. Any bird with a long bill will be a carnivore.

Puddle ducks probably do not eat very many if any minnows, and I'm pretty sure they eat mostly bugs, organic muck items, weed seeds, aquatic vegetation and plant tubors. My dad and I raised ducks and geese on our pond in its early years. However I am suspect of most diving ducks. I have watched through binoculars Mergansers eat small 4"-5" yellow perch in my Ohio pond.

Puddle ducks will seldom eat minnows. They are mainly vegetarians.
Diving ducks (with a few exceptions ) can and do eat fish, amphibians, insects and even sometimes small reptiles.
Unless the pond is a major roost for migrated ducks, I seriously doubt the ducks are the reason you are not seeing minnows. Ducks by nature tend to jump from body of water to body of water feeding a little in each.
I would suspect the reason for not seeing minnows is possibly water temps, or weather conditions.

I have lots of ducks on my place and have seen any of them take a fish. Do you know what kinds of ducks you have? I have lots of pintails, redheads, and mallards. Just make sure you don't have the dreaded cormorant (water-turkey). I have to scare them off, or to death, to keep them away they will do way more damage than any flock of ducks.