Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Creating habitat Put Up a Wood Duck House UPDATE

A nesting pair of woodies showed up this morning! Looks like I can put up the NO VACANCY sign.

Ice was thick enough to finally put up our first woody house. Hole is 5' above water level.

We Used a 3 1/2"x12' pole and pounded it 3' into the ground in 4' of water. I cut the end of it at a 45* so it would pound in easier. Hoping for a tenant in the spring.

Sweet! Do you need to face the opening in any certain direction? I've heard that with Blue Bird houses the opening needs to face East.

The rule as I have read it is have the hole facing a good flight path first and secondly keep hole out of prevailing wind.

I thought about doing it like this, but I drove a couple pilings in once, 8-10" thick hard maple poles driven in about six feet. As the ice moved around at ice out they were both pulled from a 90 to nearly 45 degrees. Please post your ice out results. Perhaps the metal poles will warm enough to prevent that. Be a whole lot easier than getting them up in the trees as I currently plan to do, mostly due to the difficulty of preventing predators.

Todd, getting ready to do the same thing on Saturday with 2 poles. I assume you used a manual post driver, which is what I am going to use. How easy/hard was it? Would you do the single 45 again or go to two 45 to make a point? Looks great, hoping mine looks as nice. Thanks.

I have 8 on my pond and used metal pipe as above, never have had an issue with them tilting. I drilled a hole every 3' or so on the pipe, put a piece of threaded rod through the hole and jumped on that to drive it in. Moved it to the next hole to continue driving it in. Thanks.

Bryan

I did not use a post driver, I set up a scaffold and used a sledge hammer. I couldn't find a post driver bigger than 3". The 45 cut worked really well as I got nearer to 3' in the ground I was getting about 1/8" every hammer blow. I wish you well, it nice having an extra pair of hands checking level as you go.

Todd,
I've had several wood duck boxes built wood for years but never mounted them. I was always concerned about predators raiding the nests if they were tree, post, or pole mounted. For some reason, I never entertained the thought of mounting the pole in the pond. Would also like to know how it stands up after the thaw. No frozen ponds here in SE Texas, but we do get some pretty strong winds that I'm afraid would play havoc on the plane of these houses once mounted. Good job.
Charlie

bryan, that is a great idea, I will probably use it if the post driver fails me.

Thanks Todd, that really helps.

Stickem, have you looked at the various predator guards? Options that I found are the galvanized sheet metal cone (conical baffle), steel sheet sandwich, and the plastic pipe guard. Here is a link to all kinds Various.

From what I have read the metal cone/conical baffle is the best to use but maybe someone that has experience with the different guards will chime in on what has worked for them.

Stickem, have you looked at the various predator guards? Options that I found are the galvanized sheet metal cone (conical baffle), steel sheet sandwich, and the plastic pipe guard. Here is a link to all kinds Various.

From what I have read the metal cone/conical baffle is the best to use but maybe someone that has experience with the different guards will chime in on what has worked for them. [/quote]

Ben,
Yes, I have read and researched for a resolution of the issue, and thanks for the post response and link. I like the look of the plain looking duck boxes. I find the cones and conical baffles are unsightly and not very "natural" looking. My pond and the creek that runs near it are out in the woods. Wildlife is abundant. I guess I could camouflage (paint) them. Just a personal preference I guess.
Charlie

I understand the appearance thing, they are ugly. The kids really want the houses so ugly it is for us. Good idea on painting them, never considered that, should help to break it up a bit.

The sheet metal ones are the ones I see used the most, I don't know if you have to worry about snakes climbing up the pole since it's mounted in the water.

A friend near Sulfur Springs Texas has some Mexican Whistlers using his along with Woodies using others. He found that in addition to the metal cone type guard, he had to use a snake guard. His posts are on dry or semi-wet ground.....

I am up on top of a hill and get real strong wind, so I will let you know how and if it survives. I do not think the wind will be a problem, as it's pretty stout. I did not put them on land because of the predators. Now, I wonder if a snake could be a problem?

They say black birds can be your biggest headache, I have a nice .22 cal, and an itchy trigger finger ready to snipe there ***.

I'd like to put one of these on my pond in the future. Problem is I don't have many trees around my pond and I'm not real close to the woods. I haven't seen any ducks fly over yet but I regularly have geese across the street from my pond and had a couple in the pond the other day.

So my question is: Can I just put one of these out there in hopes one flies over and comes in for a visit? I know it wouldn't hurt anything to put one out.

IMHO, if you have woodies in the area, they will find it on fly-bys if you put it out. As TODDM mentioned, just give them a good flight path with sight line.

Years ago the DNR here began placing houses on the back sides of road signs along the freeways. I read then that they were very successful and they attribute part of the wood duck recovery to that initiative.

Also, experience with wood duck houses placed in my ponds on steel posts, without predator guards, have never had an issue. But I don't know what you folks down south have for snakes vs what we have up here. Suppose that could make a difference.

May look at .22 Bird Shot. They say it works great on keeping unwanted birds from the duck house and it will not penetrate the wood. I am probably going to buy a box to check it out.

I would like to put 2 in my pond. I can probably wade in when the water warms a bit to pound them in, or do people do it through the ice?

What direction should they face? I have trees on the west and east side of the pond, north and south are bare. Best flight path is north or south or at least flying in from the N, or NE, or dropping in from the S.

Prevailing winds seem to be from the west to the east, so maybe put on the west side of the pond with opening to the E or slightly NE?

Hole of the duck house should be about 4' off the water?

I may try purposely putting them on opposite sides of the pond to see which the ducks prefer.

Also if I wait to ice out, how much time do I have to get them in? Do the ducks choose their nesting site early in the spring or mid spring to early summer?

This is what I went off of.
http://www.woodducksociety.com/qanda.htm

I built two Wood duck boxes from the outside cut of cypress tree. This leaves the outside skin of the Cypress tree, my thoughts were, they would be more natural looking. Added onto a post and I covered the post with 4" pvc. Set them along the water edge. This past spring I watched a couple of Woodies look them over closely but never saw them go into the boxes. This last early Duck season, I watched and counted 53 wood ducks land on the pond one evening. They arrived in groups of 9 or so. I have 3 TH feeders @ the pond and these Woodies would go from feeder to feeder, racing to see who get to the feeder first as the feeders would go off. So we will wait and see this yr if any Wood ducks will take up home @ the pond. If they don't take to the boxes, I will do something different, just not sure what.

Tracy

Ben:

Get some paper, even newspaper or copy paper. Place the paper at the distance that you will be shooting and shoot at the paper with the .22 bird shot. You might be surprised at how few pellets are in the paper. Typically the shot size in those are #12, which is tiny. Plus the rifling in the barrel puts a spin on the shot column, and there is no choke to tighten up the pattern like on a shotgun, so you probably have to be very close to what you are shooting at.

Do the paper thing and let me know what you find out.

How big of a pond is necessary to attract woodies? Would swimming in the pond disturb them too much?

I would love some info on how to build a house for the woodies and how high of the water I should be. Building one now and installing it through the ice would be perfect. Our pond is only about 1 acre and I have seen them walking the shores and around the pond. I wish I had a nesting box for them.

DonoBBD,
That kind of info should be readily available on the web. I built mine from one of the many drawings listed under images. Good luck and show some finished product...

Dono, here is a link to the one I just made using cedar. Talks about placement, what to put in it, and viable pred guards.

liquidsquid, based on what I have read is you do not need a pond. They like marshes and overgrown grass areas. I am not convinced I will have any luck attracting the ducks these first few seasons until the vegetation gets established. IMO the marshy overgrowth is more important than the water.

Scott, I will definitely give that a try but based on your explanation it does not sound very promising. Oh well, still will be fun to play with.

Don "the Duckman" was a helpful contact online that sent me these plans. They may be helpful to anyone who wants to build a wood duck house. The nice thing about these plans is that he gives a template to trace for the exact size of the entrance hole, and the plans are designed so the pieces all come out of one piece of wood with little waste.

I like his idea of the metal mesh for the baby ducks to climb rather than cutting grooves in the wood with some tool.

He have ideas on how to keep squirrels out, and also found in his experience that when you fill the box 1/4 full with chips/shavings that the ducks preferred aspen shavings over cedar shavings. Both are available in bags in stores that sell pet supplies as these are often used for rabbits, gerbils, etc. The ducks like the larger flakes not sawdust.

Hope this is helpful!