Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Ducks like Dave

I read a recent post by DD1 about the 100's of mallards on his pond...I also live in the flyway and share the 100 ducks with him, although most of mine are wood ducks

My pond is new (2nd year), and this is the first winter ducks have been thick as thieves, what can I expect ? In general, what will the duck fertilization cause, better or worse growing conditions this Spring ?

Eastland :

There is a post on here about 10 geese = one cow and all the related bad effects of geese around a pond. I will try to locate it and post. For ducks I would divide the # of ducks by 3 and get 30 ducks = one cow.

Boy that was a quick find. As Bill says they are "flying toilets".


http://www.pondboss.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=20;t=001634

Eastland, it took months for mine to clear last time. With reduced water levels, who knows?

I'm really confused now. My personal experience tells me that a typical Texas pond with a moderate cow population, outproduces a similar pond without cows. I always thought cow manure in limited quantities enhanced the fertility of a pond. As I missing something here ?

I have to agree with you that manure fertilization really works. However, a whole bunch of ducks is like living downstream from a feed lot or chicken farm. With my decreased water levels it just ain't pretty. When I look at it, I remember what the RV dump sites call gray water. This last happened a couple of years ago. It took a couple of months for the pond to clear. Then it wound up with about 6 ft. of visibility and I thought I was going to have to fertilize. However, it soon sorted itself out and went back to 2 ft. of visibility. Since I don't live there, there's not a whole lot I can do about it. Well, maybe there is. I'm going up this weekend and may try to encourage them to migrate North. George can use the pretty feathers for fly tying.

Manure is well used by many underdeveloped conutires as pond fertilizer. I agree especially in our area I always caught more fish as a kid out of the cow ponds and wondered why. Problem is it is not easily controlled and many times leads to boom and bust on visibility and too much of anything is not good. I have worked a few fish kills from phytoplankton crashes caused by excess manure.

Cow (or horse) manure getting into the pond is something that can be controlled easier than migratory birds. I can fence to keep as many cows in or out of the pond field as I want. When 50 geese land in the pond and spend all day there while I'm at work, there's less I can do about it.

It would be nice to see 50-100 ducks at the pond (once); I've never seen more than 4 there at a time.

Theo - during the spring migration we frequntly have that many ducks on the pond for a few weeks at a time. We had on unusual year once about 10 years ago where there were 3000-4000 ducks on the pond every day for three weeks straight.

Yesterday there were a dozen pin tails and 17-20 canadas. This last week my folks have also seen some widgeons and mallards, the diving ducks should be showing up here shortly. The spring duck migration is one of the things my folks truly enjoy about the pond.

Shorty :

That may be a big factor in all your plant growth. They even spread/ transport certain types of plants from pond to pond.

With most fert. including cows you can somewhat control what gets in the water directly. One danger is with a large influx (of ducks or geese) at one time you can have ammonia problems.


http://aquanic.org/publicat/usda_rac/efs/srac/463fs.pdf

I know ewest - my folks do like the ducks but see the geese as a problem, especially the year round locals that don't migrate anywhere. My dad has been banging the 12 guage off periodically to spook the geese away here lately, but they are usually come back within a week or so. Keep in mind that one of my folks primary hobbies is bird watching and my dad also like to carve duck decoys out of wood in his spare time. Giving the ducks a safe place to rest during the spring migration takes priorty over letting people come fishing this time of year even though they provide lots of free fertilizer. The ducks and geese do end up eating quite a bit of the weeds in the pond, especially the sago pond weed.

Has anyone ever seen a tornado of hundreds of snow geese come swriling down in for a landing? It is quite the site.

It could be worse ewest, up at Desota Bend National Wildlife refuge they regularly have 15-20000 geese resting there every day for several months in both the spring and fall. Desoto is a Missouri River oxbow lake roughly 5 miles long and it has extremly hard algae blooms every summer.

I am sure Nedoc has more problems with waterfowl than we do, his ponds are located directly in the central flyway. Ours is located halfway between the Missouri and the Central Flyway so we don't get near the traffic he does.

I understand Shorty. How is your alkalinity and chlorides ? If the first is not to high or the second to low then you then you could have some options to help offset some of the goose/duck woo - woo. However the plants and bacteria alone should take care of the situation. Link above and below will help you understand how this fits together.


http://aquanic.org/publicat/usda_rac/efs/srac/462fs.pdf

I wish I had the problem of too many ducks on my pond.........

In my area there area 12 ponds in a 1 mile radius of mine but I never have any geese or ducks. I do see as many as 100 geese in the nearby ponds & an occasional mallard or wooduck but not on my pond. I am retired & at my pond every day along with my 2 dogs that keep the wildlife chased off at least during the day.I never see any droppings from geese or ducks either. The only big bird I ever see is one blue herring that comes to visit each day & the dogs chase it of right away. Is it a bad thing to never have any ducks? I was kinda happy about that for I sure dont want the mess they leave like in all the other ponds.I have had mother geese with young ones attack me on occasion just going for walks around nearby ponds. I had to yell & kick at them to get them to leave me alone. I dont need momma geese chasing me all around so I feel I am better off without them.

It is a bad thing to not have them on your pond if you hunt them!!

Here's an answer to Eastland's question. There's a big difference between cattle and geese. Goose droppings are 'hot', that is, it quickly dissolves into water, is taken up by other plants and algae. Cow manure, on the other hand is not quite as hot, especially if it gets a chance to lay in a field and compost a while. Goose droppings tend to be in the water quickly. Cow manure doesn't. Cow manure has grain and grasses which have been poorly digested. Geese are efficient converters of their food. People who are blessed with geese have quickly become the first to curse them. One or two geese is good, three or four are cute, six to eight begin raising a few eyebrows, and more than that become a problem.