Waterfowl Hunting
wood duck houses
All my houses are on galvanized steel 1 inch pipes. I clean every spring ensuring no repairs are needed. Plus they can smell pretty ripe if starlings break open unhatched eggs. I have the occasional hooded that successfully nest. No bufflehead that i know of but have seen a pair using someone else's house.
56 houses!!! That is absolutely incredible! God bless you. And I personally thank you for your HUGE effort. That is not easy to maintain that many. It's because of people like you and Duckwidow and others that the Wood Duck has made such a remarkable recovery in the last 40 years. Thank you again.
Jim
Duckwidow, I'm guessing you put all your houses over water as opposed to in or on trees, am I right? I would strongly suggest to anyone putting up boxes to mount them on galvanized poles over water otherwise you're just asking for problems from racoons or squirrels, unless you hang them in a flooded marsh that has dead trees. Incidentally, have you ever gotten any other species in your houses like Hooded Mergansers or Bufflehead?
Jim
Thanks for the responses. I understand about dump boxes as I had one house that had 33 membranes in it meaning produced 33 littles ones. I count my success based on the shriveled up membranes. Last year just baffles me that I had at least 20 houses that had unhatched eggs where normally I am at 1 or 2. I check my houses every year with new shavings and all holes caulked up. Try to replace 3 or 4 old houses every year. Might as well not put them up if they can get water in them as that acts as a sauna during those warm spells which can also cause unhatched eggs.
Some duck hens are just naughty girls. When I was in my teens we raised Muscovy ducks.
Had a pair of hens and one drake to start. One hen would lay her eggs and then break most of them. Then when she hatched out 3 or 4, she would abandon them to the other hen and go back for another round of breeding.
And then repeat. She did this for a couple of years and then was roast duck.
I meant "subdominate" hens, not subordinate. I've read that egg dumping is a "survival strategy of certain ducks. The egg dumpers figure (as much as ducks can figure) that some other duck will take over the nest and thus ensure that some of the eggs will hatch. Of course that would only work if the eggs were fertile.
Duckwidow and Samfox--Those "dump nests" are puzzling. When you get boxes with 23 eggs in it you can be sure that that is what it is. I believe it is "subordinate" hens that lay in those boxes and have no intention of brooding. If I had a birdbrain (pin intended) maybe I could figure it out. I don't remember if there was bad weather last year at that time but I do know that one of my boxes hatched in July which is pretty late seeing as it takes about 2 months for the young to become airborn. Putting boxes 10' apart seems awful close. I try to keep them out of sight of each other or at least across the lake if I have them on the same lake or pond. Good for you Duckwidow and others on maintaining so many boxes. I can't handle that many (I'm 72) but I wish there were more like you guys (or gals). I see so many boxes that aren't maintained or cleaned or are tilted way over.
Jim
Jimbo and fin, About 20 ish years ago when we were putting out more houses in our marsh that very question came up. I had just watched a show about a guy that lived on a island on lake of the woods. He had 50 houses in his yard, including every 10’ mounted right on the house. Said he started with a few and just kept adding. Was a neat show, said he had been going at it for over 20 years.
