Wood Duck Nest Boxes

HawkinsHollow · Feb 10, 2020

Me and my right hand man installed 2 wood duck nest boxes yesterday down by the pond. It was fun! He is very excited to monitor them to see if we get any hatchlings. He wants me to put my cellular game camera on one to monitor them from home.

murphy1244 · Feb 10, 2020

Have Fun HH!

Citydude · Feb 10, 2020

Great project!

big bubba · Feb 10, 2020

good project. installed 2 in my wetland pond area a while back. waders are essential
what material did you use to build houses? what species of duck do you have? this is the time of year for them to nest. did you provide some kind of expanded metal, etc for the hatch lings to crawl up to the exit hole? get some photos

HawkinsHollow · Feb 10, 2020

big bubba said:
good project. installed 2 in my wetland pond area a while back. waders are essential
what material did you use to build houses? what species of duck do you have? this is the time of year for them to nest. did you provide some kind of expanded metal, etc for the hatch lings to crawl up to the exit hole? get some photos

I used pine I got from my buddies sawmill. I wanted to get cedar, but we didn't have time to dig it out and mill it. This was free. I'll throw a coat of Thompsons water seal on it and see how many years I get out of it. I am hoping to get a couple hatches of wood ducks per year out of these. Yeah, the woods ducks should be looking for nests any time here in North GA. Yes I did put hardware cloth on the inside for ducklings. Best part was the time I spent with my son. He loved it.

big bubba · Feb 10, 2020

great. you may consider holding off on Thompsons till after nesting season as the fumes may ward them off i had some heartwood eastern cedar that i used for mine, pine should be fine. good project for the pleasure of your son & the hens.
installing the 2 boxes on posts in the pond was a challenge for me, but worth it. good luck

ovrszd · Feb 10, 2020

Look forward to a nesting report.

This thread motivated me to go take a look at my Canada Goose Nest Box. Gotta get the tractor down there tomorrow and clean it out. They'll start checking it out in another 3 weeks.

Also gotta get my Purple Martin nests cleaned and rehung. They'll be shopping for homes in another month.

Thomas · Feb 10, 2020

Looking forward to updates. :thumbsup:

oosik · Feb 10, 2020

I get two or three pair of wood ducks every spring. They don't nest on my lake. One of the disadvantages of having bass in my lake. I do have one pair of Greater Canadian geese that nest and raise their young on the lake. They keep the young well sheltered down in the cattail area until they are pretty big.