wood duck houses

It is that time of year again. They should be ready to go. I just had two goldeneye’s flush from what open water there is in Front of my home. Out of the three houses that I have, at least one of them has goldeneye’s every year.

That’s interesting. I didn’t know Goldeneyes nested here. Cool. I see them going through twice a year at my cabin. My wood duck house always gets a hooded merganser.

I have had woodducks, goldeneye’s and mergansers nest in my houses.

Today, I had a female wood duck attempt to enter my wood duck house this morning.
She acted like the hole was too small, it was 3 h 4 w
Googled it and found it should be 3 1/2 h by 4 1/2 w
so I enlarged it.
She cam back this afternoon with her mate.
She was scoping it out
when
a grey squirrel came out of the box and chased the ducks to a nearby tree.
I went out and banged on the box with a pole and the squirrel took off
like I was trying to kill it.

Is there some way to keep the squirrel out of the box?

My 6 year old son, with some help, built a wood duck house this winter. We need to get it up in a tree beside the pond on our hunting property this weekend.

Great project.

Grouse

Here’s some ideas on building and putting up wood duck houses.
http://www.deltawaterfowl.org/what-we-do/henhouses/buildwoodduckbox.html
Big thing is trying to make them predator proof. If the ground is hard enough, you can get a 10′ piece of 1 1/4″ conduit at Menards for around $6 that should work. Shouldn’t be too many critters that could climb that.

eyekatcher wrote:

Today, I had a female wood duck attempt to enter my wood duck house this morning.
She acted like the hole was too small, it was 3 h 4 w
Googled it and found it should be 3 1/2 h by 4 1/2 w
so I enlarged it.
She cam back this afternoon with her mate.
She was scoping it out
when
a grey squirrel came out of the box and chased the ducks to a nearby tree.
I went out and banged on the box with a pole and the squirrel took off
like I was trying to kill it.

Is there some way to keep the squirrel out of the box?

Every time I have had squirrels in my houses in the Spring they have had babies. I would look for that and if they do just leave them at the bottom of the tree in their nesting and they will find a new home…

I had checked and there were no young, but the squirrel had started to make a nest. Looked like it was day one for that activity.

So I checked the internet and the suggestion was to add a cone to prevent the squirrel from getting up the pole.
Not having a cone but having a 2 foot length of heat duct laying around.
I attached the pipe to the 4 x 4 post with two roofing nails at the top.
I observed a red squirrel being thwarted by the pipe yesterday.

During observations this morning, I do not see any squirrel around.
Then after a while, the female wood duck pears out of the enlarged hole in the house. It then flew off. I have not seen it return, but not checking the house contents at this time.

About 15 minutes later, a grey squirrel is observed sliding off the stove pipe.
At this point, I am hoping for the best.

Mother nature will do her thing. All my houses are screwed to trees and I have squirrels, reds, grays and fox. Not once in over 10 years has a duck lost a fight with a squirrel. As far as I know, wood ducks will lay a egg a day and leave the box until it is time to sit on them. Then they will o Ly leave the box to eat and drink. The more you mess with the house now, the momma duck could just leave it due to all the commotion from you.

Thanks,
Just the info I was looking for.
I had concerns about going anywhere near the box,
so I got everything ready and was in and out in 15 minutes or less.

Wood duck houses are awesome, my Grandpa has several within a hundred yards of his home and has always had at least one pair make a nest. However his are all attached to trees, and one year when we went up to check the houses and clean any non-wood duck activity out, we scared out a gray squirrel and found inside the box a dead hen still on her eggs, we spotted an injury either a bite or something on the back of her head. So we were pretty sure the squirrel won the fight. The other issues he noticed were starlings, however those are easily handled with a 22.