Looking at adding a few to our Wetland Project, in addition to our current Wood Ducks Houses. Has anyone had successful nesting with this style platform? Mallards typically will not gather nesting material, so I understand the annual maintenance required.
I can see adding a coon cone to the pole- any other do's or don'ts appreciated.

watching

I’ve put out a couple mallard houses and 1/2 dozen wood duck houses. Only had one wood duck house get used, not sure why.

How high did you place the wood duck houses? I am experimenting with Wood Duck houses now. Being a Tree climber I have found multiple Duck nest 65+ feet in the air but I can only think of one instance of finding one under 15 feet. I'm planning on making a pile of Duck houses and putting them at various heights in the same trees and seeing what they prefer.

Fresh material has to be put in each year and re-made every 3 years. Flax straw for the outside and wheat straw for the nesting material.
Unfortunately the ravens learn very quickly where to get a fresh egg dinner after a year or two, and they teach their young the same trick
so it becomes a negative gain over time
helped maintain some for 15 years, winter project to re-due the nesting just as the ice is about to give way in the spring and re-adjust the shifted poles

I've never made them, but if I was going to I'd think about using some of the natural erosion control mats that are out there. Some mats are made with straw and others are heavy duty for steep slopes and are made of wood or coconut fibers. They would probably hold up for awhile since they aren't rotting away into the dirt

Never worked good for me.
Honestly the best thing in my old hunting areas (Il.) was duck blinds.
In the spring while out crappie fishing we would pull blind material off the sides and place on the top.
On one lake that had 10 blinds we had 12 mallard nest.
Also, tie wire doors open so they can escape and sometimes geese will nest on the floor.
We can't leave blinds out after season in Wisconsin.
Maybe an artificial floating muskrat hut?

I've had good luck with wood duck boxes, smaller trees 6=10 inches in ida. I put a coon cone about 5-6 feet off the ground. I put boxes 10-15 feet up trees

For woodys on the river...
I use 2" galvanized pipe(scrap from work) and auger holes in the ice.
Step ladder and post driver makes quick work of it, them mount about 6 ft. over high water line.
I try to locate them around trees to provide a debris and currant break.
Biggest problem is ice out.

The mallard cylinders can be made with brown outdoor carpet then all you have to do is add some nesting material in the spring before ice out.

I know there are issues and concerns with putting wood duck houses to close together and thus you can get what is called nest dumping. Does anyone have information on the mallard rings and the best density for those?

Bryce

On my property we have had very good successes with the wooden wood duck houses, but not so much with the plastic ones. Also had good luck with the goose nests on a pole thing. The mallard tube nests we made were total disappointment. Delta waterfowl promotes them so it must work somewhere, but I probably won't spend any more efforts on them in western Nebraska.

Gun Nut

totally un-acceptable
Mafia cement shoes for anyone that recommends them

Finally got around to this project… I used uni-strut I had and used tree stand arm rest that I never add to bow stands for the cradle.

Our Wood Duck boxes are 6ft above the waterline and used every year on our pond. Problem is the Ducklings never live long enough. Between the Bass and the dang snapping Turtles they don't have a chance.

I am pretty sure there is all kinds of information on the Delta Waterfowl site about making and setting them out.

I'm curious what everyones thoughts are as well on this. My SIL is an avid waterfowler, me not so much but he was wanting me to team up with him to make some which I'm all for as I love projects. Some of the places
we hunt them are a PIA to get to. Is this a worthwhile effort to help out our hunting areas or just a hit or miss project?

Delta was where I got all my info on the nesting tube

I feel a lot of the usage of the nest cylinders has to do with the number of ducks you have where you put them out. Here in ND some areas has over 100 pair of nesting ducks per square mile. They don't count any higher than that. Delta has drug sections of grass with over 500 nests on them. If where you are, you have 10 pairs per square mile your odds of the cylinders being used are a lot less than where I live. Most people do not know how low the hatch rate is for ducks nesting on the ground. The hatch rate in the cylinders is much higher here in ND. But not all the cylinders are used every year.

I used to maintain over 100 wood duck houses and a few mallard cylinders. The mallard cylinders were always used. I even had two use the same one once. Nearly every wood duck house was always used also. I dont worry about dump nests. They can easily hatch 15 or more. I had one hatch 28 out of 32 eggs. I dont know how it did it, but it happened. If they dump nest I think they will renest somewhere else if a hen starts incubating, so maybe dump nests are actually good at times if they dont lay too many eggs. I could see ravens and crows eventually learning to target cylinders. I had a floating nest cylinder in my pond once and a crow got the eggs. I never put it out again.