I know there are wood duck enthusiasts on T Man. I walked past one of my wood duck boxes and saw a bloody broken egg on the ground. Looked inside and the hen that was setting on a clutch of eggs was dead and mostly eaten. Then I checked my other boxes around the same area and the same result. The boxes are about 8 foot high or maybe a little more. Along a creek that runs by my cabin. The boxes are mounted on a steel galvanized pipe about 2" in diameter. Never had no problems like this before for the last 7 years since I move on the creek bottom. I do think I have a pair of owls nesting in a hollow ash tree across the creek .... within 60 yards or so of my closest nest box. Anybody ever had an owl kill duck hens in their nest box?

I have never seen them kill one one the nest but a few years ago I was running beaver traps along the river and heard a ruckus going on up in the trees. A great horned owl had a hen wood duck up in a cottonwood tree. It seemed strange to me at the time because it was 7:30 in the morning and had been light out for an hour and a half.

time for a 12 inch cone around those poles
if it is a raccoon it will do it next year as well

A coon can climb a metal pipe just fine it’s why they started putting those cones on them

By the way great horned owls will hunt during the day; have a lot of the things around here and see it all the time, more so in the winter but summer when they are feeding chicks also

Is the entrance large enough for an owl to get in? Sounds like a raccoon to me

Coon would be my first suspect but I would figure a coon would pull it out of the box.

If the holes are the standard (3x4 I think) then maybe it pulled it up to the opening and just ate what it wanted/could

I've had owls nest in my boxes.

get cones and scare off owl

I once watched a mink quickly scale a tree that my box was on and go in and kill the hen that was sitting on eggs there. I don't know if one could scale a pipe, but my neighbor claimed that one did on their box.

What makes you thinki he is going to allow it to live that long?

Hey all thanks for the input and comments. I have had wood duck boxes up for 20 years and the last 7 I have had around 15 boxes out. Never had this problem. I checked the boxes and it appears that it was a coon. Scratch marks on the boxes from the coon getting around the box from the pole. I I only had 4 hens setting and 1 making a nest so far. Coon got 2. I put the tops off old charcoal grills on my 2 nests with setting hens. I'll get some more grill tops or old satellite dishes that are about 20 to 24" round. There is still time as I have had many woodies not even set on eggs till late may.

Owls will eat the head off of ducks first. If the heads were intact, the culprit is probably a raccoon.

Keith

I have 16 boxes up and down the river out back.
As said earlier, most likely coons.
I was having coffee one morning last spring and watched a hen flying into one across the river and as soon as she landed a red tail stooped from a willow top and picked her off.
Most are providing single and maybe 25% double hatches.
Mine are all placed in slack water on 2" schedule 80 pipe, with sheet metal collars.
Biggest problem isn't predators, but parasitic nesting by mergansers.