Waterfowlist wrote:Never really think about doing that this time of year. The 45-50 I maintain every year are all on trees. Fowler for ones you have on trees do you have predator guards of any kind? I seem to have fairly good success with strong signs of a hatch, but wondering if it could be improved with guards for the ones in trees.
80% of predation is by mammalians, (Raccoons, mink, fox, skunks, etc) 20% is Avian predation (can't do a whole lot about that.) I seriously question how many are raided when mounted on trees. (many people do not know the difference between hatched eggs and raided eggs.) Definately the success rate would increase by getting them off the trees and placing a cone shaped predator guard under it and 30' away from overhanging tree limbs. Check out the Wood Duck Society website on the "Best Practices method". My mentor, Roger Strand has yet to loose one single nest to a mammalian predator with this method. And he runs hundreds of boxes and has for over 30 years. Also boxes on trees the squirrels take them over and will not let the hen in. Considering cedar is $25 a box, I am not wanting to raise squirrels at all.
One of my combos:
There is no guard on this set as I have found that if over 2' of water and at least 10' from emergant vegitation the predation is below 20%, so just not worth the cost. But if in the cattails or on land I definately use a cone shaped predator guard.
