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Feeding Wild Duck


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Hi everyone,

 

I have a cracking duck pond which I have shot and managed for about 15 years or so, I generally start feeding the margins from about now onwards with a couple of buckets of wheat or barley twice per week.

Due to work commitments last year I couldn't feed as often therefore longer intervals resulted in very low numbers using the pond.

 

I was wondering if putting a couple of phesant type feeders with spirals in say about 6" of water would do the trick, that way if I'm away working then feeding intervals of about 7-10 days wouldn't be an issue.

 

Any input appreciated.

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Thanks for the replies.

 

Getting the balance right is going to be key I think, I gave the pond a good scattering of barley on Saturday and when I went tonight there was nothing left and no birds to be seen.

I spoke to the farmer just as I was leaving and asked if he'd seen much about 'hundreds' on Sunday through to Monday was the reply.

Another challenging season ahead by the looks of it!!

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This year on 2 of our ponds we have built rafts out of 4 pallets fixed together with water containers fixed underneath to help float, fixed carpet on top and put a 50 gallon drum top hat feeder on each one (half filled with wheat so not to heavy, lasts a good week) .. it seams to be working well and seeing the ponds holding a lot more birds than normal..

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I am going to get an auto feeder to feed one of our margins, I think I can put it on a little spit of land so I can feed more of the margin with every spin.

 

What I want is some potatoes, but can't get any :no: (not for the auto feeder)

Crab apples are a good feed if you have any growing local you could pick
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We have a large pond and a lake to feed up and we have eight automatic feeders that can be set for up to twenty seconds twice a day. Morning and evening we got them from America and they are called Kenco feeders. They spin barley in a vertical line along the bank where as most pheasant feeders spin horizontally and spread the grain around the feeder. I will take a photo this afternoon and post later

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post-60674-0-29538800-1472483938_thumb.jpgpost-60674-0-77874500-1472483939_thumb.jpg

 

 

As promised here is some photos of the automatic feeders we use on our flight ponds, they came from USA and are Kenco PC-44-S. There must similar items in the Uk but you need them to spray the barley out in a straight line so that you can aim in the shallows. We also feed up manually at weekends and once midweek on a rota

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  • 3 weeks later...

Have only been feeding since the start of the month and the five ponds are all getting used and by good numbers of birds already.

Had an evening with Mac on Saturday and had 6 teal with no mallard coming in at all which is strange for this pond which is very small but loads of teal.

A bag of barley doesnt last long in the bigger ponds so will be cracking on them pretty soon.

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