Thread: The birds are back - feeding a pond?

How many of you are feeding up a duck pond? Never done it before, how are you guys going about it?

Got a good resident population, want to improve on that in the coming months

NOSLOC Poultry & Gamebird Feeder Nozzle | Trade Me

The last NZ Hunter magazine had a good article about feeding ponds and a few different approaches to doing it. I made a couple of feeders last year

I made my own NOSLOC feeder nozzle out of some medium tensile wire. works mint. also tried a maize silage feeder. cut the bottom out of a bucket and put some 75mm x 75mm reinforcing mesh in the bottom. packed the maize silage in tight and the ducks feed through the mesh. Hung both bucket feeders on steel posts around the edge of the pond.

The other thing highly over looked is duck predators (rats, stoats, cats etc) I have used the inner tube core off of silage wrap (the plastic they but around silage bales), cut it in half to make 2, drilled a small hole through the middle and slide a rat bait on some wire through the holes (to hold the bait in the middle of the tube). instant bait tube at no cost.

Cheers

Hunting partner has just brought a feeder. As Baz says we will be feeding up as per Pauls article in the last mag.

Be careful with feeding. You may turn your resident population into a bigger but night feeding one. So many people destroy great small roosting ponds by feeding. How many people chase a gazillion ducks off first thing in the morning and wonder why the shooting is average to poor considering all the duck activity??

now you will know why i shoot 100+ pheasants a year pointer, i use 3 of the nosloc type feeders on my duck pond and another 10 scattered around my pheasant grounds.

Originally Posted by Tim Allen

Be careful with feeding. You may turn your resident population into a bigger but night feeding one. So many people destroy great small roosting ponds by feeding. How many people chase a gazillion ducks off first thing in the morning and wonder why the shooting is average to poor considering all the duck activity??

It would be better to feed small amounts several times a day would it not Tim?

when i fed by hand (for many years) i always fed my pond on sunrise, the birds wud fly off and circle in the distance then start coming in just as we fininshed feeding out, back then there was 8 shooters , so it didnt matter if the ducks wud return in big numbers come opening

Originally Posted by Nathan F

It would be better to feed small amounts several times a day would it not Tim?

Yes. My perfect situation would be to have a big central roosting pond and feed outlaying pot dams, leaving the roost undisturbed and allowing birds to drift back to roost in the morning...... as the perfect situation is difficult in most situations I would either feed with a pre dawn routine or use an electronic feeder to meter small feeds through the day. You'd want compitition for food, not excess laying about.

I haven't fed with any consistancy for years. Find em and hunt em

Originally Posted by Tim Allen

Yes. My perfect situation would be to have a big central roosting pond and feed outlaying pot dams, leaving the roost undisturbed and allowing birds to drift back to roost in the morning...... as the perfect situation is difficult in most situations I would either feed with a pre dawn routine or use an electronic feeder to meter small feeds through the day. You'd want compitition for food, not excess laying about.

I haven't fed with any consistancy for years. Find em and hunt em

Yeah that sounds about right. Very small amounts throughout the day. Ive heard of guys putting a sheet of tin next to the feeder so when it spits out the grain it makes plenty of noise hitting the tin. Be like an alarm clock to come and get a feed .

Sweet thanks for the pointers team, had aread of the atricle in NZhunter, and will look into the nosloc feeders, but given my situation I 'm not sure if feeding will help now, it is an evening pond for them so they have probably fed elsewhere

Originally Posted by Pointer

Sweet thanks for the pointers team, had aread of the atricle in NZhunter, and will look into the nosloc feeders, but given my situation I 'm not sure if feeding will help now, it is an evening pond for them so they have probably fed elsewhere

why didnt you fucking say that at the beginning, now ive passed on my knowledge for no fucking reason. In another thread i said you were a good c**t, youre pretty close to having the good part of that removed, still feed the pond bro, will fatten the ducks for you

hahaha I go away from the internet for a day and you get needy?

There are 3 small ponds in succession, they favour the one with most cover which suits a maimai setup. They seem to come into it on dusk, yet sit on the others which are about 1-2 km away out in the open. Would like to bring them into the closer one with feeding yet I'm not sure if it would work as they onyl seem to come at dusk, at a guess after feeding?

Originally Posted by Pointer

hahaha I go away from the internet for a day and you get needy?

There are 3 small ponds in succession, they favour the one with most cover which suits a maimai setup. They seem to come into it on dusk, yet sit on the others which are about 1-2 km away out in the open. Would like to bring them into the closer one with feeding yet I'm not sure if it would work as they onyl seem to come at dusk, at a guess after feeding?

It sounds like the ducks are roosting on the open ponds and feeding on the one with cover. My pick would be choose one of the open ponds to shoot opening morning. Use a layout blind if need be. Feed the other two ponds. Don't disturb the ducks off the pond they mainly use during the day at all if it can be helped and don't feed it. Shoot the other fed ponds in the evening. Have a quick read of my first post in this thread

Thanks Tim, a similar approach to what I was thinking, cheers