Thread: Mai mai prep and feeding

I reckon feeding helps. Also having ducks around helps too

Oak trees will be good in 50 yrs if you plant them. If its not windy as plant pussy willow to make it private. Tea tree to make it wind proof and it will all grow fast as. Flaxes to make them see it's a pond and a couple of weeping willows for cover they can swim under within two or three years

Cheers Happy

Reeds. Not sure if thats the name of it but skinny stringgy stuff. Grows little seeds. Me and my brother got 16 just on dark once and everyone of them was full of the seeds of that plant surrounding that pond

Originally Posted by Toby

Reeds. Not sure if thats the name of it but skinny stringgy stuff. Grows little seeds. Me and my brother got 16 just on dark once and everyone of them was full of the seeds of that plant surrounding that pond

like bull rush or Rapu? this place is so blank the ducks fly past want to create a habitat that will encourage the buggers to call it home.

Originally Posted by Toby

Reeds. Not sure if thats the name of it but skinny stringgy stuff. Grows little seeds. Me and my brother got 16 just on dark once and everyone of them was full of the seeds of that plant surrounding that pond

Good stuff

Bull rush I think I've heard it been called that. If rapu is what I think it is then that would be something to hide in. The tall plant aye?

Originally Posted by Toby

Bull rush I think I've heard it been called that. If rapu is what I think it is then that would be something to hide in. The tall plant aye?

This is raupo, a native bulrush


and you can do a Bear Grylls if you really had to by grinding up the rhizomes and cooking them like scones...

Originally Posted by EeeBees

This is raupo, a native bulrush


and you can do a Bear Grylls if you really had to by grinding up the rhizomes and cooking them like scones...

You would need to be motivated to go to all of that trouble EeeBees.

Flax and lots of long grass to breed and hide in

This stuff @mucko

So long as its not too shallow or it ll be right across in a couple of years and very hard to fix up..
It can become invasive in the right situation.(IE: Farm pond with rich run offs entering the pond)
Big kick arse flaxes may be better when they grow as they don't like growing in the water as much..

Awesome on a big deep pond though ..

our new maimai is being built in Auks then trailered upnorth, hope to have it in place early Jan then set up some feeders then too.

Originally Posted by upnorth uplander

our new maimai is being built in Auks then trailered upnorth, hope to have it in place early Jan then set up some feeders then too.

Nice

We need photos of it asap.

I went for a evening shoot on my pond last year and set the feeder of manually to put out stone extra grain. Over the next half hour I watched sparrows eat every single grain of the barley that was floating on top of the water. I am going back to peas next year. Also concerning the rats if you use a automatic feeder to feed a small amount into the shallow water you probably won't have a rat problem. If you hand feed heaps onto the dry land you will get rats no question. You should aim to feed just what the ducks can eat each day so that piss of and then come back the next day for the next feed. Fat ducks just sit there and then piss
off on opening morning when you disturb then seeing up and never come back.

Originally Posted by MassiveAttack

I went for a evening shoot on my pond last year and set the feeder of manually to put out stone extra grain. Over the next half hour I watched sparrows eat every single grain of the barley that was floating on top of the water. I am going back to peas next year. Also concerning the rats if you use a automatic feeder to feed a small amount into the shallow water you probably won't have a rat problem. If you hand feed heaps onto the dry land you will get rats no question. You should aim to feed just what the ducks can eat each day so that piss of and then come back the next day for the next feed. Fat ducks just sit there and then piss
off on opening morning when you disturb then seeing up and never come back.

Yeah that's what we do. Feed just enough to keep the mallards competing for food. 5 seconds in the mornings. Ramped up over the last month before opening. All feed over water. Once opening has been we generally put the feeder back to one small morning burst. Once it empties it's not refilled. I stay away from peas as they just jam up my feeder. Barley and wheat serve us well. It works for us and the proofs in the pudding. Dead ducks. Hundreds of