I am inheriting a pond that comes with a house I am purchasing.
My question is how do you control the population of ducks if they are on a pond?

Many thanks for anyone that replies

have one for ya dinner every week

Buy a Labrador and a Peregrine

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Err thanks - but not very helpful!

I am obviously asking a stupid question.

Some ponds have lots of ducks and geese on - others have a much smaller population.

Does the pond size determine this? Or is there a method of control?

If you wanted to keep ducks on a pond you would feed it so if you limit the food available you should be able to keep the numbers down.

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wow, you lucky thing!!!

The answer will depend on many things.... nothing is ever easy!

If you are going to stock the pond with domestic waterfowl that cannot fly, you would have to control the population by finding their nests in the breeding season and removing their eggs.

If you are hoping for wild Mallard/geese etc to come, then they will control themselves by way of being predated upon and also they will only stay for a while then leave again.

If you are planning on stocking it with flighted birds then you will need to be careful as there are legal obligations, such as clipping non native species so they cannot populate the wild. You have to control these the same ways as domestics by removing the eggs from their nests.

If the lake has an island, they should be ok from foxes until the lake freezes in the winter then they will get eaten for sure. If you have domestics and don't shut them up at night they are likely to get eaten one by one by Mr Fox.

What are your plans? If you are planning a collection of waterfowl then the British Waterfowl Association have lots of people who would be delighted to advise you. Good luck and let us know how you get on
zo
x

Thanks ZoeJames for your help.

It is a huge pond, about 8ft deep in the centre. There aren't any ducks there at the moment, I've only seen moorhens so far.

I would like to put a floating duck house/island on there to encourage some species as I assume this would be a safe place away from Mr Fox as you say. Thanks for the info re freezing - I hadn't thought of that!

I will get in touch with the BWA thanks!

Over hanging trees are good for encourging ducks to stay

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