# wood duck house surprise



## soccer_man48420 (Nov 14, 2010)

while cleaning out some of my woody houses, I opened the last one only to find an owl laying in it. I thought the owl was dead, didnt move or open its eyes when i opened the door. Poked it with a stick and still didnt move. Finally after getting ready to fling it out of the house, I got a reaction..... He sat up looked at me all sleepy-like and then I proceeded to get him out the house in order to do some spring cleaning.... Couldnt believe he didnt move until i tried to force him out of the house! Anyways heres some pictures enjoy!


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## Hammer62 (Oct 20, 2010)

How cool is that! Thanks for sharing!


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## highcaliberconsecrator (Oct 16, 2009)

I would have left it.


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## Whitetail1 (Oct 17, 2008)

I have a screech owl that lives in one of mine in the winter too. We go out and see him often to show friends. He always leaves when the snow disappears. Unfortunately he leaves a ton of vomit plugs in the house and i get to clean them out.


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## bigrackmack (Aug 10, 2004)

Hey Soccer man did you build your houses out of wolminized? or just regular plywood?.....Is it alright to use wolminized?.....Mack


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## killakovach (Aug 20, 2010)

I was there. It was pretty cool to see.


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## soccer_man48420 (Nov 14, 2010)

they are womanized, when i was building them i couldnt find anything bad about it as long as u give lots of bedding to keep them off the wood... They like cedar better but when i built them last year money was tight.... I put em out in the end of march and out of 7 of them 2 were used by woodys....



bigrackmack said:


> Hey Soccer man did you build your houses out of wolminized? or just regular plywood?.....Is it alright to use wolminized?.....Mack


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## bigbucks160 (Mar 31, 2007)

That's so wierd, the exact same thing happned to me yesterday. Took me like 5 minutes to get it out it just kept going back to sleep.


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## soccer_man48420 (Nov 14, 2010)

Yeah he would not wake up for nothin I seriously thought it was dead!


bigbucks160 said:


> That's so wierd, the exact same thing happned to me yesterday. Took me like 5 minutes to get it out it just kept going back to sleep.


_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Lvhuntnfish (Sep 2, 2010)

Thanks for sharing those pictures and the story.

I've got a question, last winter I put up 3 wood duck boxes with my kids. This winter we checked them and found quiet a few eggs that did not hatch. In one box it looked like only half of them hatched. We put wood shavings, about 4 inches, on the bottom. One wood duck had added some nesting material. All eggs or shells in the 3 boxes looked the same, so I do believe that all boxes had wood duck in them.
Did we do something wrong with the nesting material?


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## soccer_man48420 (Nov 14, 2010)

Good question... Have a lot of **** that could have been messin with the woodys and force them to leave the nest? Other then that I don't know why they would do that...
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## AR34 (Jun 18, 2008)

cool story


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## wavie (Feb 2, 2004)

Lvhuntnfish said:


> Thanks for sharing those pictures and the story.
> 
> I've got a question, last winter I put up 3 wood duck boxes with my kids. This winter we checked them and found quiet a few eggs that did not hatch. In one box it looked like only half of them hatched. We put wood shavings, about 4 inches, on the bottom. One wood duck had added some nesting material. All eggs or shells in the 3 boxes looked the same, so I do believe that all boxes had wood duck in them.
> Did we do something wrong with the nesting material?


You did nothing wrong. Happens alot. Usually a dump nest where more than one hen lays eggs. Result is too many eggs that dont get incubated uniformly and dont hatch. Have seen one nest with 27 eggs in it. Never use sawdust as a lining material as doesnt let the eggs breath. I get great deals on cedar shavings at local pet stores.

Was out cleaning houses last wknd. These are very old houses with the entrance as the only way to get into the nest. So you have to stick your arm in the entrance to clean it out. Water was way up on the pond, close to the bottom of the house. Kicked it to see if anything was in it, nothing moved inside. Stuck my arm in and grabbed a possum. That got the adrenalin going. Kids had a blast throwing old eggs into the air and watching them explode on the ice.


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## Rasputin (Jan 13, 2009)

Anyone have a good blueprint for building houses or better yet, since I'm lazy, a good source to buy wood duck boxes?


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## Whitetail1 (Oct 17, 2008)

These should help.
http://www.dccl.org/information/informationpage.htm


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## Whitetail1 (Oct 17, 2008)

wavie said:


> You did nothing wrong. Happens alot. Usually a dump nest where more than one hen lays eggs. Result is too many eggs that dont get incubated uniformly and dont hatch. Have seen one nest with 27 eggs in it. Never use sawdust as a lining material as doesnt let the eggs breath. I get great deals on cedar shavings at local pet stores.
> 
> Was out cleaning houses last wknd. These are very old houses with the entrance as the only way to get into the nest. So you have to stick your arm in the entrance to clean it out. Water was way up on the pond, close to the bottom of the house. Kicked it to see if anything was in it, nothing moved inside. Stuck my arm in and grabbed a possum. That got the adrenalin going. Kids had a blast throwing old eggs into the air and watching them explode on the ice.


I was thinking to myself while i read this that "this is a bad idea" reaching into the hole like that. I almost fell on the floor of the office when i read you come up with a possum.:lol:


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## soccer_man48420 (Nov 14, 2010)

it doesnt take long, I built 7 of them in a few hours, but you need to get them out soon, we have lots of woodys already in Clio/Montrose


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## Rasputin (Jan 13, 2009)

Thanks. Looks easy enough. I'll try to get some out in the next couple of weeks.


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## trout (Jan 17, 2000)

soccer_man48420 said:


> while cleaning out some of my woody houses, I opened the last one only to find an owl laying in it. I thought the owl was dead, didnt move or open its eyes when i opened the door. Poked it with a stick and still didnt move. Finally after getting ready to fling it out of the house, I got a reaction..... He sat up looked at me all sleepy-like and then I proceeded to get him out the house in order to do some spring cleaning.... Couldnt believe he didnt move until i tried to force him out of the house! Anyways heres some pictures enjoy!


Federal and State law says you did wrong indeed.
If that was a nesting Owl your most likely going to get a call from a CO or the FEDS.
You can't discriminate against Migratory and Protected birds just because you made the nest box.


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## soccer_man48420 (Nov 14, 2010)

There is no discrimination between birds..... all are welcome in the box.... but it needed to be cleaned out..... so I do believe there is no law on cleaning a house on private property... And more then likely the owl will and is right back in the house where he was undisturbed for the last 12 months. The owl itself was definitely was not nesting! Do you know any bird in the 2nd week of march that is sitting on a nest with eggs in the state of michigan?



trout said:


> Federal and State law says you did wrong indeed.
> If that was a nesting Owl your most likely going to get a call from a CO or the FEDS.
> You can't discriminate against Migratory and Protected birds just because you made the nest box.


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