How to Protect Duck Eggs From Raccoons

Protect nesting boxes to keep raccoons from stealing duck eggs.

If ducks are living in a pond near your house, chances are they will lay their eggs there. These eggs are often poached by raccoons. You can trap the raccoons in a live trap and relocate them. However, raccoons are territorial and will often return to the same pond --- not to mention that trapping and relocating them is illegal in some states. One solution is to design nesting boxes so that the ducks can get into the boxes but raccoons can't. You can purchase protective materials at garden or home improvement stores.

Things You'll Need

• Sheet metal cone
• Nail
• Hammer
• Wire meshing
• Wire cutters
• Staples
• Staple gun
• Metal sandpaper

Instructions

1. Wrap a sheet metal cone around the pipe on which the nesting box sits so that the cone is more than three feet off the ground. The nesting box should be raised off the ground, or water, with PVC pipe --- which itself is difficult for predators to climb. The sheet metal cone provides further protection against raccoons from climbing the PVC pipe.

2. Nail the sheet metal to the PVC pipe with a hammer and nails.

3. Cover the box with wire meshing to prevent raccoons from getting inside the nesting box.

4. Staple the wire meshing to the box with heavy-duty staplers.

5. Cut a 4-inch hole into one of the sides of the wire meshing with wire cutters. This allows the ducks to get in and out of the box to the eggs. Cut the hole as far away from the eggs as possible so that a raccoon cannot reach them with its arm.

6. Sand the sharp edge of the mesh hole with fine metal sandpaper. This prevents the wire from cutting the ducks.

References

• WildFowl Magazine: The Other Hunters
• Virginia Technical College: Management of Wood Ducks on Private Lands and Waters