2025 Duck Habitat

[DagoDucks]

Things are looking bleak on the food front since the flood. This millet has not seen any rain since I broadcast it into very wet muddy conditions on July 29th and it is struggling. By the time we get a good rain we will be out of time for that millet to produce a seed head.
On a good note we have put the "new" scraper to work and have been moving dirt building up areas where we will be able to plant corn that should not drown out. Also repaired several sections of berms and walkways.
Trying to decide now what to do about our most productive blind as there is basically no cover growing up around it at this time. It needs to have more dirt mounded around it so that we always get a good stand of something growing for cover whether it is corn, millet, natural grasses or egyptian wheat. We had it at a level we thought was good but with the flood everything died. Probably going to do the dirt work now and have it ready for next year. Thinking about cutting down a oak tree and laying it down over/across the blind for cover this year? You guys ever do that in the middle of an ag field? Is it effective? Fountain Grove CA did it a couple years ago in one of their units that didn't have any cover, not sure how it worked out. That is the blind in the picture.

 

[Truman]

Willow cuttings may work.

 

[ryan s]

Oak limbs work just fine and hold the leaves if cut when green. I use millet on fresh dirt work for fast cover and soil stabilization because it grows so easily but prefer natural veg that doesn’t lay down or trample so easy. Millet isn’t very durable in that way IME…

 

[Drakes Landing]

Have used small square straw and/or corn stalk bales with good success in the past for blind mounds or areas where dirt has been worked. Will be doing that again this year around our new pit install but only after we have it seeded down with fescue or winter wheat.