When does everyone start hanging the nest boxes up?

[CAWoodduck]

I believe i read that breeders should start hanging nest boxes a couple months before breeding season so that the pairs can start "claiming" them. Our breeding season in California for the wild wood ducks starts in about February, so i guess i should hang them in December?

Another question, how far apart is it suggested that i put them? I want to hang about 6 boxes along an 8' x 8' wall in my pen, basically 3 boxes on top and 3 boxes below. If you dont think this will work, i have plenty of space in the pen to mount one box to each pole, the only problem with that is only 2 of them will face the pond. Also, how many boxes per pair would you suggest?

I look forward to a great breeding season!!................Jason

[Evy]

Are you saying you've got 6 pr. of birds in an 8 x 8' pen? If so, you need to get rid of 4 pr. at least. All they'll do is fight & you won't need to worry about boxes. Give us some more information.

[CAWoodduck]

My bad, my pen is 24'L x 12'W x 8'T with an attached 8'W x 8'T x 4'D shelter. I was thinking of mounting the nest boxes inside the shelter, and probably throwing a few on the posts outside the shelter. My main question is how far apart should the nest boxes be from each other? If i mount them on the wall inside th shelter, there would be three boxes up high (about 7' high from ground to hole) and three boxes below those boxes (about 4' from ground to hole), basically stacking the wall with nest boxes to keep them out of direct sunlight, the holes on all the boxes facing the pond, and also the prevailing winds (N,S,W) would be blocked by the shelter. I would also mount about 3 more boxes outside the shelter on the posts to give them a variety of locations, for a total of 9 boxes in the enclosure.

[Evy]

Okay...that's better, but you still don't say how many birds you have there. It's been my experience that Mandarins will sometimes use a box inside an enclosure but I've never had a Woodduck do it. They like the boxes as far apart & as high as possible. The direction they face doesn't seem to matter but type does. The ones with an ''L'' shape entrance seems to be most popular & I often find "dump nests'' in them. I'd figure about 1/2 again as many boxes as you have pairs to give them a choice. There's some photos here that may help .....
http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?username=evy-a

[CAWoodduck]

Thank you for the response Evy.

I have a total of two pairs of Mandarins which are separated from the woodies in a 12' x 12' pen, six pairs of wood ducks in the big enclosure and a pair of Pintails in the wood duck enclosure as well. I have regular wood duck nest boxes that i use in the wild, they are 2' deep and 12" inside diameter with a 4" x 3" oval opening. I plan on building about 15 new nest boxes for my ducks this weekend since i am on call at work and cant range far from home, and i am bored. I will take your advice and throw up 10 boxes in the woodie pen on different posts and place the hole about 6' off the ground.

I will check out the link you sent me to get some ideas of the nest boxes your talking about.

Thanks again Evy!.............Jason