Help, Ducks must go!! Need new approach

[NastyNate]

Need some out of the box thinking here. Old school method hasn't worked in years. We grow organic rice about an hour north of Sacramento. The ducks absolutely love our fields because they are less dense and easy to land in. Plus we have the whole weeds thing (organic). Monochloria aka duck salad is what they're after right now, until the rice heads. Had some pretty big losses the last two years. It doesn't take long when you have tens of thousands of ducks choosing your fields for dinner.
Current practice is zon guns place through out the fields. For those of you who don't know what a zon gun is, it's basically just a propane explosion every 5 - 10 mins. We also drive around the fields just before dark and in the morning with shotguns, rifles,flare guns and screamers. After a while, they just get used to the noise and keep on feeding.

Was trying to come up with another approach:
Maybe trying a R/C helicopter or plane.
A set of powerful train horns.

What do you guys think? Need ideas.

 

[madmatt]

no duck hunting allowed there or what??

 

[JMK777]

no duck hunting allowed there or what??

Not till october.
You can start a duck club to off set the cost. Are you by Arbuckle

 

[Burner]

A mild current should be enough (like a horse fence)...but I don't have a clue of how you would do that?

 

[SmokeShow]

how much land are we talking about??

keep some dogs out there, they'll terrorize the crap out of them and love doing it. :thumb:

 

[NastyNate]

3 ranches, 2000 acres total. Rice is growing in 6-8 inches of water, so I dont think dogs or electric current will work.

I'm 10min from Arbuckle, how the hell do you know of that gigantic metropalis?

 

[seth999]

in ky you can get a farming permit and kill stuff thats eating your crops or animals...you might just have to start killing em...you know the generators they use in lakes to shock fish to kill them:thumb:

 

[Burn Down]

Might try giving Fish & Game a call and see if they have something that will work. I like the lead posioning idea.

 

[03dmaxin]

We have that problem down here in Louisiana and we use carbide guns that use propaine and are on a timer and are affective method so check it out

 

[wes06dmax]

Turn your farm into a outfitter let these big doctors and lawyers and stuff pay you to come hunt and then harvest what rice you have left and double up on profit you will get alot of money from the ducks then money from the rice too :thumb:

 

[JMK777]

3 ranches, 2000 acres total. Rice is growing in 6-8 inches of water, so I dont think dogs or electric current will work.

I'm 10min from Arbuckle, how the hell do you know of that gigantic metropalis?

My buddy grows almond's out there.

 

[Operator1]

I don't know if it will work for ducks, but we use black flags about 6 feet tall, shaped like a triangle, made out of an old trampoline and some PVC pipe, to keep geese and swans out of the wheat fields in the winter. We just put them up in random places, probably a few hundred yards apart all over the fields. Works like a charm here, might be worth a try.

 

[Vrabel]

what they do here with the geese is they hired a guy to let his 3 Irish setters roam the H.S. fields. dogs love it, birds hate it.