10 DIY Wood Duck Box Plans You Can Make Today (with Pictures)
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If you live in a wood duck habitat and would like to attract more of the colorful birds, then building a nesting box for them is a great way to help the population. You don’t have to spend a lot of money by buying a ready-made box. If you’re handy at all, you can use free plans to learn how to make a wood duck box yourself.
To make it easier on you, we’ve found ten free wood duck box plans that you can get started on today.
The 10 DIY Wood Duck Box Plans
1. Printable PDF Nest Box from Audubon
| Difficulty: | Easy |
| Materials: | 1-inch by 10-inch by 10-foot cypress or cedar, 1-inch by 12-inch by 13-inch cypress or cedar, 2-inch exterior-grade deck screws, Galvanized screen door with propeller latch, 4-inch by 12-inch wire mesh or metal lathe |
| Tools Needed: | Circular saw, Wood rasp, Screwdriver, Staple gun, Drill, Sandpaper |
This Wood Duck nest box plan from Audubon comes from an outdoorsman and conservationist who created an easy-to-follow guide to making simple nest boxes. This plan is from the 1980s but still works well today. The best part is that you can check the nest for eggs without having to use a ladder.
2. Step-by-Step Nest Box from Ducks Unlimited
| Difficulty: | Easy |
| Materials: | One 1-foot by 10-foot by 12-foot cedar board, Cedar shavings, Wood screws |
| Tools Needed: | Handsaw or table saw, Jigsaw, Safety glasses, Drill with ½-inch bit, Screwdriver, Sandpaper, Measuring tape |
Ducks Unlimited has easy-to-follow plans for a simple Wood Duck nesting box. They recommend using cedar wood to build the box because cedar is a natural insect repellent. The site helpfully gives exact measurements for each section of the nesting box along with an assembly guide.
3. Wood Duck Box with Cutting List from Felt Magnet
| Difficulty: | Easy |
| Materials: | One 1-foot by 10-foot by 12-foot cedar board, Cedar shavings, Wood screws |
| Tools Needed: | Handsaw or table saw, Jigsaw, Safety glasses, Drill with ½-inch bit, Screwdriver, Sandpaper, Measuring tape |
This easy Wood Duck plan from Felt Magnet includes a cutting list with exact measurements to help you quickly assemble the finished nesting box. You can use cedar, redwood, pine, and even plywood to build the box.
4. How to Build a Wood Duck House in 12 Steps from WikiHow
| Difficulty: | Easy |
| Materials: | One 11 ¼-inch by 12-foot cedar board, Cedar shavings, Wood screws |
| Tools Needed: | Circular saw, Hole saw, Safety glasses, Drill with ½-inch bit, Screwdriver, Sandpaper, Measuring tape |
WikiHow has a how-to guide for a Wood Duck house in twelve steps with pictures that’s easy-to-follow. It uses just a few materials and tools most people who like to do woodwork have at home.
5. Wood Duck Box with Predator Guard from Home Trix
| Difficulty: | Moderate |
| Materials: | One 1-inch by 12-inch by 10-foot cedar board, Cedar shavings, Wood screws, 3-foot by 8-foot sheet of 26-gauge galvanized metal for predator guard, ¼-inch rivets or stove bolts, Hardware cloth |
| Tools Needed: | Circular saw, Hole saw, Safety glasses, Drill with ½-inch bit, Screwdriver, Sandpaper, Measuring tape |
This Wood Duck box plan from Home Trix includes how to build a predator guard to add beneath your nesting box. Making the entrance hole for the nest small enough for only a duck to enter, excludes most raccoons, but the predator guard helps deter them further.
6. Plywood Wood Duck Box Plans from Instructables
| Difficulty: | Easy |
| Materials: | Four sheets of pressure-treated plywood, 1-lb galvanized 4D nails, Cedar shavings, Wood screws |
| Tools Needed: | Framing hammer, Table saw, Jigsaw, Circular saw, Safety glasses, Drill with ½-inch bit, Drill press, ½-inch router, Measuring tape |
These Wood Duck box plans from Instructables allows you to make fifteen nesting boxes at a time from one set of materials. This is perfect if you live in an area with a thriving population of Wood Ducks.
7. Wood Duck Box Plans with Drainage Holes from Boys’ Life
| Difficulty: | Easy |
| Materials: | 1-inch by 10-inch by 12-foot untreated cedar wood, Hardware cloth, Cedar shavings, Wood screws |
| Tools Needed: | Handsaw, Jigsaw, Screwdriver, Safety glasses, Drill with ½-inch bit, Sandpaper, Straight-edge, Measuring tape |
Boys’ Life Magazine has easy-to-follow plans for building a Wood Duck nest box. This is a fantastic project to do with kids, especially if they’re older and like to do wood-working projects.
8. Simple Wood Duck Nest Box from Iowa DNR
| Difficulty: | Easy to moderate |
| Materials: | 1-inch by 10-inch by 12-foot untreated cedar wood, Hardware cloth, Cedar shavings, Wood screws |
| Tools Needed: | Handsaw, Jigsaw, Screwdriver, Safety glasses, Drill with ½-inch bit, Sandpaper, Straight-edge, Measuring tape |
These plans for a Wood Duck nesting box from Iowa DNR give measurements for each section of the box. It also shows a clever way to create the entrance hole with just a piece of string and a pencil.
9. A Different Kind of Wood Duck Nesting Box from Delta Waterfowl
| Difficulty: | Moderate |
| Materials: | Flax straw, Grass hay, 8-foot long base pipe, 30-inch long adjustable insert pipe, 18-inch long cradle support pipe, 7-foot by 3-foot section of welded wire fencing, Two 20-inch lengths of ¼-inch steel rod, Twelve hog rings, One bolt or wire-lock pin |
| Tools Needed: | Drill, Welder, Safety glasses |
This nesting design for waterfowl from Delta Waterfowl is simple to make, but the post that holds it in the water requires some metal-working skill. For areas that have different species of waterfowl, this is a great project.
10. Wood Duck Nesting Box with Predator Guard from A Bird’s Home
| Difficulty: | Moderate |
| Materials: | One 1-inch by 12-inch by 10-foot cedar board, Cedar shavings, Wood screws, 3-foot by 8-foot sheet of 26-gauge galvanized metal for predator guard, ¼-inch rivets or stove bolts, Hardware cloth |
| Tools Needed: | Circular saw, Hole saw, Safety glasses, Drill with ½-inch bit, Screwdriver, Sandpaper, Measuring tape |
To keep predators from preying on the Wood Duck’s nest, these plans from A Bird’s Home include a predator guard. Along with the small entrance hole, the guard gives added security to nesting wood ducks.
Happy building!
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Featured Image Credit: Mallard duck by 9883074, Pixabay
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