Choosing the right BB gun

[Davaroo]

Quote:
This would be my suggestion too, you don't mess around with a .22rimfire, and you can get the long rifle, short rifle, and #12 birdshot. Theres some good selection in ammo.
To me a air rifle is a toy gun with consequences.

I like that, "...toy with consequences." The idea that an air rifle is a "gun-less gun" is wrong.

If there will be consequences (as there always are with guns of any kind,) then go for the real thing - get a .22RF and a selection of ammo. Then you can have the power of an air rifle, and the full power punch the round offers... just by choosing the ammunition best suited for the job.

 

[hen-at-home]

Thanks Roo#3, ya, I think that is the type of gun he has. I've heard that... "airsoft".... used when they talk about them, so that must be it, and it doesn't puncture the skin. I like the idea of biodegradable bbs. I'm going to look into that.

I'll keep looking for florescent green lumps in the chicks "fertalizer"!

 

[Davaroo]

Quote:
Keep in mind that airsoft is utterly non lethal - the ultimate adult "toy gun". It may scare off a few minor, merely interested animals, BUT IT WILL HAVE LITTLE LASTING EFFECT ON DETERMINED PREDATORS.

Laying a chicken buffet before wild creatures is wholly unnatural... and ultimately your responsibility for having done so.
If you are to keep the wild things where they belong - in the wild - then you must be dominant over them.
Half measures don't work, because they only know live or die, eat or be eaten.

Allow me to quote Bob Plamondon here:


"Predators are smart and observant. I rarely hear people mention this, but predators are smarter and more observant than people give
them credit for. Once I began to dispatch the predators around my place, the rest began avoiding my farm. When the farmers and the trappers are on their
toes about chicken-eaters, the predators not only get the message, they pass it on to their young, and a balance is struck.
The predators go on to eat wildlife, rather than livestock (chickens), and this means that both predators and livestock get to have a normal lifespan.

But if you don't actually kill any predators, their caution fades.

After a couple of generations, the mothers stop teaching farm-avoidance to their young. Then the clueless young predators
kill a lot of livestock before inevitably being killed themselves out of desperation or frustration.

Which is a bad deal all around. To misquote the song, 'Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be chicken eaters!'"


If you intend to use a gun to deal with predators, you must think in terms of Us vs. Them.
If you do not wish to do this, then you should look to more passive measures for control.

 

[hen-at-home]

Davaroo,


Thanks for the information. Though I am new to chicken keeping and have no idea what type of predators I'll be dealing with in the future, the perspective you present is quite interesting. Currently my biggest worry is whether the little airsoft ammo will be a problem for my chicks since they ingested some. Will wait and see.

 

[Davaroo]

Quote:
I know this sort of thing sounds a little 'preachy' and a few will accuse me of puffing up my word count with such information. I apologize if it comes off either way.

But, really, there is no easy way to say what Ive suggested. The New Age Nice, i.e., the notion of everybody "just getting along," doesn't work with predators. They dont have politics, they dont have a social conscience.
BYC is loaded with tales of woe involving predation, and even decimation, of peoples' chickens. More often than not, it can be traced to a lack of understanding.
People get some chickens, plunk them down in the yard... end every critter within 5 miles smells them and comes to the dinner bell.

Your choices are simple: stop them at the borders or stop them at the yard. It is preferable to stop them at the fence using less than lethal means.
After all, Nature's balance is best when left undisturbed - and left to remain where it belongs, in Nature.

But when that doesn't work, and eventually it may not, then the gun is one of the best options to stop predators closer in. I know it sounds harsh, but there it is - Its you or them..

Using them for target practice with "kinda real" guns only teaches the preds to come around when you're not there.