Controlling sparrows they spread disease and lice.

[davedavey]

There starting to hit the chickens feed hard again. So will have to get the trap going again.

 

[scoretzm]

I too have a problem with wild birds; but am dumbfounded as to how I can solve the problem. We have a row of Hawthorn, wild rose and Pacific Willow that are growing next to my chicken coop and free ranging areas and there must be hundreds of all kinds of small birds living there. The major problem is these small birds are eating my hens feed (I have 29 chickens), and drinking out of the waterers; which worries me about diseases the birds carry.

 

[aart]

but am dumbfounded as to how I can solve the problem.

Keep your birds confined behind mesh too small the the wild birds.
....or get 'rat proof' feeders and use nipples for watering.

Welcome to BYC! @scoretzm
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[davedavey]

Hundreds of sparrows hanging around now. Time to get the trap going again.

 

[Pterocactus]

http://www.sialis.org/hosp.htm#monofilament

So, I haven't used this technique around the chickens yet, but I've used it on my bird feeder with great results. I made a halo out of wire and hung 4 thin wires weighted with washers around my tube feeder, and the house sparrows completely stopped eating out of it. Before that they were emptying the feeder every few days. I've had it up for almost 2 years like that and have yet to see sparrows mobbing the feeder again.

Maybe thicker wires might work around the chicken feeder to keep chickens from getting tangled in it, or you might be able to keep the wires taut if they're tacked down on both ends. Depending on your feeder type, you could test out different designs to see what scares the sparrows the best.

 

[Al Gerhart]

Yea! Two people got the answer right. A rat proof feeder also stops wild birds. I have repeated the details ad nauseum today, spring loaded door, heavy counterweight system, and a narrow and distant treadle are all required.

Google Fifth Crow Farms and chicken feeder or here is the link to the story. They got a grant to buy twenty of my feeders years ago and within days their wild bird problem was gone. Since then they have bought about the same amount and other than a few dozen springs they have been working ever since. Their salad greens crops were being ruined and they were feeding an extra twenty pounds of feed a day. After the feeders were installed on pallets, outside in a free range pasture, the birds left for good.

All this proves what Howard E. has said over and over again in his posts, sanitation, exclusion, elimination are the steps to take to deal with vermin. Start with the first step and the other two are not needed. It would be impossible to rat proof or wild bird proof acres of land. There would be no end to trapping and poison purchase to protect acres of land. But a simple rat proof chicken feeder solved the problems and has been working flawlessly for going on six years.

One thing they did right was put the feeders up out of the poo to prevent corrosion, chicken poo is very corrosive, the ammonia in it. One thing they could have done better was allow the treadle to bottom out on something to make training easier, but they got it close enough that the hens can hold the treadle with one foot and stand on the other foot so it has worked for them.

 

[davedavey]

get those birds

 

[Al Gerhart]

You know now

Winged rats.....

 

[davedavey]

Winged rats.....

exactly

 

[davedavey]

Trap is up and running