Pesky starlings

[bellchick]

How do I keep starlings from getting into my henhouse and eating all the food? I still need to be able to have my chickens get in and out. They starling are getting in through the small hen door when I open it in the am. I really need an effective solution. Please help

 

[centrarchid]

Chicken wire will keep starlings out. I have similar problems with Cardinals but feed a restricted ration to limit losses.

 

[Mahlzeit]

Do you have your chickens free ranging or in a fenced in run? If the chicken door leads to a run you might have to put netting on the top and use a small enough wire like chicken wire for the sides of the run. If their door leads to just open space that's a really tough problem to solve.

 

[bellchick]

The hen door does lead out to a fenced run that is about 30 x 40. Netting would seem like the most secure option. Any thoughts on the blowy foil-like strips that people put around their houses to keep them from nesting up high. I thought maybe putting them on the hen door and hope the hens will still walk through. Thanks for your thoughts and help.

 

[Kelsie2290]

I've had good luck with the repeating sparrow trap catching starlings also. http://www.sparrowtraps.net/
The plastic flap pet doors may work, the starlings are too small to move them, but the chickens will usually learn to.
Starlings are pretty persistent birds and "scary" things don't seem to work for long once they have found food.
If your run is already fenced, deer netting on top of the wire if you don't want to chicken wire/hardware cloth everything.

 

[aart]

I've had good luck with the repeating sparrow trap catching starlings also. http://www.sparrowtraps.net/......

How do you dispatch the captured sparrows/starlings?

 

[Mahlzeit]

The foil strips might work at first but they pretty quickly lose their effectiveness. How many of them are flying in and out of your coop?

 

[aldarita]

I use the sparrow traps too because we have lots of them nesting in our Mexican tile roof, unfortunately we have way too many so even though we have 2 traps we cannot catch them fast enough. We put them in a box and use CO2 to kill them, it only takes 3 or 4 minutes and is quick and painless. I hate to do this but they are way too many and keep reproducing fast. After wards I leave them in the pasture for the wild life to eat them, usually is the vultures that find them first.

 

[aart]

I use the sparrow traps too because we have lots of them nesting in our Mexican tile roof, unfortunately we have way too many so even though we have 2 traps we cannot catch them fast enough. We put them in a box and use CO2 to kill them, it only takes 3 or 4 minutes and is quick and painless. I hate to do this but they are way too many and keep reproducing fast. After wards I leave them in the pasture for the wild life to eat them, usually is the vultures that find them first.

How do you produce and administer the CO2?

 

[Kelsie2290]

Here is a Bluebird link on euthanizing sparrows/ starlings. http://www.sialis.org/hospdispatch.htm