so I gave up the battle of keeping the sparrows out of the coop my birds free rang in my back yard and only lay eggs in coop and sleep at night. my girls have 4 nesting boxes in there coop but only use 2 and the 3rd one once and while. my prob now is there have been 2 sparros i see in the coop all the time now i am catching them in the 4th nesting box and i think it looks like thats where they want to have there baby birds ( I could be wrong) my fear if I let them when the baby birds hatch or even when there eggs my girls will either take over the eggs and hatch the birds them selfs and of course those babys would die as they are not like chicks and can feed them selfs or when the eggs hatch my chicken will eat the new born babys. no of course I could always block off that nesting box so the chickens cant get in there and let the sparrows do there thing. Oh ya these sparros also hang out on the rost at night and sleep with the chickens some nights and the chickens dont seem to care. I dont know has anyone ever had this kind of a prob what do you recomend,
Your coop vents need to have mesh on them. If you have a run, the fencing needs to have smaller openings or add netting. You could add a fake owl and set it ontop of your coop. Our fake owls do not spook the chickens but they help somewhat with nuisance bird control
the sparrows go in threw the chicken door when its open my girls free range in my back yards ( i have 4 sections in my back yard 1 turtle area, one play area, one garden area and then the coop / side of house area then there is also aound the corner garge area but there not allowed there to many things to kill them) My mother colects owls there there hung up all over the yard and house and birds dont think twice about them. I dont worry about the sperros to much and the dogs keep the pigons and doves away and it would take a act of god to keep the sperros away they live in our big trees. I just worry about the chickens hurting the little new born babies when they hatch
I would advise that you clear out the nests as often as you can to prevent sparrows from spending lots of time in your coop. Not only do they eat your chicken food, but they carry a lot of diseases that can decimate your flock. Avian flu, Marecks, mycoplasma, worms, mites, fleas, etc.
Ditto. I had sparrows nesting in the eaves of my house semi near the hutch I brood chicks on. They would land on the hutch/run for a minute while they were looking for food and drop a ton of mites. I didn't realize they were so infested until I was feeding one day, put my hand on the fence and my hand and arm were crawling with creepies. I dusted their nest with sevin and let them finish elrearing their chicks, but no more. They try to build, and I spray them/their nest down with the water hose. I can't imagine the mess I would have had if they were sleeping with my chickens. If I were you, I'd clean out my coop and dust the flock ASAP! Nikki
