I wanted to post this and see if anyone else does the same thing to control those pesky sparrows that love to steal chicken food.
The last few times we've moved, the same thing happens. The coop is set up, chickens are let loose, and sparrows dominate the bird population. This only lasts for a few months, though . . . long enough for my bird feeders to be noticed by the song birds.
As long as I only put out black oil sunflower seeds, fruit and nut mixes, suet, and things like that, the song birds move in and push the sparrows out, to the point that I NEVER see sparrows around. Since the song birds, unlike the sparrows, show little to no interest in my chicken area, I find this situation ideal. When I suggested this to my mother, she put up feeders, but was still plagued with sparrows. When I told her to do away with the mixed seeds that contained corn, her sparrow problem practically disappeared.
I know some people are against feeding the wild song birds, for reasons such as it creates an unnatural abundance of birds in one area, they could contaminate the chickens, etc. As for the unnatural numbers, animals are always going to congregate more in areas that have a more abundant food source, and I'd rather those creatures be song birds at my bird feeders than sparrows at my chicken feeders. I keep my feeders in a separate area from my chickens, and since the song birds show little to no interest in flitting about a coop and run the way sparrows do, I find that my risk of contamination is decreased once I put feeders up.
I would like to say that if you do use feeders, please leave them up year round. Too many people remove theirs in the winter, when the non migratory birds that have come to depend on the feeders being there need it the most. I also do not put up hummingbird feeders, as I do not trust myself to clean the feeders often enough to avoid the problems associated with feeding hummingbirds. Instead, I plant flowers specifically for them.
I'm not sure if this will always positively work against sparrows, but I just thought I'd post how I deal with them. I wish I had some reputable scientific article I could quote to back me up, but the best I can say is, the one time money was too tight for me to consider feeding anything other than my own animals, the sparrows came back and I rarely saw a songbird. When I started filling bird feeders again, the sparrows disappeared and the song birds were once again heckling each other over their chosen territories and ignoring my chicken feed.
The last few times we've moved, the same thing happens. The coop is set up, chickens are let loose, and sparrows dominate the bird population. This only lasts for a few months, though . . . long enough for my bird feeders to be noticed by the song birds.
As long as I only put out black oil sunflower seeds, fruit and nut mixes, suet, and things like that, the song birds move in and push the sparrows out, to the point that I NEVER see sparrows around. Since the song birds, unlike the sparrows, show little to no interest in my chicken area, I find this situation ideal. When I suggested this to my mother, she put up feeders, but was still plagued with sparrows. When I told her to do away with the mixed seeds that contained corn, her sparrow problem practically disappeared.
I know some people are against feeding the wild song birds, for reasons such as it creates an unnatural abundance of birds in one area, they could contaminate the chickens, etc. As for the unnatural numbers, animals are always going to congregate more in areas that have a more abundant food source, and I'd rather those creatures be song birds at my bird feeders than sparrows at my chicken feeders. I keep my feeders in a separate area from my chickens, and since the song birds show little to no interest in flitting about a coop and run the way sparrows do, I find that my risk of contamination is decreased once I put feeders up.
I would like to say that if you do use feeders, please leave them up year round. Too many people remove theirs in the winter, when the non migratory birds that have come to depend on the feeders being there need it the most. I also do not put up hummingbird feeders, as I do not trust myself to clean the feeders often enough to avoid the problems associated with feeding hummingbirds. Instead, I plant flowers specifically for them.
I'm not sure if this will always positively work against sparrows, but I just thought I'd post how I deal with them. I wish I had some reputable scientific article I could quote to back me up, but the best I can say is, the one time money was too tight for me to consider feeding anything other than my own animals, the sparrows came back and I rarely saw a songbird. When I started filling bird feeders again, the sparrows disappeared and the song birds were once again heckling each other over their chosen territories and ignoring my chicken feed.
