HOW CAN I GET RID OF BLACKBIRDS?

[dragoneggs]

Just part of farming. Different countries different birds. Parrots in Australia, finches here. In the UK they say One for the rook, one for the crow, one to rot and one to grow. Then the birds eat the one that grew.

This might be the funniest post I have ever read... I read it to my wife several times with some varying accent:reading: We laughed and cried at the same time! :laughing: :cryingeyesout: :laughing:

 

[OldMcDonald]

I have a lot of experience of those propane cannons - all operated by neighbours. They were very popular in the UK. It seems to me that they are not effective after the first few days. The birds seem to get used to them and often do not even take off, although mostly I have noticed they get a fright, fly up, and then settle down to feeding again.

I do not know if it works but most people around here use CDs strung in bushes or on poles. Another TBNer, Bill Spurlock, makes his own scarers. See his blog sunnyslopesorchard.blogspot and look for his thread about them a while back.

Slightly off-topic, but not entirely because it involves killing crop eaters, I hope you do not mind my next post to dragoneggs.

 

[OldMcDonald]

dragoneggs, I did not intend it to be funny, but I am pleased if it amused you. I think it is good to laugh. You might be interested in this bit I wrote as part of my life wandering the planet :-

I have always wanted to emulate the great explorers and say something like “When I was up the Orinoco….”. Well, when I was shooting wild boar in the Nandewars one day …. We were on a spur of the Nandewar hills so I can say that. My wife was with me and I saw this pig right on the edge of some scrub. I shot it with the .243 but he moved as I fired and I was not entirely happy that I had made a clean kill. I knew I had hit it. I took the shotgun in case the pig was still able to move, and some BB cartridges that I knew at close range would finish it. As a further safety measure to back me up I gave my wife the .22 with a 15 shot magazine attached, so she just had to keep squeezing the trigger and it would spit out all 15. We could hear some more pigs in the scrub, and with my wife behind me I went into the scrub. I then heard a shot from the .22 and my wife asked what I had been shooting at. She had shot two pigs with the one bullet and did not even know she had fired. A wee bit excited I suppose. The trouble was that the two pigs she shot were the one that stayed at home and the one that got roast beef.

 

[ddivinia]

I remember as a kid we had what seemed like 1000s of black birds. All the farmers go together and started shooting them no tomorrow. The pastures were covered with dead birds. That went on for weeks. Who knows how many shotgun shells were shot. I know. Reloaded 1000s of them with my old single stage Mec loader.

D.

 

[bsrfarms97]

Well so far I've used several different things. I use firecrackers to get them to fly out of the corn then I blast them with my shotgun. Plus I have a portable radio where I been playing the sound of a hawk off and on. So far o have found that you can't use just one method. They get used to it in a hurry and won't leave the cornfields

 

[Sysop]

Creatures of habit...

 

[hawkeye08]

Just buy your corn in the store, quit trying to "grow your own". Are you some kind of survivalist nut? just kidding... :laughing:

 

[Mac2411]

Just an FYI: Federal law protects most blackbirds (including all grackels, the common "blackbird"), so it’s illegal to shoot or kill them without a federal permit.

 

[zonta223]

Has anyone on here ever used the propane cannons to see how effective they are? I've checked the price of several of them and some are reasonable if they really work. Corn cost here is close to 400 per acre by the time you fertilize, buy seed, and diesel. And a big flock of those pest can ruin a cpl acres of picking corn pretty quickly. That is a huge hit especially in years when they are worse than normal. I've probably already spent $200 in shotgun shells alone this year and killed countless of them pest and you would never know I've killed a 1 when they start hitting my corn fields early of a morning.

You need to check your local authority some require propane cannons can only be used during certain hours which tends to limit their effectiveness. You need one that makes noise at random times. The birds soon ignore one that goes off every say 15 mins.
Cannons on their own soon lose effectiveness if you back them up with a scarecrow and bird scaring reflective tape tied to the tallest grain stalks you may have something that works. Red on one side of the tape / silver on the other seems to work best.
Best of luck to you birds can be a real heart breaker to get rid of

 

[jerryjks]

Just an FYI: Federal law protects most blackbirds (including all grackels, the common "blackbird"), so it’s illegal to shoot or kill them without a federal permit.

Not sure this is totally true... NPWRC :: Controlling Blackbird Damage Scroll to the bottom of the page. It is not really clear if you need a federal permit under certain conditions.

Can't imagine having your crops destroyed while you get a permit. If you keep reading it gives ideas on how to "control" the blackbirds.