Annihilating House Sparrows

[dungrulla]

Okay the title is a little overdramatic, but these f*&^ers have got to goddamn go.

They sit outside my morning EVERY morning regardless of season and throw a party, waking me up around 6 AM even if the sun isn’t up, so I have to sleep with earplugs in.

They build nests in my gutters, in the soffits of my house, in the lighting recesses on my front porch, in my pergola. No amount of screening these areas in seems to stop them–they just find new areas.

They poop massive quantities for such tiny birds, all over everything including all my tack, my deck, and sometimes even my horses!

They also eat my chickens’ food.

How do I rid myself of these? Is trapping and killing them my only option? I’m at the end of my rope with these tiny terrorists.

[Scribbler]

Adopt an owl?

[dungrulla]

@Scribbler

Adopt an owl?

Ugh I wish this was a realistic suggestion, I love the soft puffy bois

[horseshorseshorseshorses]

You aren’t going to like my answer because it means more work than adopting an owl. [LIST=1]

Knock down their nests. See one being made? Knock it down.

Figure out where they are nesting and hanging out and put up bird spikes designed for house sparrows and possibly netting to prevent them from landing

Try and reduce available food as best you can

Maybe invest in a squawk box. This will work in the short term but birds will figure out no predators are around

Encourage ANY predator bird to take up residence. [/LIST] Otherwise....Best of luck

[4horses]

Call a local bird rescue and request some hawks?

You need to block off the area they are nesting in. How are they getting in your soffits? Mine are blocked off- nothing can get in there.

You need to sparrow proof the chicken coop. It shouldn’t be too hard. Train your chickens to eat in their coop. In my area, if you leave out chicken food, the raccoons will come and kill your chickens. Or the foxes.

We have mockingbirds and they love to sing in the middle of the night, at 12-2 am, or 4am or 6am am, etc. I go out and throw tennis balls at the tree and it usually scares them off. They are annoying. The flock of crows loves my barn and property, but they don’t usually bother me except if they poop on the barn walls.

Try having someone with a gun shoot near them. The noise usually scares them off. Pigeons were nesting in a friend’s barn. One gun shot and they were gone. Of course they do come back when you aren’t around. Smart birds. But it might give you some bird free time to fix things up. Avoid shooting the actual birds. It’s a good way to put holes in the barn- a tale my dad likes to tell from when he was a boy and was hired to shoot birds in his uncle’s barn.
”‹”‹”‹”‹”‹

[Sing_Mia_Song]

My neighbor uses an air cannon in his dairy barn. Fair warning: it’s really really loud. Fringe benefit is that my horses are now gun shot trained.

[ToTheNines]

Hope you didn’t kill all your snakes. My rat snakes do a wonderful job of getting up into the rafters for house sparrow nests.

[the_sandiest_shoes]

I don’t know if the air cannon is a serious suggestion but these are extremely disruptive to all sorts of birds, not just resident sparrows giving you grief. An insane amount of songbirds are getting decimated in North America and noise pollution is at least one of the causes we can control (also noise cannons may violate local noise ordinances depending on where you live). https://www.washingtonpost.com/scien…n-birds-years/

We’ve lost three billion birds in 50 years. Yes I’m a bird lover but it still really bums me out when we do things to destabilize habitat of the few little birdie buddies we have left. It’s not their fault we took away most of the trees.

[dungrulla]

@ToTheNines

Hope you didn’t kill all your snakes. My rat snakes do a wonderful job of getting up into the rafters for house sparrow nests.

Definitely not! I have a reptile collection and wouldn’t.

[TMares]

Gutter guards.
hardware cloth to keep them out of our chicken pen
Spike strips on other perches.