I live in a rural area of Colorado, and we have lots of different types of birds. I like birds very much and enjoy watching them, except doves. Every year we have at least one mating pair that try to get inside the barn or make their nest on the overhang of my barn. I have one horse that dislikes birds and will chase them off. This year the doves are trying to make their nest on our backyard pergola, and I’ve got dove poop on my patio furniture. What can I use to deter doves from moving in besides running outside and yelling at them?
Cds or reflective tape
we have a group of crows that keep doves away. there is a reason a flock of crows is called a murder
crows are predators of doves,
I have pigeons that like to nest in my barn. I HATE them, flying rats that s**t on everything. I was gone to the mountains all last summer and they took over. They are unafraid of the hanging CDs or plastic owls and blow-up snakes. I ended up hanging netting over all openings and keeping the barn doors closed. I then dispatched all of the ones who still managed to get in with a pellet rifle. My stalls (indoor/outdoor) are set up so that I can roll up the netting if I need to have a horse in the barn. I don’t actually keep the horses in the barn unless they are sick/injured or the weather is truly nasty. But I do keep all my feed in there and my tack room and grooming area is inside.
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A string of CDs worked to keep wild birds out of my chicken coop.
Besides eating the $$ layer pellets & fouling the waterbowl, there’s now Avian Flu to worry about.
Either the motion or the shiny, or both seems to make them pick someplace else to flock.
I went from having dozens to the occasional bird or two flee when I enter the coop.
My barn was overrun with pigeons. I tried the metal mesh, but didn’t work. I hired a guy to install anti bird spikes after he did a thorough pressure wash. He installed them everywhere there was someplace to perch, and I immediately never saw another bird in my barn. For the first two weeks they’d line up on the fence gazing longingly at my barn, but the problem was solved. I see the same type of spikes on Amazon. It cost me about $1000 to have it done, and it was worth it!
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Once or twice a year, I have a pair of pigeons (or doves, idk) start coming in to make their home in the barn or indoor. Me and my staff make it our personal mission to scare them off the MILLISECOND they enter the barn (usually first thing in the morning). I mean we drop everything and run like a hooligan clapping and yelling at them. They leave pretty quickly, and then try again the next day. They do this for a few days in a row and then abandon the idea altogether until another pair tries again months later. We also have a pellet gun with biodegradable pellets, although I don’t think we’ve actually used it.
This would probably only work if you start with a pigeon free barn… I have seen pigeons who have claimed the barn as their home and don’t seem to be scared by humans at all!
just ran across this on Crows
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFV_9HRUiI4
the group of crows that live nearby frequent our place sort of on patrol, we have water bowls out for them and the small wildlife
Are there any rent-a-hawk pest bird abatement services in your area, such as Hawk Force? They are very popular in the West.
Lasers (both a machine or even a simple pen laser) seem to be pretty effective in deterring pigeons/doves. (There really is little difference between them - all descend from the rock dove and often the colloquial name depends on which language you speak.)
I haven’t used these but learned about them in my research into pigeon keeping as a result of getting into versatile/pointing hunting dogs and using them for training. 
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