Pigeon population is out of control!

[SquirrellyBred]

Looking for advice on pigeon abatement. We have a big problem with these flying rodents at my barn around the horse stalls, the hay barn, and the indoor arena.

Barn management has brought out a sharp shooter every so often in the past, which makes a temporary dent in the population but currently we have no other controls in place.

I’ve volunteered to research different options and found various options on the internet: netting, spikes, chemical caulking, trapping, shooting. Has anyone found a particular method/methods that has worked for you? Thanks!

[Jeito]

I left my last barn because of the out of control pigeon population. Nothing worked. Twice, I think, a hawk flew into the indoor and cleared out the pigeons for a while, but they came back. Sorry I don’t have better news. I pretty much researched everything before I gave up.

[Griffyn]

Definitely have used the pellet gun method, which is tedious, but works. The problem was we had a stray pigeon that was tagged/owned that we didnt want to take out, and "Goldie"brought his wild friends over to party and they eventually moved in.

[gypsymare]

[QUOTE=TemJeito;7856715]
I left my last barn because of the out of control pigeon population. Nothing worked. Twice, I think, a hawk flew into the indoor and cleared out the pigeons for a while, but they came back. Sorry I don’t have better news. I pretty much researched everything before I gave up.[/QUOTE]
I wonder if a falconer might be interested in doing this for a fee.

[Riverotter]

Trap and sell.
Seriously, people will buy pigeons. Some folks just like flying them, and some raise them for meat (racing pigeons are a special breed)

You could also look up ways to encourage hawks or owls to nest nearby.

If it was your barn, you could close off their nesting areas, but since it’s not, you’re kind of stuck there. But they are there because they can nest. Pigeons are homebodies, ready availability of food is nowhere near as important to them as good nesting spots. Cans of sprayfoam insulation is a fast and easy way to close off nesting areas.

[Romany]

Find a falconer. There are falconers that run falcons to clear out flying rodents for a living - ask your local airport, for example.

[merrygoround]

Cats! If your rafters are accessible to cats, they will remove all birds. It may take several cats to find one who has a liking for the job.

[Alagirl]

Close of anything they can roost on, with netting where possible, spikes on areas they can land on, but you can’t enclose.

Knock down all nests you can find and reach (kind of mean, but hey, those ARE rats!)

Research nesting options for birds of prey. Build something for hawks or similar to hang out for the hunt.

fake owls only work for a little bid, the pigeons get wise to it in a hurry.
Falconer, yes, and of course a gun.

And probably clean up around the grain more (chickens?)

[fourmares]

I’ve been told that at night it is easy to just pick them up out of their nests, stuff them in a bag and sell them for food. Some people like to eat them. Others like to use them to train bird dogs.

[Bluey]

We closed all higher openings with pure old chicken wire and shoot any that show up anywhere else.

We have two different traps, but they really don’t catch many.

We have an owl that comes by every so often and cleans any out of there.
Here he is a couple of weeks ago:

[ToTheNines]

Get rid of your cats if you have them. The mice and house sparrows (pest birds) will come back and so will the hawks. I don’t have cats, but I have plenty of hawks and ravens to eat the pest birds.

[SquirrellyBred]

[QUOTE=gypsymare;7856825]
I wonder if a falconer might be interested in doing this for a fee.[/QUOTE]

The local falconers won’t run their birds in an enclosed space, I already called around on that. But might be a solution if we get the pigeons out of the barn and just need to clear them off the roofs. Thanks for the suggestion!

[SquirrellyBred]

[QUOTE=Riverotter;7856886]
Trap and sell.
Seriously, people will buy pigeons. Some folks just like flying them, and some raise them for meat (racing pigeons are a special breed)

You could also look up ways to encourage hawks or owls to nest nearby.

If it was your barn, you could close off their nesting areas, but since it’s not, you’re kind of stuck there. But they are there because they can nest. Pigeons are homebodies, ready availability of food is nowhere near as important to them as good nesting spots. Cans of sprayfoam insulation is a fast and easy way to close off nesting areas.[/QUOTE]

Thanks for your suggestions. I’ll look into trapping. We do have owl boxes around the property, and a healthy population, but whatever kind of owl they are they only seem to go for rodents, not the pigeons. Occasionally we do get some hawks- I’ll reach out to our local wild bird group and see if they have advice for attracting more hawks.

Management seems pretty gung-ho to find a real solution, so we’ll see. Worst case scenario is that I’ll take measures to block the roosting areas around my stall (with permission). I love this barn too much to leave due to the pigeons.

[SquirrellyBred]

Lots of barn cats, and they do have access to the rafters but I’ve never seen one with a pigeon. They’re great for rodent control though!

[SquirrellyBred]

[QUOTE=ToTheNines;7858701]
Get rid of your cats if you have them. The mice and house sparrows (pest birds) will come back and so will the hawks. I don’t have cats, but I have plenty of hawks and ravens to eat the pest birds.[/QUOTE]

No go on removing the cats. Everyone is very attached to them, and I don’t think they would make great house pets. Thanks for the suggestion though!

[SquirrellyBred]

Thanks everyone for your help. You’ve confirmed what I already suspected: this will not be an easy job! The barns have lovely high roofs and rafters, which will make blocking off the nesting areas difficult, but I think this HAS to be part of the solution. I will definitely look into how to attract the birds of prey onto the property as well. The shooter was apparently just put on retainer to come out every month, so that should put a size able dent in the population as long as we get going on removing nests and blocking those areas. Wish us luck!

[Calamber]

You can bait them with corn and oats, and trap them. You can use any type of pen, rabbit, chicken etc, if you can find the flanged doors that won’t allow them back out after they go in, then put a message on Craigslist and give them away or sell them at $1 a piece. You could also put up an ad to see if someone wants to come and trap them, they use them for training bird dogs.(they will be shot)

http://www.cabelas.com/product/Pigeon-Trap/746613.uts You can place the trap on a table, feed the birds on the ground and then next to, and of course finally in the trap.

The only ones edible are the squabs (fledglings) but I think your nests will be too high.

[HungarianHippo]

The TR center I volunteered at had bad pigeon problems in the indoor arena. They put up netting attached to the roof trusses, blocking off (in theory) anyplace to roost/nest. Problem is, it’s pretty hard to ensure completely tight, secure netting over an entire 110x60ft space-- invariably there were gaps, sags, corners that came loose. So then the pigeons could get up above the nets and had this nice little protected space. The nets collected their crap and old feathers that they shed, so it looked bad, to boot. They had more luck with a pellet gun.So, netting might work but you have to be really careful not to allow any gaps, and inspect frequently for signs of breach.
Don’t do poison (if you value your cats and owls).

[LookmaNohands]

One time I had an employee catch one in a fishing net, put it in a dog carrier and take it an hour away to a polo game she was going to. She let it go there and we never saw it again.

Other than that my farrier and his wife are good shots. No pigeons in my barn.

[RutlandH2O]

This thread is very timely. Our 4 Shires are winter-housed in a massive pole barn separated into 3 sections of 45’ x 30’ each. The divides are only 4’ high, and the ceiling height is approximately 20’ at the apex. The barn is open to the outside on one long side and on half of the two short sides above a 4’ perimeter wall. We’ve always had the odd pigeon. However, this past year their numbers have snowballed. I was constantly scraping pigeon poo off horizontal surfaces and sweeping up their mess. One of my mares developed wounds on her face from persistent rubbing. I attributed it to some of her medications (Danilon, Pentosan, Prascend, wormers) to no avail. My vets took biopsies of the wounds, again inconclusive. We put her on a course of antibiotics which helped dry up several of the lesions, only for me to be greeted by 3 new ones last week.

My vet came out about 10 ago with a skin specialist. We had a major consultation regarding the pigeons. It was decided that the time had come to deal with the mounting poo, feathers, and any associated irritants the pigeons might be depositing on the ground below. I hired a marksman to come to the farm in the evening when the birds were roosting for the night. He had an air rifle with a night scope. We removed the horses and let him get to work. I was worried about the horses freaking out, but, to my surprise, the whole experience was quite stress-free and quiet. There was very little in the way of fluttering and hysteria on the part of the birds, mainly because this took place in the dark. When he was done, we found he had bagged 51 birds.

The next day I scraped every surface and ring feeder, then vacuumed the entire pole barn. I, then, disinfected every surface, whether horizontal or vertical. So far so good. There are no new wounds on my mare and almost nothing in the way of faecal matter from the remaining 3 birds. Our hay pole barn, sheep and donkey barns were cleaned of pigeons, as well.

I was quite upset about the idea of a cull, but the marksman was so accurate that only 2 birds were winged (and dispatched immediately). I don’t recommend having cats to do the job. Cats kill too many songbirds (our barn cat is locked up in our tack room from 4pm until the next mid-morning, due to his pillaging of our songbird population, despite all those pigeons).