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Journal M.C. Hampster's Journal: Birds of a Feather should DIE Together 27

Journal by M.C. Hampster

I hate pigeons.

I mean, I hate these birds with a righteous fury I don't think I've ever felt.

I spent most Sunday afternoon dealing with these "rats with wings". We have a two story house that has morphed over the last few months into an open-air aviary for pigeons. They have built nests, crapped all over my roof, driveway and vehicles. They've woken my children up early with their cooing in the early morning hours (which in Phoenix now starts at 5:30). Yes, this is partially my fault for letting the problem get this bad. I should have dealt with them months ago. But as usual, I've procrastinated on my housework, mostly because I spent my weekends playing with the kids and finishing schoolwork.

However, I felt inspired after church to deal with the issue. On the way home, I stopped by Lowe's to pick up my arsenal:

  1. Wire snips
  2. Gray spray paint
  3. Stapler gun (I've wanted one of these for a long time)
  4. What can only be described as the wire fencing they used to make rabbit cages.

The plan of action was to get up on the roof and sweep off as much pigeon crap as I could. Then clear out the nests and spray off the roof to clean up the rest. I don't think I've experienced that much crap since I watched a night of the DNC convention last year. It was everywhere. After getting it off the roof, I swept it up off the driveway. I honestly had to shovel it into the garbage can. After getting that cleaned up, I went back on the roof and tried to clear out the nests. There were two of them. One recently had a mother with babies, but they had moved out. That nest wasn't a problem. There was another nest in an eave on the 2nd level roof that still had a mother pigeon there. I ended up spraying all the other pigeons to get them to leave, and I THOUGHT that the one in the nest had left, but when I ended up shooting the water in the eave to clear out the nest, I realized it wasn't going to work. So I went to try to reach something in there to pry out the nest and clean it up that way. It was then I realized the bird was still there.

Now, I had sprayed a high pressure stream of water in this thing for at least 3 minutes. And this bird still refuses to leave. I kind of felt bad for a second or two, thinking that this was one dedicated mommy bird. But then I realized that things was simply creating more rats with wings. I decided to give up on clearing out this nest until next weekend, when hopefully the babies have left the nest and I don't have to battle with the bird.

I closed up the two other eaves that had previously had nests with the wire. I spray painted the wire with the gray spray paint so it wouldn't be so noticeable. It closely matched some of the highlights in the external paint and ended up looking much better than expected.

So at this point, the house is pretty nicely cleaned up. I still need to clean out that last nest and close up the eave so they won't be back. On Monday morning, I noticed there were a bunch of pigeons back, sleeping on the roof and perching areas. I've done some research on ways to more permanently get rid of them. On one Usenet posting I found, someone said that spraying them with a hose in the early evening as they are settling in will usually get rid of them after a few nights. So last night, right as the sun was going down, I sprayed them all enough to get them to leave. I saw no birds this morning on the roof except for the one in that last nest.

Anyone else have any suggestions on dealing with pigeons? It's illegal for me to kill them, so I'd prefer not to resort to that action. (I'm looking at you Bungi.)

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Birds of a Feather should DIE Together

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  • from what I've read the two best things you can do are remove nesting areas (you're doing that) and remove food sources. Dog food is a biggie. But if you've got a neighbor leaving dog food out, you're toast.

    Apparently killing them doesn't work too well because others just move in to fill the gap.

    Just make sure they didn't get into your attic or crawl spaces. That can turn into huge problems.

    My neighborhood has lots of pigeons and doves. I love watching the doves and the pigeons aren't too bad. Bu
    • I guess you would be an expert on the subject..... stoolpigeon :)
    • I wonder about trapping. Get a steal humane trap and put seed in it. My parents are doing this with the squirrel problem and it is workign wonders... but squireels aren't as bad as pigeons because there is a lower ceilign to the population density.

      jason
      • From everything I've seen, getting rid of pigeons themselves-- by whatever means, is really only a very temporary fix. Other pigeons around just breed up to fill in the gap. So what you have to do is try to make it so that they don't want to or cannot live there.

        The popularity of tile roofs here in AZ does not help. Apparently pigeons live on rocks wherever they came from and not in trees. Well the good ol' Valley of the Sun is a sea of spanish tile (like my whole neighborhood) and that is apparentl

        • From everything I've seen, getting rid of pigeons themselves-- by whatever means, is really only a very temporary fix. Other pigeons around just breed up to fill in the gap. So what you have to do is try to make it so that they don't want to or cannot live there.

          That's the strategy I'm going to employ. And being that pigeons have the ability to find their homes from far distances (think homing pigeons), trapping them and moving them somewhere else is supposed to be ineffective.

          Well the good ol' Val

          • A few times this fall I was allowed the chance, along with my brother and a friend, to try and kill off the pigeons at a friend's dairy farm near by.

            So off we walked with shotguns loaded and ready to rock and roll. It was fun because you have to be real sneeky or else they get spooked. And then there are lots of things at a dairy farm that cannot get shot. Like tractors, tanks, cows, roofs, etc. Very hard to coordinate fire alleys to make sure that when we busted around a corner, no one was covering so

            • I'm not really into hunting, but boy does that sound fun. :-)

              Of course, I think my neighbors would be calling the cops...

              • See it isn't really hunting. I mean one time there was a fence row with about 50 pigeons (possibly more) sitting on it. We approached from one end and low where they couldn't all see us. We were stil about 20 yards away from them. Then we jumped out from the side of the fence and unloaded on them. We killed about 15 in that opening salvo.... and there were still hundreds and hundreds left at the farm.

                It is more like target practice.

                jason

                • We killed about 15 in that opening salvo....
                  It is more like target practice

                  Sounds more like war. ;-)

                  • "War....... it's Faaannnnnnntastic!"

                    Yeah. It was fun to wage open war upon the envading species. Those birds didn't live here before the dairy farm. Before the dairy farm this land was sage brush, prairie dogs, and coyotes. So the farmers are raging a righteous jihad, if you will, against the pagan pigeons and I simply play the part of a humble servant to do their bidding.

                    jason
                    analogy taken too far?
                    naaaaaaahhhh

      • Yeah, in my response to sp, I mention the fact that pigeons are known for their ability to find their home from long distances, so this isn't too effective I hear. The quote I received from this one guy included trapping the pigeons and moving them to another state because if you don't move them that far, they'll just make their way home.

    • from what I've read the two best things you can do are remove nesting areas (you're doing that) and remove food sources. Dog food is a biggie. But if you've got a neighbor leaving dog food out, you're toast.

      No dogs on either side of us that I'm aware of. But that's good to know.

      My neighborhood has lots of pigeons and doves. I love watching the doves and the pigeons aren't too bad. But I'm right near Suagaro Ranch Park so I think they go there more-- lots of food out and all.

      Dang, we are so close

  • It may be illegal for *you* to kill them, but not a cat.

    Borrow one for a few days and let him roam around up there. Any pigeon that lands will turn in to cat food.

    You can also get a fake cat to leave up there... birds are dumb and can't tell the difference.

    The real thing is far more entertaining... Along with pigeons, the neighbor's cat picks off squirrels too. It's like watching Animal Planet. Squirrels = Tree Rats anyways.

    • You know, we have seen a ton of cats in our backyard the last few months (we have a really large backyard). I've wondered what has been attracting them to our house, but I guess the answer is fairly obvious. I forgot to mention that when I was on the roof on Sunday I found a dead pigeon. It didn't look like a cat had gotten to it, but perhaps that was the cause of death.

      As for the fake cat: I heard that fake animals (like cats and owls) can work, but that usually the pigeons become acclamated to the

  • What, you couldn't kill the mommy rat? I'm disappointed, really. C'mon now, just use a kitchen knife and disembowl it with one swift stroke. Alternatively, a piece of steel or lead piping and a similarly swift strike to the head works. Birds have hard skulls though, unlike actual rodents.

    Who cares that you're not allowed to kill them? It's not like you're shooting them, and it's your property. No one is going to call the cops on you or anything. Just kill it.

    I got an estimate last year to "pigeon-proof"

    • I got an estimate last year to "pigeon-proof" the house. The guy wanted $400 (!). I'm probably going to get my mexican handyman to at least go up there, clean up a bit and put up some spikes. We'll see.

      Yeah, the estimate for our house to clean up all the crap, pigeon-proof it, and "relocate" the pigeons was like $600. I managed to get the whole thing done in a few hours with $50. I might have to buy a few more materials from this place [bird-x.com] if I can't get them to leave permanently.

    • No one is going to call the cops on you or anything. Just kill it.

      Ahhhhh but some one can. And then someone can prosecute you under a cruelty to animals statute. Just remember. There is always an old lady / tree huger out there that thinks animals should be treated higher in priority than humans. Ad they are probably rich so they can aford to sue anyone they don't like.

      jason
      • To help you stay within the guidelines, why not call animal control? I'm sure that you're not the only one with this problem, and they might 1) have some ideas that will help and 2) be more lenient than you think!

        Back when we lived in suburbia, we had a cat problem. There were neighborhood cats/strays that had gone feral and were breeding like *crazy*. We'd look out in our back yard first thing in the morning, and there'd be something like a dozen kittens (from a couple litters, I assume) with their momma

        • Being the conservative Republican I am, I didn't even think of bringing in a public agency. That's a great idea. I'll check with them if the problem doesn't clear up in a few days.

          And let me say that I think "Kitty Truffles" would be a great name for a band.

          • Yeah, I know that politically I wish the public agencies didn't exist. But they do, and we're payin' for 'em, so we might as well use 'em!

            Re: Kitty Truffles: I kinda thought it sounded like a porn star name.

            ....Bethanie....
        • I just heard on NPR this week that a state (I'll have to look up which one) is thinking of adding ferel cats to the unprotected species list because they are having such a horrible outbreak in the country of these cats. The cities keep the population contained due to being hit by cars etc and the cats are well fed (plenty of crazy cat ladies to go around) but the country has no natural balancing forces. In fact, the migratory song bird populations are being hunted to a level unseen or recorded.

          That kind
  • It's like a Roomba, but instead of vacuuming, it chases pigeons with a taser.

    >:-)

    Utilitarian and entertaining - it could be the best thing since dessert / floor wax.

    O.K. - as far as I know, such a thing, the Roofba, does not exist - but this post is declaration of prior art. I want ten cents for every one sold or licensed for money.

    As an alternative for money, mount a camera on the Roofba, and take a picture of the face of the first pigeon it tags, then send the photo to PETA.

    Oh sure, you are going

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