The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Poultry & Waterfowl => Topic started by: mebnandtrn on May 09, 2017, 08:22:56 am
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We are having trouble with magpies eating our chicken's eggs. Its definitely them eating the eggs. Our set up is 2 former garden sheds with nesting boxes inside them, joined by a large run, about 10m long and tall enough to stand up in. The chickens can move freely between the sheds and the run. Normally we let the chickens out of a chicken sized pop hole in the run, so they can free range all day. But if we do that the magpies get in and eat the eggs. If we leave the chickens in the run they don't get the benefits of the free ranging, but we at least don't loose 3 plus eggs per day. Anyone know a solution to this please?
PS we don't have a shotgun!
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I have exactly the same issue with Jackdaws.. Can you make it darker inside the hen house? I've put a board against the pop hole so the hens have to go around the sides and then down the gap between the board and their house to get into their house.
I've also got dummy eggs in the nesting boxes and check many times a day and remove any eggs. Hoping the jackdaws get bored soon.. Sometimes they steal the dummy eggs tho..
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Had this problem last year so hung bits of sacking over popholes. Kept the birds out, chickens carried on as normal
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I once caught several using a squirrel trap baited with an egg. My neighbour this year gave me two crows he'd shot to hang in a tree near the pig pens the corvids were pinching food from. Worked like a charm and has kept off crows, jackdaws and magpies. One crow spotted them, circled overhead, cawing, and was joined by 20 more within a few minutes. They all circled for five minutes then flew off and haven't been near since. The dead crows are now a bit smelly and I keep spraying them with flykiller to stop the fly eggs hatching, but plan to move them around occasionally so the crows don't become habituated to them
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We have a larson trap, if we start having a problem I bait it with eggs, catches the actual offenders, then hopefully more.
We also have a friendly 'local' gamekeeper (some distance but only one around), I've let him set a big trap and it's caught lots of the crow family this year, he left us another larson trap and we've had 8.
I'm also thinking of the songbirds, one year there was a goldfinch nest, i saw the magpie there, later the nest was wrecked. Very sad.
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We cut a clear plastc feed bag into strips and hung in over the pop hole. They needed helping in and out of the coop for a couple days but now go through it freely. Clear shower curtain works too.
Dans
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I had problems with magpies + jackdaws a few years ago and was told by my uncle to blow 2 or 3 eggs and syringe some mustard or horse radish sauce into them and let the magpies/jackdaws have them,they went into the shed once and never came back again.
(just dont forget to mark the eggs so you dont collect them by mistake) :innocent:
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I shoot a few and hang them from the tree, that putts them off.
The wife doesn't like it much though :innocent: