How to deter pigeons

Hello!

I wonder if anyone can help, I have 2 bird feeders in the garden but the pigeons are constantly eating all the food in the trays and it's driving me mad/costing me a small fortune! 

I know this sounds like a silly question but is there a way to deter the pigeons without deterring the collared doves? At the moment the poor collared doves are getting bullied away from the feeders by the pigeons.

Any advice would be great! 

Thanks!

Janeve

  • Hello Janeve and welcome to the community.   With pigeons being a similar size to collared doves I think it would be impossible to feed one and deter the other, however, if you also have smaller birds that are also getting bullied off the seed and its costing a lot of money with the amount of food you are going through you could try a ground guardian so that smaller birds (adjustable mesh) could access the food whilst preventing larger birds from gobbling up the whole lot.    I have used different types of ground guardian and can guarantee that this pitched roof style is the best I have used, albeit, it is a little expensive to purchase.  It would save you money in the long term.    This guardian will also keep magpies, crows, jackdaws off the food although they might reach some of the seed around the edges;   I always used a raised tray to put the seed on.   Here is the guardian cage I am talking about.  Good luck and hope you can still chuck a bit of seed out for your collared doves without the pigeons getting it all.  

    Forgot to mention that to keep the seed from getting wet when it was raining I cut a piece of thick butyl pond liner to drape over the pitched roof and it worked well.    

  • Hi Hazel, thank you for your reply :)

    I thought it may be a bit of an impossible task! I'll still put some seed out but just a little less, I am starting to feel a bit bad watching the pigeons waiting for food hehe.

    I shall try the guardian cage,

    Thanks again!

    Janeve
  • Hi Janeve. Might I suggest that you change your username to something other than your email address? There is a feature on the community pages that allows you to send private messages if you so wish. There are occasional spammers on the forum, so better safe than sorry.
    Good luck with the Pidges.
  • Thanks, I didn't realise it was set as that. All changed so thanks for letting me know :)