Thread: Wood pigeons
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Old 18-07-2003, 11:16 PM
Mary Fisher
 
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Default Wood pigeons





"K" wrote in message
...
Can any one advise of a source for poison to kill pigeons that are
destroying everything new I plant in my garden.


Tome Lehrer 1958.......
Poisoning Pigeons in the Park


snip a favourite

Trouble with that is that if you poison them you can't eat them.

I have free range hens and grow vegetables, we are also visited by rock
doves (street pigeons), wood pigeons and collar doves. All of them would
destroy vegetables, especially when they're young.

So Spouse made modular steel framed chicken wired hurdles, they are put
round the veg. plots and during vulnerable times netting is placed over the
tops of the hurdles.

Our hens have the freedom of the rest of the garden, the vegetables grow in
runs. It works.

Of course, when the veg plants are tall and sturdy the hurdles can be
removed, the hens then fertilise the soil and keep it more or less weed-free
by scratching. They don't bother with adult runner beans, courgettes,
sprouts, cabbages (well they snip the edges of the leaves but I don't
begrudge them), potatoes or other sturdy plants. Nor do the pigeons. Salad
crops need protection at all times.

By rotating crops only one or two plots are protected all year round each
year, the others are manured - and as a bonus the hens pick off caterpillars
and grown insects as well as some slugs and snails.

Mary