Pro - Does anyone else's nest boxes get soaked in rain?

[mad_hen_lady]

I have magpies IN the eglu during the day when my 2 (now terrified) chooks are supposedly free-ranging. No wonder Florence and Emily have stopped laying. Last week a squirrel was in the eglu.......clearly all manner of wildlife now sees it as fair game, helping themselves to mash etc.

My options seem to be either

1) stop them from free-ranging for a few days and see if the magpies go off and bother somebody else

2) erect a scarecrow

3) buy a gun

 

 

Any ideas gratefully received

[WitchHazel]

You probably won't like this, but...

 

...the best way to deter magpies is to hang a dead magpie corpse up.

 

We had problems with magpies stealing eggs from our allotment coops. We ended up trapping a couple of them, and hanging them up outside the coops. It stopped the other magpies.

 

EDITED TO ADD: we did try other methods first. CDs, chains over the pop holes, etc. Nothing else deterred them.

[mad_hen_lady]

Dare I ask how you managed to trap the magpies?

Thanks for your advice.

[Luvachicken]

On Springwatch they said that magpies can remember where a stash of food is for up to a year so I think yours will always be coming back.

I don't know the best way but it sounds like hanging a dead one might work. I think I have seen it done with seagulls too.

[Grandmashazzie]

My neighbour lures magpies into a basket like trap and then shoots them! I naively thought he relocated them once they were caught but no he shoots them.His reason is they decimate the small bird population by eating their chicks.A magpie doesn't last too long around here.I don't know wether to approve or disapprove as we have lots of robins,bluetits etc.

[gavclojak]

That's really weird as I had a few magpies trying to get into my girls enclosure last week, they were climbing up the front and making one hell of a racket!!

 

Think they finally gave up, thank goodness as I wouldn't want to trap or shoot them

[Luvachicken]

My neighbour lures magpies into a basket like trap and then shoots them! I naively thought he relocated them once they were caught but no he shoots them.His reason is they decimate the small bird population by eating their chicks.A magpie doesn't last too long around here.I don't know wether to approve or disapprove as we have lots of robins,bluetits etc.

 

Sadly I think cats are the main culprits for killing an awful lot of our birds, especially when they have just fledged

[patsylabrador]

We've had more magpies and crows and naughty woodpeckers this year but also tons more little birds. There was a massive flock of tits the other day, I was excited about the variety- a mixed flock I think it's called. My chickens hate all cats except for one little stray who has patiently trained them. Getting chickens was the best thing I could have done for garden birds.

They are stroppy little bantams and will square up to anything, in fact Ariadne has a real problem with wood pigeons and chases them away from anything she considers her food- in this case the wild bird seed.

Crows and magpies seem to hate each other and do a good job of controlling each other.

I'm more concerned with huge seagulls which have recently turned up.

[Beantree]

The cage referred to is probably a L"Ooops, word censored!"n Trap Mad_hen_lady. They are used by gamekeepers and are extremely effective. A friend of mine borrowed one and caught 8 Magpies in a day. Magpies are very territorial and taking advantage of that a live Magpie is used as 'bait' in one side of the trap and the attacking Magpies are caught in the other side. So you need to find a gamekeeper on a local pheasant shooting country estate. They will give you a dead Magpie.

 

We used to shoot them, which is very difficult because they have tremendous eyesight and will spot you with a gun long before you get into range. So I wouldn't advise that method. You could get your own L"Ooops, word censored!"n Trap and bait it with a live Magpie from the gamekeeper. The bait needs to be kept fed and watered in shade and regularly changed, because they get tame and ineffective.

[Alex_LJZ]

You can put eggs in a l"Ooops, word censored!"n trap and it will work ok, not as good but adequate. You can certainly get your first one anyway. I have caught magpies in squirrel traps if bated with eggs, and I also have good sucess shooting them. an air rifle works fine if you have a full power one and can get close enogh. You need to set up in a hidden location and wait for them to come, not try to get to them once they are there. I do a lot of shooting though so I enjoy the 'hunting' process of outwitting them and enjoy the wait.

 

Air rifles if set up well are a usefull tool to have around and can be bought for less than £100. I have used mine in both my garden and other peoples to deal with rats, squirrels, injured birds. you can even (though I probably wouldn't) get rubber pellets to deter your neighbours' cats or foxes. I even use mine to take a sustainable number of pigeon for the table, they make excellent burgers.

[mad_hen_lady]

I assume it is legal to use an air rifle in my own garden??

[Beantree]

Yes it is as long as the pellets don't leave your property technically. Obviously it is extremely dangerous to fire into the air with no certainty of where the pellet will land if you miss. Ideally you need to be firing slightly down, so the Magpie should be on the ground, perhaps decoyed to grain? You will need a good quality unit and sight it up with good quality pellets before you start. Difficulty with air rifles is judging the range. The pellet travels in an arc and only goes through the line of sight twice. At approximately 8 to 25 yards it will be above the sight line and afterwards below and falling away fast. We have a Weihrauch HW97K with a top quality telesight. I can place all the pellets within a 50p piece at 30 metres. You won't get many chances, so each one has to count.

[Chickabee]

Yes do be careful. My friends father shot a squirrel and it ended up in his neighbours property. He got arrested. Poor man was about 70, scared the life out of him. A lot of people round here keep air rifles for killing magpies, squirrels etc. guess it was one of those NIMBY types