As homesteaders, we get pretty used to being the weird ones…
Because let’s face it, I’m betting that *most* of your friends probably aren’t rendering tallow, or figuring out how to skim the cream from their fresh milk, or pulverizing homemade sauerkraut.
But I recently started doing something that is on a whole new level of weird… So much so, that I often warn friends beforehand so they don’t think I’m completely off my rocker. (At least, not any more than they already do)
The Backstory:
Last summer, every time I’d walk into my chicken coop, it felt like I was in Alfred Hitchcock’s movie, The Birds. As soon as I’d open the door, I would be greeted by a frenzied flock of sparrows who would proceed to fly wildly around the coop and get uncomfortably close to my face… And hair. Not that my hair is any sort of masterpiece or anything, but I sure didn’t want one of their tiny bird-legs stuck in my messy bun.
Something had to be done about to keep the wild birds out of my chicken coop…
Why Wild Birds and Chickens Don’t Mix
Some of you might be thinking I’m a bit cold-hearted for wanting to boot the sparrows out of my coop, but I do have two rather legitimate reasons for my vendetta, other than the whole bird-in-my-hair thing:
1. Wild birds can carry disease which may be passed to your chicken flock.
2. Wild birds will mow down your chicken feed. For reals. It felt like I was refilling my chicken feeder non-stop last summer. Adding a flock of 20 sparrows will do a number on your feed supply, and considering how I’m feeding a lovely non-GMO, custom-blended feed (my recipe is available in my Natural Homestead book), I didn’t really feel like sharing.
My Crazy Solution to Keep Wild Birds Out of a Chicken Coop
When I started looking for a way to solve my sparrow problem, all the advice seemed pretty, well, blah…
Folks suggested just keeping the coop doors closed all the time (my hens would be furious..) or only offering a very small amount of feed, multiple times per day, to avoid thievery from wild birds. (I’m way too lazy to keep up with that sort of program.)
Neither of those options satisfied me, so I dug deeper.
And found my solution in the form of… (are you ready for this? It’s pretty high-tech…)
CDs and baling twine.
Oh yeah, baby.
Now do you see why I warn folks before they enter my coop? It’s kinda weird.
Of course, I was entirely skeptical at first that it would even work, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to try.
I dug through my CD (yes, as in compact-disc) collection to find any old, scratched ones that no longer played. I tied a length of baling twine through the hole, and attached the other end to the ceiling of my coop, and voila!
High tech sparrow-stoppers.
Eat your heart out, Martha Stewart.
But Do they Work at Keeping Wild Birds Out of a Chicken Coop?
Yes, yes, yes! It looks bizarre, but it works! Within 24 hours of me hanging my CD/twine contraptions, the sparrows were gone. And they didn’t come back.
I’m guessing the birds don’t like the shiny, swaying objects hanging haphazardly from the ceiling, which is why it’s a successful deterrent.
I tested the theory by removing the CDs for a while. Sure enough, the sparrows returned, only to disappear again once I rehung them.
So yeah, I look like a homesteader-gal who’s completely lost her marbles when you walk into my chicken coop, but I don’t care. I figured out a successful way for how to keep wild birds out of a chicken coop. I no longer have to duck and dive when I check my chickens, and my feed supply is lasting way longer.
And that, my friends, is what you call a good old-fashioned, homestead hack. 🙂
Pssst. Like weird little tips like this one? Every week I send out a email with 4-5 of my favorite tips of the week. It usually includes a recipe or two, animal stuff, and crazy findings like this one. I call it the Homestead Toolbox. It’s 100% free, and you can sign up for it HERE.
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Hi Jill Thank you for the tip . I have this same problem . I will be hanging a DVD in my coop today. I also want to say that you are my favorite go to info girl. You have inspired me in so many ways. I seek a more independent life and to teach my kids and grandkids also. Thanks for all you do.
no it doesnt ive been doing this for years to no avail
What about outside the co-op. Will cd’ s keep the Quail out of the pen?
No it does not work.
I wonder if it would work for peacocks? We have a while one which is irritating the heck out of our chickens and eating their food. Do you have any experience with them?
The annoying peacocks at my childhood farm were attracted to reflective surfaces, so I wonder. The CD spins and moves, so maybe that is the key…
I wonder if it would work for squirrels. They’re the ones thieving from my chicken feeder. I’ll have to try it and see….
Wow Jill, thanks so much for this post! Ironically, just the day before yesterday, for the first time ever, we had sparrows in our Chicken coop! At first there was just one and I didn’t think much of it, but at the end of the day there were 5 in there, and they did NOT want to leave. I’m going to try this trick right away. By the way I love your website and.
…Your website inspired me to buy a milk cow, which, 11 months ago, I did. Miss Carnation freshened in January, and our family has been thoroughly enjoying fresh raw milk, cheese, cream and butter, ever since! I as SO glad I got a cow, so…Thank you, for being an inspiration 🙂
I LOVE this idea! I can TOTALLY relate to your “The Birds” analogy. The same thing happens to me every day. Right now, there is a nest of babies in the rafters, so I won’t shoo the sparrows out just yet. But once the babies have flown the nest, I am SO doing this!
What a great idea. We don’t have that problem yet (maybe it is our jerk of a rooster) but we do have a lot of birds. I’m tucking this back in my brain for when I need it. Plus, I have a box of CD’s that I need to figure out what to do with.
ThankyouThankyouThankyou!!!!!
I’m on this first thing tomorrow!
My friends already think I’m the crazy chicken lady ..sitting in the coop with this year’s new flock 🙂 Gotta luv ’em!
The cds don’t bother your chickens ? I too am feeding wild birds too, but worried about scaring my girls too.
Thank you for your advice
Did you get my email? Looks like I hit the wrong key and sent it early without sighing off. The email was about choke cherries and June Berries.
Fred
OMG!!!! I complained about this during the winter with the sparrows constantly in my coop which is shared with the goats and they poop all over everything and eat all the chicken food. I purchased some owls, hung stuffed animals and finally covered every open area for ventilation in the ceiling leaving only the small chicken door the chickens go in and out of and the birds flew in THAT!! I am going home today and trying this!! Thanks so much for the tip. Tina
Thanks so much for the tip! You always have great content! 🙂
I will have to keep this in mind in case my bird become a nuisance. I have a pair of barn swallows in my coop, but I would like them to stay. They are a welcome way to keep the bugs down. Sparrows would be a different since they eat seeds.
OMG! You are hilarious! I am envisioning you waving wildly at the birds shooing them out of your coop. What a hoot!
Wonder if that will work in chickadees as they are loving the free feed!! Going to try this!! Thanks for the tip!!
It also works to hang disposable metal pie pans in the run. I’ve had luck deterring hawks too!
Well, I wish I’d seen this while I still had my flock. This was a severe problem for me, I was feeding every sparrow in the county, and I just couldn’t afford to continue, so gave my six hens to the guy that brings wood chips to me, and he put ’em in with his flock. I tried everything, but never thought of this one. You are quite the clever gal!
This is so helpful, Jill. I’ll be digging out old CDs and DVDs today. Thanks. Grace
When I was a little girl, before the days of compact discs, we used to collect all the old food can lids and pie tins. We’d hammer a nail hole in the edge and add some string. We’d hang them up in the apricot tree just before the fruit started ripening. It did it’s job and we actually got some fruit! In an Arizona desert, that is no small feat!
Don’t want to disappoint anybody…hanging cds worked great in my trees and chicken coop all year last year, this year, no such luck. Eventually they get use to them, especially the crows and squirrels. This year I used old video tapes and strung them across in every which way. Looks like a net to the birds. Has worked for my blueberries for 2 years so now across the chicken yard. Only problem with this is my fence is only 5 ft high, 1 foot is under ground to keep other critters out, so I have to duck and walk under it if I need to be in that area
Karen, you are just too tall. Take your shoes off, that might help. lol I was wondering about how high Jill hangs them in the coop. I don’t have sparrow problems, but crows get into the coop, punch a hole in the top of an egg and fly off with it. They never seem to bother the duck eggs, shells are too hard, I guess. I am going to get some porcelain eggs for the coop and maybe break the egg-stealing cycle.
Yeah… sorry too, but tried cd’s for sparrows and they got used to them pretty quickly ?
Nice!!! I’m going to try these on my cherry trees when they start to ripen…if I actually get any cherries this year, what with the crazy weather and all…..:(
But what do you do for gophers? My front yard looks like it got bombed! We have an empty lot next door and a small orchard and garden on the other side. I would like to start a garden some day…
For gophers: in the garden build boxes. You can secure aviary wire in the bottom of the boxes, with staples or screw in place with strips of wood or line the bottom of boxes with 3/4″ gravel about 1 1/2 – 2″ thick. Or get cats…
Rebecca, aviary wire doesn’t work very well, the small gophers will get into a raised bed and become a big gopher by eating your produce. The only think that works for gophers is ‘hardware cloth” with half inch holes. I lay the hardware cloth down with an extra 2 inches on all sides. I then build the raised bed on top of the hardware cloth and finish the job by bending the hardware cloth up and stapling it to the bottom of the lower boards. I did the aviary wire on my first raised bed and soon had a gopher in it; it chewed through the thin aviary wire.
Hi
We are city dwellers and we must havea flock of 100 + sparrows hanging around. Very bad for hubby’s alergies and their droppings under all the trees cannot be good to breath in while doing spring yard clean ups. So, here’s hoping that the CDs hung willy nilly will chase them away. Thanks and I’ll let you know how it works.
You’re Not so crazy, that is a tip I have used and seen in use here in Australia for years… Glad to see it is working for you…
Like your suggestion. I’ve been saving the foil sealer from 34-oz Folgers Coffee
canisters and attaching them to my 5 ft tomato cages for 4-5 years to deter birds
from damaging my ripening tomatoes. I attach several around entire cage at
different heights with grocery store twisties. Just punch hole in tab w/icepick. They flip and move with the wind.
Hang the dvds or cds in your fruit trees as well…it keeps the birds away from them too…
Hi Everyone,
I have been using this technique in front of my large picture windows ..to reduce Wild Bird Strikes, for a couple years. It has worked really well, but the CD’s lose their shine after a while and need replacing. I made my mobiles decorative, by using colored wooden beads, strung on fishing line loops, I connected the line to a piece of drift wood that I drilled holes in, and secured it with washers on top of the wooden bar and then used jump rings to attach a short looped line through the CD hole, to the loop of beaded line, so I could change out the old ones as needed. I love the rainbows that are cast all around my room, when the sun hits the shiny surfaces. I live in the rainforest in Costa Rica and bird strikes are far to common here and so sad.
Great tips Nita– thank you!
Wow! This totally worked. From more than a dozen sparrows inside the coop to zero. We hung six CDs at different levels inside our 4′ x 6′ coop. The combination of swinging CDs and flashing rainbows did the trick. Thank you so much for posting this idea.
YAY!!
I have had other problems than sparrows, crows and bluebirds primarily. The other day, I saw a ground squirrel run out of the chicken yard (the first that I had seen on the property in over eight years and it appears that it was eating chicken food from a feeder – usually the dogs take care of them, so this was a new event. Last spring I had the lawn mowers on the property (the neighbors horses) and I left two bags of layer pellets in the carport. The bags disappeared and I later found them far away and empty; it appeared the horses like chicken food and they had a feast. I now store my feed properly and right away when I bring it home (that was about $50 in feed; let me tell you, a horse can outeat a flock of sparrows any day of the week.
Oh yes– we’ve had our horses get into our chicken feed in the past too… An expensive mistake!
How many do you need to hang???
It depends on how big your coop is. At least 2-4
Great idea! We don’t get any birds inside the coop, but the blue jays LOVE to visit the run. When I go down in the morning to let the girls out, I can count on 5 or 6 of them to be there, cleaning up yesterday’s scratch. Maybe I’ll hang one in the run.
Let me know how it works!
We never had sparrows in the barn (since 1937) until I began giving the horses some oats to lengthen the time they took to eat their grain…for entertainment for them besides their pelleted feed. All of a sudden I had 30 sparrows at a time. Just by chance I eliminated the oats and no more sparrows. They apparently love oats but not pellets.
ah-ha! So they are picky sparrows then. 🙂
How do I get rid of Quail, about 40 in my pen?
I hung about 20 cd’s in our coop stopped all the birds except for the sparrows Do you have any more suggestions getting desperate we have about 100 of them hanging around
Great trick. Mirror works same as CD. It tends to disturb them with their roost and also scare them off during the night. Place or hang mirror near the chicken coop.
This will scare birds and they will not come nearby your area.
I use the CD’s for wasps making nests on my porch. Tried it last year and it worked fine till I noticed a nest that did not get the reflection from the CD(shaded by a 2×6). Hung a 2nd CD that lighted the nest and they soon left.
I’ve tried this with Starlings… no luck. They could care less. I’ll try some other objects. On the other hand, my Dalmatian has taken a liking to catching them when I open up the lid to the roosting boxes. 2 down out of 30 or 40.
i have tried this for years and it doesnt work im stll looking for ideas
Does this not bother the chickens? They’re not scared off as well because of the hanging cd’s?
Nope– my don’t mind at all 🙂
Does the CD hanging works on pigeons?
My wife tried this too, did not work for long, only a few days, then the birds were back with a vengeance! I even installed a 1′ by 1′ “Pop Door” so the big door could remain closed and hoped that the wild birds would stay out of the run; yeah this worked for about 10 minutes and the birds were in the run, even wild doves! They are devouring the chicken feed at an alarming rate, even though my wife puts out feed for the wild birds out side of the chicken yard! Does anyone have any suggestions?
Didn’t work for these tough Missouri birds. I’m at a loss at how to keep them out this winter.
This is working VERY well so far! Last year we only had a few sparrows to deal with. This year “Alfred Hitchcock”. We didn’t even put up a lot due to being cold and dark out when we got the chance to start stringing them. I am ready to put up more. Also, we have about 6 of our chickens that fly over the 7 foot fence to get out and roam, these are keeping them in.
Update…
The starlings figured out that since the chickens were not afraid of the discs flying about they weren’t afraid. So back to the drawing board.
The decision to put up bird netting was made. Since it is winter, keeping the chickens grouped closer together and not getting out will be fine for us.
We have sparrows nesting on the deck, making a MESS, going to try this. Thanks!!
It worked when I first did it about 2 years ago for a little while, but now, they just fly around them. My next thought is a BB gun. (that worked with starlings for a season – shoot one and the rest become scare). I’m willing to try anything. I’ve thought about even putting up a 1″ chicken wire screen door with just a framed opening at the bottom for the chickens to go in and out
I laugh-cried for real reading this post. LOVE IT! Thank you for sharing!
I guess the Arizona ring neck doves and sparrows are to savvy to fall for this trick. I chase out at least 5-19 of them out of my coop every day.
This Fall I took my CD deterrents down while reconfiguring my strawberry beds. I later found one during Fall cleanup and hung it on the garden gate and forgot about it until one night recently while walking back from the coop there was a flash of piercing light. It spooked. What kind of predator was roaming arou nd that could do that? My husband pointed out that our back door light (a bright LED tat doubles as a security light for the coop) was on and he had checked it out already. It was the CD. It may be doing double duty as a night predator deterrent, since it is not a steady light and it is on a long enough string that it does move around in a slight breze. Certainly startled me! I’m not noticing as many mouse or mole tracks in the snow in the garden this year. Would be so excited if it works as a non-toxic deterrent all year!
This doesn’t work for me!!
Gail in South Dakota
Hi Jill,
After reading all of these comments, I saw none with the problem that I am having. We’ve been wondering where the EGGS are disappearing to the past couple of weeks! Our chickens are free range so, we figured they must be laying them out under bushes, etc. I’ve looked everywhere. I also live in Wyoming (Lander) and have had chickens for 8 years now and have never had this happen before. Well….just an hour ago I was walking to the coop and what flew out but a magpie with an egg in its mouth!!! Caught red-handed! Seriously! How does a bird get an egg in its mouth is beyond me! He’s been feasting on them for the past several weeks. I’m going to try the CD idea and hope that it works because if not, I don’t know what I will do! Just had to share this bizarre story!
will this work with pigeons?
Yes!!! You solved my HUGE sparrow problem! Works like a charm! For those folks saying it doesn’t work, I wonder if they didn’t use enough CDs. I used ten for my 10×12 coop Thanks a million!