Starlings nicking food!!!!

[pauco]

Ok, Starlings pinch a bit of the chickens food! It's called survival, and in a harsh winter will accept with thanks any that is on offer. These comics of the Avian world are worth their weight in chicken pellets surely, and they are superb mimics. Also their flying displays at dusk as they gather to desend to their roosting sites is second to none.

paul.

[elizajay]

The blackbirds go into my run in the summer and there isn't much I can do about it because the hens free range and I need to leave the door open so they can get in to lay. We also have loads of starlings that sneak in.

I had to buy big bird proof feeders to let the smaller birds get anything. In the warmer weather I just fill 1/2 feeder per day for the starlings, but in this weather they are getting a full feeder and fat balls. The smaller birds enjoy having their own feeders and we get loads of green finches on the nijer feeder. Today a lot of robins all together, they seem to have called a truce.

[minskey]

My chooks are in quarter acre of paddock so can't cover them. I can cope with pinching a little food but not if the flock grows to hundreds if they have a chat amongst themselves & let each other know there is a good food source! Certanly not cope with starlings inside the henhouse.

[petal]

Oh, I love starlings. Put a big tower of fatballs for them to play on. Also you could feed chickens little and often so the food gets eaten quickly. How about a scarecrow(scarestarling!!)If you have a cockerel I am surprised he tolerates them. if you don't - get a derbyshire redcap cockerel - I have never seen a cockerel look after his ladies as well as ours does.