9 Smart Ways to Get Rid of Birds Pooping On Your Patio

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Spending time on your patio is something that you likely enjoy quite a bit. This is especially true if you have nice patio furniture.

You can enjoy a nice breeze on a cool spring or summer day on the patio. It’s a great place to eat lunch, and you can even host little parties on the patio if you want to.

This isn’t going to be quite so convenient if you have a problem with birds, though. Some people have so many birds in the area that they will wind up having issues with bird poop on the patio.

If you’ve noticed that many birds are defecating all over your patio area, then you might want to put a stop to it. You need to figure out how to make your patio area a peaceful place that you can enjoy once more.

Read on to get important information about how to get rid of birds. If you follow the advice, then you shouldn’t have nearly as many issues with birds pooping on your patio stuff as before.

1 – Make the Yard Less Attractive to Local Birds

Before going any further, you can likely make your yard less attractive to local birds. There are many things that will attract birds to your yard such as the presence of food sources.

Removing the food sources that the birds like will make it so that they won’t want to go near your yard quite so much. They’ll move away and go to other places where they can easily find things to eat.

You don’t want to leave food outside at all if you’re trying to get rid of birds. This means no more bird feeders because they’re just exacerbating the issue.

It’s also important to pick up any food debris that might be left after a patio party. For instance, you might leave some pizza crusts on a plate or you could have crumbs on the patio tables.

Food items such as this will attract birds to the patio. You’ll want to keep any pet food that you store outside locked in airtight containers as well.

Next, you should go ahead and pick the yard up to try to get rid of natural food sources. Birds will eat seed-bearing flowers, berries from nearby bushes, and many other things.

If you keep your yard picked up, then the birds won’t have nearly as much to eat. It’ll at least make your yard less appealing than many of the other yards in the area.

Get rid of water sources as well because birds will also look for places to get a drink. If you have a birdbath, then you should go ahead and remove it.

It’s also wise to try to get rid of other sources of standing water. The birds will utilize areas where water pools in your yard if you don’t take care of things.

You should also try to keep your trees and bushes trimmed. This will ensure that there are fewer spots that birds can use as nesting locations.

2 – Hang Reflective Objects Near the Patio

Hanging reflective objects near the patio should make it so that birds will want to steer clear. Why does this work so well to scare birds away?

Shiny and reflective objects seem to have the ability to confuse birds. When birds see reflective objects, they can’t process the reflections and it messes with their ability to fly.

They’ll choose to stay away from reflective objects, and this is a great way to protect particular spots from birds. This method will be useful to you no matter where you’re trying to keep birds away from in the yard.

You have options when you’re hanging reflective objects, too. Some people will go out and buy reflective tape because it’s easy to hang in various spots.

Sometimes the tape is even branded as “reflective bird scare tape.” It doesn’t cost much money and it’s well worth getting if you need something reflective that you can hang near the patio.

You could choose to use items that you have at home, too. For example, you could hang old CDs and DVDs near the patio to scare the birds.

This is only practical if you have lots of old CD-Rs that you’ll never use. It’s still an option for anyone who wants to find a use for items that are just collecting dust inside.

Mirrors and things such as that could also be utilized. You could even try hanging reflective wind chimes around the patio area since those would at least look nice.

3 – Predator Decoys

There are going to be many different predators that birds will be afraid of. They understand that when they see predators, it’s a good idea to stay far away.

Use this to your advantage by buying predator decoys that you can place around the patio. There are many decoys on the market, but it’s a good idea to go with owl decoys.

Owl decoys are fairly inexpensive and they look quite realistic. You could place several owl decoys in your yard to try to keep birds from getting comfortable in the area.

The downside to this option is that sometimes the birds will get used to the decoys. They might realize that the decoys aren’t real if you don’t move them around a bit.

You can easily fake the birds out by just moving the positions of the owl decoys every so often. Some people even swap different decoys in and out to keep the birds guessing.

It’s also possible to get good results when you’re using snake decoys. You could buy realistic rubber snakes and place them near the patio.

Some people have even placed scarecrows near their patios. This would work fine as well, but it’s up to you to decide which option you’d like to go with.

4 – Ultrasonic Bird Repellent Devices

Ultrasonic bird repellent devices exist on the market now. These handy devices are capable of scaring birds away using ultrasonic sounds.

It’s really easy to use these devices to keep your patio free of bird poop. You just place one near the patio and it should make the birds want to stay away.

The noises made by the device can’t be heard by humans, but birds won’t like it at all. They won’t feel comfortable, and this is going to make them want to find a different spot to hang out.

Devices like this can simply be placed in the ground. Most of them have a stake-like point that allows you to put them anywhere in the yard.

They’re powered by solar energy, and this means that you don’t need to worry about charging them. There aren’t any batteries that you need to recharge at an electrical outlet, and it’s just convenient to leave them where you need them to be.

It’s usually a good idea to try to ensure that they get enough sun, though. If possible, place the device near the patio in a spot that gets quite a bit of sun.

You’ll like that these devices are fairly affordable. It’s easy to use this as a solution to your bird problems because it’s affordable enough to be a useful idea no matter what your budget looks like.

5 – Try Smells That Birds Don’t Like

Have you thought about trying to use smells that birds don’t like? This is a pretty simple way to make the patio area less appealing to the local bird population.

Birds are known to dislike the strong scents of many essential oils. You could mix up a peppermint oil mixture that will make birds want to stay away from the patio.

Simply mix one-fourth of a cup of water with one-fourth of a cup of vinegar. Add in seven drops of peppermint oil and seven drops of lemon oil.

When this is done, you can dip cotton balls in the mixture that you created. Once the liquid has been absorbed by the cotton balls, you’ll be able to place them around the patio.

This will work as a temporary way to keep birds from going near the patio. You’ll need to do this method regularly since the scent will degrade over time.

If you don’t like that idea, then you could try making a chili pepper spray instead. To do this, you’re going to need to mix chili peppers, apple cider vinegar, and water in a container.

Allow this liquid mixture to sit in the sunlight for several hours. Shake it up and then place it into a spray bottle that you can use.

Spray the patio area with chili pepper spray and the birds won’t want to go anywhere near the patio. This works surprisingly well, but you might not like the scent very much yourself.

Since you’re going to want to use the patio area, it might be better to use scents that won’t bother you very much. Chili peppers mixed with apple cider vinegar might be a bit too potent.

Regardless, this is an option that can work out well to keep birds from pooping in the area. It’s worth trying out depending on your expectations.

6 – Try Using Bird Spikes

Bird spikes could be a good option if you’re trying to keep birds from landing on your patio. If you’ve noticed birds congregating on the patio, then you might want to try using the bird spikes.

This is essentially a strip of spikes that makes it too uncomfortable for birds to perch wherever they’re placed. Some people will put bird spikes on their balconies or fences to try to deter birds from sticking around.

You’d just need to find logical places where you can place the bird spikes. Depending on how your patio is set up, this may or may not make sense for you.

Essentially, if you know that there is a spot where the birds are perching, then you could try placing the spikes there. If the birds are just walking around on the patio to forage for food, then this might be a less practical solution.

It is good to keep bird spikes in mind for certain reasons, though. If you ever have issues with birds pooping on your deck or something such as that, then it might be good to try installing the bird spikes on the railing to deter them.

7 – Install an Awning

Installing an awning could be a very good solution to your bird feces issues. It’s very possible that birds are simply pooping on your patio when they fly over it.

In this situation, the remedies above would do much to help if birds are flying high above the patio and pooping. An awning would keep the poop from reaching the patio.

There are some benefits to having an awning that you might want to consider as well. For instance, you’ll be able to sit outside and enjoy the shade on a hot summer day.

An awning will also help to protect your patio furniture from becoming sun-faded. It won’t keep that from ever happening, but your furniture will be more protected from the sun and the elements if there is an awning in place.

Granted, installing an awning might seem to be a lot of work just to stop some birds from pooping in the area. Just keep in mind that it could be a really nice, useful feature.

If you don’t have the time or the money to install an awning, then you might be able to buy some umbrellas instead. Patio umbrellas can do the same thing as an awning, but it’ll just be covering a smaller area.

You could use two or three patio umbrellas to try to cover a wide area. If the birds poop while flying, then the bird droppings will hit the umbrella instead of getting on the patio or your patio furniture.

8 – Bird Netting

Bird netting is another thing that many people use to keep birds away from certain spots in the yard. You could place bird netting as a way to keep birds from getting near the patio.

You’d need to build some type of framework to hang netting over the top of the patio, though. This could be a lot of work to put in for something such as this.

It’s also a bit less practical to use netting as a solution for the patio bird problems. It makes sense to use netting to protect specific plants from birds.

You can also use bird netting to keep birds from messing with your fruit trees. It could technically work to keep birds from being able to access the patio, but it might be inconvenient.

In many ways, it would make more sense to install an awning when your goal is to protect the patio. It would also be hard to use the netting to keep the birds from entering the patio area via walking on the ground.

You could still use netting to protect various points in your yard, though. It might help you to keep the birds from wanting to come by too often.

If there’s a spot near the patio where the birds are perching, then netting might be more practical. You can use bird netting to deny the birds the opportunity to perch in specific locations.

9 – Bird Gel

Bird gel is something else that people use to keep birds from perching. The idea is that you place gel on the spots where the birds usually try to land.

When a bird goes to land on its usual perching spot, it isn’t going to be able to grip the perch. It’ll wind up slipping, and the bird might even fly away as soon as it realizes that it’s touching something gooey and unusual.

The gel doesn’t really hurt the birds in any way. It just makes it so that they can’t land on certain spots.

One potential way that it could harm birds is if the gel gets on a bird’s body. This could cause the bird to not be able to fly properly and this could make it easy pickings for predators in the area.

Whether or not this makes the bird gel idea a bad one is for you to decide. It shouldn’t be too likely that the birds will get the gel all over their bodies.

People have used this idea to protect their fences from getting pooped on by pigeons. The bird gel in question is inexpensive and easy to use.

If you have birds perching on a fence or some other structure near your patio, then the bird gel could help you to stop that. It’s a pretty simple solution that isn’t going to be hard to get working.

Final Thoughts

You have many different ways that you can try to stop birds from defecating all over your patio. If bird poop is starting to become a big problem in your patio area, then you should take action right away.

You might want to use an ultrasonic repellent device to get rid of the birds. Sometimes just hanging reflective objects will be enough to solve these issues.

Just take your time to consider all of the options above so that you can make a good decision. You’ll have an easier time enjoying your patio moving forward.

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