It can be fun to watch birds and some people even try to attract birds to their yards by placing bird feeders on their properties. This is great, but birds can also be a nuisance in certain instances.
For example, some people wind up having trouble with birds such as pigeons. Pigeons might take to perching on your fences in large numbers, and they can actually cause quite a bit of damage.
Birds such as this have a reputation for being dirty and making a mess of things. Pigeon droppings are caustic and can wear your fence down over time.
If you have birds sitting on your fence, then you might want to keep them from doing that so that they’ll stop making messes on your property. How can you keep birds off of your fence, though?
Keep reading to get the best ideas for keeping birds off of your fence. Once you understand your options, it’ll be easier to move forward.
1 – Try to Remove Food and Water Sources Near the Fence
One of the first steps that you should take involves removing food and water sources near the fence. You might be inadvertently attracting pigeons to that spot because you’re leaving so many food and water sources for them.
There could be many things that the pigeons will like eating nearby. Cleaning your yard up a bit might make a difference and make the spot less appealing to the birds.
It’s also going to be wise to remove any standing water that the birds might be utilizing. If you do this, then you should be able to make the pigeons want to find a better spot.
2 – Use Bird Spikes
Using bird spikes will make it so that pigeons won’t be able to land on your fence. Essentially, this is an option that involves installing a spike strip on the top of your fence.
This makes it so that the pigeons won’t be able to grip the fence properly when they go to perch on it. They’ll simply not be able to squeeze between the spikes so that they can perch.
If you want to make your fence inaccessible to the local birds, then using bird spikes will be a great idea. Installing them on top of the fence will be easy and you’re definitely going to get fantastic results.
The downside is that some people will think that this makes the fence look worse. Most people don’t find the bird spikes to be unsightly, but it might depend on your sensibilities.
3 – Special Bird Gel
There are options other than bird spikes that you can consider when you’re looking to keep birds off of your fence. One of the more popular methods involves putting special bird gel on top of the fence.
This is a transparent type of gel that makes it impossible for the birds to perch on the fence. When the birds try to grip the fence, they’re going to slip off.
It’s a practically invisible type of gel that birds are going to absolutely hate. Most birds will go away as soon as they come close to touching it because they won’t like how it feels.
You’ll find people using bird gel such as this in areas that have lots of pigeons. It’s a popular and effective method for keeping pigeons from perching on fences and other things.
If you have a statue in your yard or some other feature that you don’t want pigeons perching on, then you could easily utilize this gel. It isn’t all that expensive to purchase some and you’ll be happy with the results.
4 – Try Placing Decoys
Many birds in the area are going to be scared by predators. You could try to place decoys on the fence that will scare the birds and make them want to stay away.
Hawk decoys are among the most popular options when people are trying to scare birds away. If you place a good hawk decoy on your fence, then local birds will not want to risk getting near it.
Owl decoys might also work and you could try decoys of other creatures that you know the birds will fear. Essentially, this is the same idea as using a scarecrow to protect a field of crops.
Birds might not continue to fall for the decoy routine forever, though. You might need to try to mix things up by moving the decoy to new positions every day or so to keep the birds scared.
5 – Ultrasonic Repellent Devices
There are now ultrasonic repellent devices on the market that can help you to get rid of birds. If you have a lot of birds perching on your fence, then using a repellent device might make sense.
Devices such as this are designed to emit sounds that people can’t hear. Some of them produce sounds that humans can hear at the highest settings, but most are designed to just be heard by animals.
The sounds that are produced are supposed to scare animals away and keep them from wanting to get close to the source of the sounds. This means that placing an ultrasonic repellent device by your fence would theoretically keep birds from perching on it.
You will love the fact that the popular ultrasonic repellent devices use solar power. It allows you to stake them into the ground right where you need them to be outside.
Something such as this can work out well to keep birds away from your property. However, if you have pets, it might bother them as well.
Whether this is a practical idea for your situation might depend on if you have pets. Regardless, this is a good solution to know about, and many people seem to like it.
6 – Reflective Tape
If you can find a spot to hang reflective tape near your fence, then it can work to scare birds away. Birds get confused and disoriented when they look at reflective things.
You could hang mirrors or old CD/DVD discs around your yard to make things tough for the birds. If you had a bunch of stuff such as that dangling from trees near the fenced area, then it would keep birds away.
It’s easiest to go out and buy standard reflective tape when you’re trying to scare birds away. The problem with this idea might be finding a good spot for the reflective tape on the fence or near the fence.
People use reflective tape pretty often to keep birds from perching on their balconies. It can work for a fence as well under the right circumstances.
7 – Bird Netting
Bird netting could be an option, but it might not be practical for your fence depending on where it’s set up. Some people have successfully utilized bird netting to make it impossible for birds to perch on fences, though.
The basic idea is that you have nets placed at the top of the fences. The nets prevent the birds from being able to land on the fence at all.
This works well to help protect other things such as garden areas. If you want to keep birds from messing with your plants, then getting bird netting will be very sensible and it could help you to protect your fence as well depending on the situation.
Ben has a bachelor’s degree in construction engineering. When not constructing or remodeling X-Ray Rooms, Cardiovascular Labs, and Pharmacies, you can find him at home with wife and two daughters. Outside of family, He loves grilling and barbequing on his Big Green Egg and Blackstone Griddle, as well as working on projects around the house.
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