From famine to feast?

[kitchrat]

Came back from a family New Year do to find multiple cries for help from farmers. They all had flocks of 500+ on their rape! Trouble is, they each have 150+ acres of OSR and are within a 5-minute flight of each other. This is going to be like trying to pick up mercury with chopsticks!

 

[old'un]

Most farmers I know would put gas-guns out if they were having serious problems.

Strangely enough I have about 500+ acres on a number of farms spread over a large area and have only heard 2 gas-guns, the farmers in question bring the gas-guns out if they see 10 pigeons sat in the trees and always put them where you want to setup.

Having said that I have seen very little in the way of numbers or movement, most I have seen so far were about 50-60 sat in the trees around the rape fields and not doing a lot.

Edited January 2, 2023 by old'un

[martinj]

Mrs J, myself and our two cockers went for a walk around some local arable fields on Monday, I was messing round with binoculars and noticed that most of the oak trees on the field boundaries had a few pigeons each, three or four trees had around 20 birds each so Acorns are still well and truly on the menu in North East Hampshire - there were also about 50 pigeons on a game strip.

As someone on this site stated OSR is considered to be a last resort, why bother with it when half a dozen acorns a day will give all the protein and fat they need - as long as acorns can be found. Has anyone noticed the poor condition of pigeons that have been on OSR for a couple of months? they get really skinny, it keeps them alive but not well fed.