# What can I do about uninvited visitors?



## WhiteFeathers (May 15, 2007)

It's getting beyond a joke! I only have THREE white doves, but often more than a dozen visitors arrive and sit on the roof all day with my doves. It's like having one's house forever full of other people's teenagers! Some are pure white, some cross bred and some are wild feral pigeons. I put food out for my doves, but of course I have to put extra for the others.  Apart from anything else, it means more pigeon droppings on the roof (which my husband is very unkeen on!) They do fly away at night, but by that time it is too late to feed my doves on their own. What can I do? Any advice most gratefully accepted. - Elisabeth


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## Charis (Feb 11, 2007)

I do understand about the teenager part. Most hours of the day and night, my house is full of other people's teenagers. LOL

About the extras at your house, I don't see what you can do except discontinue feeding all of them and what a shame that would be. 
I'm sure they have a hard time finding food and they have figured out that a very kind soul lives beneath the roof they've come to perch on. 

Soon the rain will start in earnest and you husband won't notice so much.
Don't keep increasing the amount you put down so they will have to shop elsewhere as well. 
It's a very lucky girl that has Pigeons on her roof, you know!


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## Becca199212 (May 10, 2007)

Can you not catch your 3 and put them in the garage or shead for a while and not feed the others so maybe they will stop coming?


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## abisai (Jan 30, 2007)

WhiteFeathers . . . If your birds hang out freely with no coop, they are bound to acquire freinds who will break bread with them when the table is laid out.

If you do have a coop or some type of enclosure where they sleep, feed before them they go out to play. I had a similar problem with the wild sparrows eating all the seeds in the cockatiel cage - for awhile ok, but then it seems like the word spread and the place resembled a soup kitchen. Had to cover the cage with hardware cloth to keep the others out - sigh.


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## KIPPY (Dec 18, 2003)

You keep feeding them it's going to get worse.

I have the same problem but I still keep feeding and watering them. It breaks my heart when I don't.

I only feed them once a day and a limited amount of food. Some days are good and some days there are too many pigeons. I guess it depends on how much food they find elsewhere through out the day.

I just haven't fiigured it out yet.


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## warriec (Feb 2, 2007)

put yrs in the loft and make sure that you stop feeding and sprinkling etra food around your loft. the habit will break


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## Skyeking (Jan 17, 2003)

You are unkowingly inviting uninvited guests when you feed your doves outside. You may not realize that you have put out a sign that says "Restaurant is NOW OPEN "for serving, but that is the message you are sending when you put out an abundance of seed.

I think it is kind of you to leave the extra, but it will continue to encourage them, and eventually they may attract negative attention attention from your neighbors which may endager their very existance.

You should probably feed your birds once they come inside, or before they go out. Perhaps you can leave some seed elsewhere for the uninvited guests, but just enough that there is not any extra left behind.


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## WhiteFeathers (May 15, 2007)

Thank you all for all your helpful suggestions, especially Charis, Becca, Kim and Treesa. Unfortunately I do not have a garage or a shed in which I could keep my doves. They live entirely outside except when they choose to go into the (very nice) dovecote which I have built for them. However . . . . I have made some progress today. I have managed to hand feed my three doves on the lawn outside my back door. Rather awful, really, because all the visitors had to stand round in a circle and watch - which made me feel most inhospitable! But surely the visitors must have a home to go to where they are fed? I am hoping that if I manage to continue to feed my doves for a few days in this way the others may give up hope and stay away. Do you think I will succeed? And do you think I am very cruel? Elisabeth


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## pigeonpoo (Sep 16, 2005)

You could put just enough food for your birds inside the dovecote. If they are like mine they will be very defensive of their territory and chase off any others who try to get in. Don't put in more than they eat at 'one sitting' though or you'll have squirrels and rats joining them for tea!!

I had the same problem with my doves, in fact the collared doves became so used to the rattle of the seed tin...I might as well have rung a dinner gong.  I stopped feeding the wild birds last year when we had the AI . I was scared that they might transmit the disease to my birds.

If you _are_ going to stop feeding the wild birds, now is as good a time as ever - there is plenty of grain in the fields and they will soon find dinner elsewhere.



Charis said:


> Soon the rain will start in earnest and you husband won't notice so much.


 LOL Charis - have you not seen the weather in the UK? We are waiting for the rain to *stop* and the summer to start!!


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## WhiteFeathers (May 15, 2007)

The trouble about feeding the doves inside the dovecote is that it is rather dark in there and their eyesight doesn't seem good enough to see the food. Might they get used to it? Or would I have to provide lighting for them? (Joking!) - I hope! Elisabeth


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## SkyofAngels (Jun 28, 2007)

I am curious as to why don't you want to feed the wild birds? The mental picture I have of them standing there waiting for their turn to be fed and then being sent away with empty tummies breaks my heart If you have three doves yourself you must be a bird lover surely a few seeds to stay alive can't be too much to ask.


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## KIPPY (Dec 18, 2003)

> *Do you think I will succeed?*


I think it will work, if you stick to it.


*



And do you think I am very cruel?

Click to expand...

*We all have different situations when it comes down to feeding ferals. You do what you feel you need to do. It's not like your throwing rocks at them to get rid of them. They will find food somewhere if not then they will be camping out on your back door.

That's what they do at my place.


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## pigeonpoo (Sep 16, 2005)

WhiteFeathers said:


> The trouble about feeding the doves inside the dovecote is that it is rather dark in there and their eyesight doesn't seem good enough to see the food. Might they get used to it? Or would I have to provide lighting for them? (Joking!) - I hope! Elisabeth


If you put the seed in a deep pot (the clay ones the mineral clay comes in are ideal) just inside the door, I don't think they'd have a problem finding the food. I wouldn't just throw it on the floor of the dovecote because it gets pretty messy in there. You'd have to put the birds into the compartment the food is in a few times so they get used to their new feeding station.


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## Becca199212 (May 10, 2007)

Ours eat inside the dove cotes but wouldn't the ferals just go in there to eat too?


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## WhiteFeathers (May 15, 2007)

Becca199212 said:


> Ours eat inside the dove cotes but wouldn't the ferals just go in there to eat too?


I am told that doves are very territorial and wouldn't usually allow visitors into the dovecote. I don't know if this is true, but I shall find out! Thank you Becca.

Elisabeth


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## pigeonpoo (Sep 16, 2005)

Mine certainly are. Any collared doves landing on the roof are soon seen off and, a few weeks ago, we watched the cock trying to drive away a baby rabbit which was grazing in, what he obviously thought was, his territory. I should have had a camcorder - the dove chased the rabbit which would move away a little and then jump over the head of the dove back to where it started. They repeated this several times before the rabbit gave up and moved on to some tastier grass.


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## WhiteFeathers (May 15, 2007)

SkyofAngels said:


> I am curious as to why don't you want to feed the wild birds? The mental picture I have of them standing there waiting for their turn to be fed and then being sent away with empty tummies breaks my heart If you have three doves yourself you must be a bird lover surely a few seeds to stay alive can't be too much to ask.


The thing is that I am quite sure these visiting doves are NOT wild birds. I feel certain that someone within a mile from here owns them and is feeding them as well as me feeding them. Already some of the visitors are wanting to eat out of my hand when I am trying to feed mine. It's not the extra food that I resent. It's that I am finding there are just too many visitors. When I open the back door to go out, the sudden flapping of so many wings as they take off from my under my feet is like a small helicopter taking off. It's TOO much!

And I ASSURE you that I do feed the wild garden birds as well. It gives me huge pleasure to put out feeders in the winter for the many birds that come to my garden - spotted woodpeckers, nut hatches, wrens, robins, blackbirds, thrushes and a great many different types of finches and tits. (Long tailed tits are my top favourites.) I am not as heartless as you think I am!! 

-Elisabeth


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## WhiteFeathers (May 15, 2007)

pigeonpoo said:


> Mine certainly are. Any collared doves landing on the roof are soon seen off and, a few weeks ago, we watched the cock trying to drive away a baby rabbit which was grazing in, what he obviously thought was, his territory. I should have had a camcorder - the dove chased the rabbit which would move away a little and then jump over the head of the dove back to where it started. They repeated this several times before the rabbit gave up and moved on to some tastier grass.


What a lovely story about the dove chasing the rabbit. How incredible! And how sad you couldn't have filmed it.


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## myrpalom (Aug 12, 2004)

I feel certain that someone within a mile from here owns them and is feeding them as well as me feeding them. Already some of the visitors are wanting to eat out of my hand when I am trying to feed mine. 
-Elisabeth[/QUOTE]

The ferals that I feed in town also come to eat out of my hands. It could be a sign that they are hungry. I agree with SkyofAngels: I myself could not have the courage to let them watch the others eat without giving them anything before I had seen with my own eyes that they have a home and food. I would not feel comfortable by only "feeling certain" about this.
Myriam


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## abisai (Jan 30, 2007)

Only time my yard doves get fed is in the mornings when I change the finch, cockatiel, canary, love bird feed. I throw the uneaten seeds ontop of the shed and all the doves eat up and then leave. (though the brave ones do attempt to eat Jack's dog food).
But all works out . The pigeons get fed inna loft and there's no competition between the pigeons and the doves.


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