Remember this structure? This is our version of a ‘chicken tractor’, those moveable bird shelters which those of us who raise chickens (and in this case, mini turkeys) out on pasture. They are very useful things indeed and we made ours out of pvc pipe because of the size and weight issues. Now, PVC will not last forever under the stress of temperature changes and the sun, but these tractors have given us good service for at least 4 years, so that gives you an estimate of life so far.
We are not raising so many birds now and we have a different issue. A couple of years ago, we planted current bushes up on the hill and they are finally bearing fruit.
And the birds like it, too.
So, this year, we decided to fool them. The DH took apart two of the chicken tractors (we did not glue together the PVC pipe so that we could do this; it made the tractors a bit ‘flexy’, but gave us the opportunity to turn them into something else if need be…which it needed to be) and reconfigured them into this structure here.
So far, this doesn’t look like much of a bird deterrent, does it?
Well, first, we are going to move it a little bit (the DH was mowing yesterday, so he moved it to get closer to the bushes) so that the bushes are in the center and then we are going to cover the structure with bird netting. What is bird netting? Bird Netting As you can see from the link, this is a small-holed plastic netting which is laid over crops such as strawberries or fruit trees and bushes. We will encase the structure in that so that the birds will have to go find their fruit elsewhere. We have plenty of other sources here at Chez Siberia for them in the form of the various ornamental cherry and shad trees on the property. They are more than welcome to that.
