AD | Featured
Industrial facilities provide many places for pigeons to roost and it is hard to remove them once they’re there. Pigeons don’t migrate and you will always find them close to the place where they’re born. If they have quality nesting habitats, food and water, pigeon populations can quickly get out of control.
Why get rid of pigeons?
Pigeons carry various diseases and their droppings make a terrible mess. The droppings are corrosive and will eat away at steel and cause damage to structures and equipment over time. Droppings readily stain concrete and experiments have found that they can also damage concrete by leaching into cracks and causing it to erode.
Pigeon numbers increase quickly and too many pigeons can become a sanitation problem that’s best to deal with before it escalates. Cleaning up the droppings is no laughing matter and just ignoring the issue invites disease, corrosion and slip-and-fall hazards. A single pigeon can generate enough droppings that it only takes about 80 birds to generate a ton of droppings in a short period of time. The OvoControl pigeon control program is the most effective and humane solution to get rid of pigeons in industrial facilities. It uses pigeon “birth control” to reduce the pigeon population over time.
What attracts pigeons to industrial facilities?
Pigeons will gravitate to places where they can find good places to nest, food and water. The garbage in industrial areas can attract them so it is vital to keep any bins well sealed. Making sure there aren’t any dripping taps or other sources of water for pigeons can also help to keep them away.
Getting rid of pigeons at small industrial facilities
There are various methods that can help to get rid of pigeons at small industrial facilities.
Physical exclusion: A combination of bird nets can effectively stop pigeons from roosting and nesting in various defined areas, such as inside or under structures. In sloped areas like ledges or eaves, the use of a bird slope can work. Spike strips are inexpensive, easy to install and can prevent pigeons from finding a comfortable spot to roost without harming them. Some physical exclusion methods, like a shock track, give the pigeons a harmless shock to keep them off horizontal surfaces.
Physical deterrents: This method tries to physically deter pigeons by using reflected light sources, effigies, ultrasonic emitters etc. Pigeons do not like flashes of light. They react to the prism effect and feel disorientated. Ultrasonic emitters can work because birds have a sense of hearing that allows them to hear sounds human ears can’t detect. There are those that emit bird distress calls and the sounds predators make. A realistic effigy of a predator may deter pigeons for a while, but if it doesn’t move, they will eventually get used to it.
Physical repellents: There are various pastes, optical gels, fogs and vapors that will repel pigeons.
Trapping and euthanizing: Trapping pigeons on a small industrial site and releasing them elsewhere does not usually work because they have a homing instinct and will find their way back to the place where they were born. Trapping and euthanizing pigeons is controversial and it doesn’t work that well because pigeons breed prolifically and the population will quickly return to previous levels.
Getting rid of pigeons at large industrial facilities
At large industrial facilities, many of the methods used to get rid of pigeons at small industrial sites don’t work. For example, imagine trying to keep pigeons out by stretching nets or installing spikes at places like oil refineries, power plants, steel mills etc.
The method that does work is reducing the pigeon population. Methods like using dovecotes combined with egg removal or replacement provide a safe, secure way to harvest eggs but only provides extra housing for birds instead of controlling the pigeon population.
Pigeon “birth control”: Left to their own devices, pigeon populations grow exponentially at a rate of two eggs per clutch produced by a mating pair and up to six times a year. Using contraceptive bait disrupts the reproductive cycle of the female pigeon. The females that eat the bait still mate but the eggs they lay don’t hatch. The product contains a compound called nicarbazin that stops the eggs from hatching. An automatic feeder placed somewhere safe from tampering feeds pellets containing nicarbazin to the pigeons every day.
Gradual population reduction: Birth control takes some time to reduce the pigeon population. People who want to see immediate results may think this method doesn’t work but it will get rid of half the pigeons over a year, another half over the next year, and so on.
The birth control method humanely reduces pigeon populations without the need for poisoning or killing them. It is a low-cost, low-maintenance way to control pigeon populations at industrial facilities.
