Buzzards

Boarboy

Well-Known Member
We run a small shoot and the number if buzzards is just growing and growing each year.! We have one pen with about 250 birds in and every day I'm picking up a kill from in the pen, often seeing a buzzard flying out from it. There's lots of bramble cover in there but not much medium height hazel e.t.c, so I think it's easy for the buzzard to just drop in on them. I was wondering if there's anything I can do to deter them? Or nothing!
 
Not to depress you, but buzzards often eat poults pretty much whole leaving only 3 or 4 feathers and a small slug-sized bit of intestine. You could well be losing more than you think.
Can you plant some hazel...in 3 or 4 years you'll have cover. Dense bramble is usually good enough cover though. Have you tried adult guinea fowl in there?
 
We run a small shoot and the number if buzzards is just growing and growing each year.! We have one pen with about 250 birds in and every day I'm picking up a kill from in the pen, often seeing a buzzard flying out from it. There's lots of bramble cover in there but not much medium height hazel e.t.c, so I think it's easy for the buzzard to just drop in on them. I was wondering if there's anything I can do to deter them? Or nothing!

As a temporary measure in open areas string old cd and dvd disks on fishing line.I am sure there will be plenty of good ideas coming your way.
 
Eagle owl decoys deter buzzards.... They're a very real threat to them in the wild where heir paths cross. Might be worth trying.
 
Buzzards can be a real pain and they can be extremely persistent in going after poults. Not only do they kill poults but will carry on taking them till they're full grown. As well as killing them they cause a great deal of stress, none of it good.
I tried eagle Owl decoys, strung fishing line across pens ( very difficult in the case of larger pens) hung cds and bits of mirror and still they took the birds. Once started they are extremely difficult to stop. Sorry to be a pessimist but they caused me grief for years.
 
We use a radio tuned to Radio Devon. No buzzards!

We also cut lots of spinly birch/rowans at about 1m height and then bent the top bit down to the ground to create lots of 'tentpole' structures which the poults can easily run under and which disrupt the buzzard (or goshawk in our case) swooping in. If you only partially cut them through they grow back to make numerous small shelters over the coming years.

Finally, we found most of the kills were along the pen fence, perhaps because that is where the cover is least or where the birds bunch up, so we laid out branches at ~2m intervals against the fence from the gorund to make a sort of tunnel in exposed places. Again, this disrupts the raptor from swooping in.

Good luck.
 
I had a really large pen in a wood with very dense cover you would never think a buzzard would be able to swoop in on a poult. What they quickly learned to do was to drop like a stone straight down on to a poult. It really was impossible to stop them, the old birds both did it and the two young learned the same trick, lovely birds but I put them above the fox as the top predator on my shoot. At least you could do something about the foxes!
 
Never had any bother whatsoever from Buzzards with the pheasant poults, partridge poults though is another matter, they slay them.
 
I have hung green debris netting ( ebay) all different lengths and at different heights and angles
to stop them getting a clear view and run in at birds....two years with no problems (touch wood)
 
What they quickly learned to do was to drop like a stone straight down on to a poult. It really was impossible to stop them, the old birds both did it and the two young learned the same trick, !

Surprisingly clever for a South Devon bird:p

Hope they don't learn that trick with us.

I radio tag many of my birds as part of a research project and from the signs on the recovered carcasses it looks to be >90% mammal predation (bit through feathers, found stuffed down a den entrance - could be foxes or badgers) but we've also recovered some tags from up in tree crevices as well as the obvious raptor kill signs on birds on the ground, so it would be easy to miss and hence undercount raptor kills on untagged birds.
 
We use a radio tuned to Radio Devon. No buzzards!

We also cut lots of spinly birch/rowans at about 1m height and then bent the top bit down to the ground to create lots of 'tentpole' structures which the poults can easily run under and which disrupt the buzzard (or goshawk in our case) swooping in. If you only partially cut them through they grow back to make numerous small shelters over the coming years.

Finally, we found most of the kills were along the pen fence, perhaps because that is where the cover is least or where the birds bunch up, so we laid out branches at ~2m intervals against the fence from the gorund to make a sort of tunnel in exposed places. Again, this disrupts the raptor from swooping in.

Good luck.
Two farms I have stalked over use radio's in there pens. I find that distracting whilst stalking but guess it might work.
 
Hang stuff from trees, cd's strips of feed sack, anything that will disrupt flight, ask a local gardener or tree surgeon fro brash to provide quick cover (especially around drinkers and feeders)
 
Most off the above are good ideas, i found kiddies sea side windmills to be quite good, put on wire they spin really easily and some of the holographic 1's fairly dazzle in the sunlight.

Some times ur best to put the cd's windmill etc up a few days before the birds go in so hopefully they don't find them. I think harder to stop once they have found a food source.

I have also planted willow and birch, which u can either copice to get nice medium cover and over last couple of years ours is at a hieght where u can fold it over to makes tunnels in below it like tamar said.
I have also broadcast by hand and dug some Reed Canary grass sods up and planted in the pen, usually takes 2 years to grow (ours is taking a lot longeer and failed attempts as pens so acidic/peaty) but looking quite nice in some places now.
If ur quick u could probably chuck some RCG seed in ur pen now (esp if further south) and it might establish this back end and come good for next releasing season if ur lucky on decent soil

Just got to try as much as u can, i have found buzzards are not too bad to keep of ur pen with some fore thought and planning and a good pen design, our old pen was terrible for raptor kills, 5-10 a day was not that unusual and was only 300ish birds, so quite a high %.
Really strugle if a sparrow or gossy takes a fancy to ur pen thou
 
Over the years a have watched the buzzard population grow from none to where we are today,
yes they do cause problems and it seems to varys from area to area, also the kites are now causing an indirect problem, the buzzard kills a poult and the kite will push the buzzard off his kill,
i have probaley lost about a dozen poults out of all my pens this year that are taken by raptors that I have seen,in the grand scheme of things its probaley a price we have to pay for living with these birds,
all of the above things that have been suggested work well and it's normally only for a week- 10 days,
heres my list of things I have tried in the past
video tape,
radios
flashing lights
bags with eyes on
Helium filled ballons
cd's
good luck and hope you don't lose to many
 
I use a manikin and move it round every couple days.buzzards are the vain of a keepers life.and they will take a fully grown hen pheasant.
 
buzzard, the google bird, search for them and you have moooooore than you think with a result that they taaaaaake more than you would like that's the current result
 
Most off the above are good ideas, i found kiddies sea side windmills to be quite good, put on wire they spin really easily and some of the holographic 1's fairly dazzle in the sunlight

i have to agree, I've found that this works really well. Had them at my pens for 3 years now if not longer and not a problem since. I did find that moving the windmills every couple of days helps to keep the buzzards back off the pen as by moving them they aren't getting a chance to get used to them

stacey
 
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