Birds love to flock near gardens and agriculture. These locations provide them a constant source of food for them to eat from. They tend to nest nearby, increasing the numbers of their flock and eating even more agriculture.

What are the best ways to keep birds out of your garden? Let’s go over a few tips and techniques to keep your gardens and agriculture bird-free.

A top method for excluding birds from your garden is bird netting. Bird netting is applied over crops and plants to block out birds entirely. Properly installed, bird netting blocks out birds with 100% effectiveness.

The best way to apply bird netting is to set up a scaffolding around the plants in your garden and attach the bird netting over the scaffolding. This stops birds from eating plants through the netting. This method is also more humane to other animals than simply draping netting over the plants, as chipmunks, snakes, squirrels, and other animals can get potentially fatally tangled in netting placed directly over plants.

Bird netting is a great solution for a garden or agricultural situation. It blocks birds and other critters from accessing the plants while still allowing sunlight and rain to flow onto the plants, allowing them to grow.

Chemical repellents are another option for blocking birds from accessing plants and agriculture. Our top-recommended chemical repellent is methyl anthranilate, the grape flavoring agent found in candies and sodas. Birds hate the taste and smell of methyl anthranilate and will stop eating plants treated with it.

Methyl anthranilate washes off easily with water and is safe for humans, birds, and the environment. It can be applied in liquid form directly to agriculture through a sprayer or it can be released in gaseous form through a fogger. It is available online at bird control retailers.

Methyl anthranilate is a great solution for deterring birds from gardens and agriculture. It works on both small personal gardens and larger agricultural enterprises. Though some people get turned off by the term ‘chemical repellent,’ methyl anthranilate is really just the grape flavoring found in grape flavored foods. It’s a useful coincidence that birds hate the smell and taste of this chemical.

We don’t recommend using pesticides or chemicals other than methyl anthranilate.

Other bird control methods like scarecrows and bird deterrent sound machines can also work if the bird problem is small. These methods tend to be less reliable than bird netting and methyl anthranilate, however, which will deter birds with certainty.

If there is a bird infestation brewing near the garden, it is also important to address that. Birds nesting near a garden will make it much more difficult to get rid of them.

In the event of a nesting bird infestation, your best bet is to call in a bird control company. Almost every bird species in North America is protected under the Migratory Bird Act of 1918. This means it is illegal to move a birds’ nest yourself. Birds’ nests are also host to disease and parasites, and require special cleaning equipment to remove safely.

A bird control company like AviAway can inspect the site and get a permit from the government to relocate the nesting birds. Once they’ve done that, they can also install bird exclusion methods like bird netting to block off birds from returning to their old nesting grounds and keep the bird problem from ever happening again.

Summary

The best ways to exclude birds from a garden are installing bird netting around plants and applying methyl anthranilate, the grape flavoring agent found in some candies and sodas. If there is a bird infestation nearby, your best bet is to call in a bird control company to get a permit to move the birds and install bird exclusion methods over the former nesting grounds.