Magpies
I have a resident Magpie that tells me every morning at about 5 AM how he would like to be forcibly removed from the neighborhood or suffer a tragic fatality. How can I help him hasten his wish without contravening any bylaws or other legalities?
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Pellet gun at 4:50 am
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Magpie trap. Followed by a little carbon monoxide.
http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/all/agdex3496 |
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God I love living in the country . My acreage is the DMZ for crows and pies. |
just had this discussion at Wednesday wing night
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we have a pellet gun, 5 bucks for a pack of pellets
dam things fly away when they see the gun though |
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Oh! I like that one. I'll have to try it!! I have always used leg hold traps or firearms but the traps can injure dogs and cats and the firearms disturb the neighbours, (songbirds.) Those rat traps should take care of all my concerns. I wish I had though of that. |
I like magpies. They eat my dogs crap off the lawn. They may be annoying, but it saves me poopin scoopin so I leave them alone lol
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Drop one, the rest WILL get the message. The mourning is a bit loud day one though... |
Depending on your bylaws, stop one, then wait a bit. Magpies will come have a funeral for their buddy. When they land... The fun continues... :fighting0021:
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Soon Edmonton will be the Magpie capital of North America. LOL I hate those vermon. Protected in the city. LMAO. Had the chance yesterday to get three of them, but no pellet gun around. Has to be 30 of them around my hood.
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An egg glued (silicone) to a foothold trap pan.
Set to hair trigger- careful, finger from UNDER the jaw. Set it out, but hide it a bit, let the buggers think that they've found another ducks' nest! Local cats etc ignore it. |
For shotgunning... take that dead magpie out to the edge of a bluff & tie to a 25yd twine, toss over a branch. Walk in to your "blind" and let things cool down for a while. Then by yanking the line you've got that bird jumping 6ft in the air. They can't seem to ignore it !
Try setting this up with a friend, then have him leave. Lets see if magpies can count. |
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Surprised Tree hasn't chimed in yet with his elaborate trapping mechanisms and suggestions... That was GOLD!
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I caught 10 in 2 days. I then relocated them 50 km away... made it much quieter last summer. Don't leave them in the trap too long because they will figure out how to get out. Also let the first one that enters the trap stay in there for a while, others will be attracted and enter the trap.
I mounted the trap on a piece of osb that was 40" x 40"... then lifted it and the trap in my truck and hauled them away. |
Lola always took care of them for me ;) Release your hounds after them :sHa_shakeshout:
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magpie " Thanks for the ride, and the education, dummy!" |
There has been mention of gopher traps with ripe meat attached to the pan. If you are worried about cats and dogs..... I used to hang the gopher traps by the chain from branches on trees. They would dangle and sway in the wind and alot of mornings I would have a magpie either by the head or neck. Instant kills. Never caught anything but magpies. I probably caught 60 magpies this way thru the years.
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On a serious note though build a magpie trap and get them that way and then take care of them after they're inside the trap. They are easy to make from what I've seen and are quite effective :) |
I cut a hot dog up in tiny pieces and then laced it with every hot sauce, cayenne pepper and haberno I could get my hands on and left it under a bush
two days later I was watching all his magpie buddies attending his funeral.:budo: |
There's some good Magpie threads on AO already. Treeguy had some great posts on the topic. I had good results from a magpie trap similar to TreeGuys, and will loan it to Calgary area AO members who have a truck to pick it up. Its a cylinder made of wire mesh with a top, and it has an entrance that's a tapered cone. They follow sparsely placed bait into the more heavily baited trap ( old fries and burger chunks highlighted by fast food wrappers worked well for me). Once they crouch down in the entrance tunnel and stand up again, they can't figure out how to crouch to exit. Its some visual cue thing I guess. Anyways, I had 6-7 in my trap, and then sent them on permanent holiday with the garbage man.
My second method (obviously done in a place where pellet guns are legal to use ;) ) is to set a bait station visible from inside the with a good safe shooting line from a window you can remove the bug screen from. Usually this results in one shooting at a downward angle so stray shots would go into the lawn mere feet behind the offending bird. My bait station had a double layer of plywood behind it for added safety. I rationalized that the bait must be little and something they can't simply fly off with to keep a 'captive audience', so I used cat food. Between these two techniques I restored peace to myself and our neighbors. PM me for borrowing "Chateau Magpie" |
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