[Stand_Watie]

Ok, perhaps that's a little hysterical. This doesn't exactly count as 'hunting', but I have a huge flock of sparrows that I am going to have to kill as I believe they are carrying a rather nasty respiratory disease back and forth between my and several neighbors flocks of chickens. I was willing to put up with them eating the chicken feed, but I can't have them making my birds sick (also they have run off a lot of my bluebirds). I'm not at all happy about it however.



Anyway, to get to my point - has anyone used .22 birdshot on small birds, and if you have is it enough? I shot a ground squirrel with it one time (in upper Michigan, so he probably had a pretty thick pelt) and it only made him mad. I think I'll need to take out another mortage on the house to pay for the ammo if I use the shotgun.

[Dave McCracken]

Forget about it. The 22 shot load is hard put to take out a bird of any sort at more than ten feet.

Try skeet loads of 9s in your shotgun, and get some wingshooting practice.

[only1asterisk]

12ga or 20ga shotshells may cost less than .22 shotshells. Grab a WalMart 100 pack for $12-15 and blast them from the sky 'till there don't come back. It may take some doing as you are feeding them.


David

[Greybeard]

I cut my teeth for several summers thinning out sparrows that CONTINUALLY managed to get in Granny's chicken house every night. I'd open door around sunrise, slip in, then close door quickly and proceed to slayin' 'em with BB gun. (' stopped many richochets in the process. :eek: )

' Not clear on your particular environment, but in agreement that .22 shot loads not very potent beyond a few yards. Typically a little better from a long barrel rifle. If going that route, ya probably want to seek out source for buying 'em in boxes of 50. (The small boxes of CCI loads are often easier to find, but are comparatively quite pricey.) Edited to add: see http://www.22ammo.com/index.html for .22 shot load options. and don't forget the eye protection. :eek:

Yep, Wally World often has some deals on 8s in 100-packs. I suspect that if you start lighting them up, the survivors will decide to hang out elsewhere - at least for a while. :banghead:

[HSMITH]

Wait till they are sitting on the ground and shoot them from a low angle with #4 turkey loads, as heavy a shot load as you can get. The pellets will skip and bounce taking out several birds each, there will be a swath of dead birds on the ground and birds dropping out of the flock as they fly away for a long time. Filling a 5 gallon bucket with carcasses is not unusual.

3 or 4 times of that should reduce numbers a bit, then you are going to have to start wingshooting them. #9 skeet loads into the front edge of the flock will bring them down.

[ksnecktieman]

Use a pellet or bb gun, sharpen your eye for shooting with open sights too. Most bb guns will dispatch one quickly.

[Stand_Watie]

Wow. It sounds like I'm not the only one that has had this problem. They are extremely unafraid of me right now, so perhaps I'll start out with the ten foot shots with the .22 (I'm not up for shooting them with the bb gun and watching them flop around when I don't get the perfect shot) and use the shotgun on the ones that are further range.

My neighbor suggested gopher poison but I'm not putting out poison and maybe having my pets (not to mention the chickens) wind up ingesting it directly or even indirectly by eating the sparrows. She also mentioned that her mom used to fire a .12 guage into a heavy flock of blackbirds and take out 6 or 8 at a time and make them into chicken pot pie. Anyone on here ever had that (with blackbird I mean)?

[buzz_knox]

Claymores. You need claymores. :) The ultimate portable shotgun.

Note to BATF: yes, I know they are restricted. It was a joke. Go ahead and put this note in my Echelon file.

[redneck]

If you use .22 birdshot, get the winchester crimped shells. They pattern tighter, use slightly heavier shot that kills much more effectively and they come in boxes of 50 at much better prices. I got a box of them at Gander Mountain once. They're a little too powerful to use inside buildings like you can with the CCI stuff.
They're pretty consistent killers out to 20 feet on sparrows. Beyond that its a matter of luck because you never get the same pattern twice.

A BB gun, pumped up all the way won't make them flop around much. I routinely shoot them with a Gamo air rifle (220 hunter) thats rated at 1000fps. Any sort of wadcutter or hollow point results in a cloud of feathers and the bird is generally dead almost instantly.

[Iain]

Save yourself the nasty unpleasant morally dubious task of killing them (just kidding H&H) and buy about 30 domestic cats. They have decimated songbirds in the UK, can't see why it won't work over there too.

[Carlos Cabeza]

Find some kids in the neighborhood and teach them to shoot a BB gun. They'll have a blast and you'll be rid of those pesky winged rats !!!

[Byron Quick]

A funnel trap made of half inch hardware cloth would probably be easier,cheaper and more productive...you're already feeding them.

Downside is you still have to kill them.

Plus is that English sparrows are an invasive- not native- species. They have done tremendous harm to many native species. Not only do they spread diseases to livestock but also to humans and native species.

It would be wonderful if the species could be totally eradicated from North America.

[cdbeaver]

If you are a bluebird lover and trying to encourage them to nest in your boxes, sparrows are one of the worst sorts of vermin, along with snakes and swallows.

When I was a youngster living on the farm, we had a never-fail treatment for sparrows in the winter time when snow is on the ground. Make a snow scoop-wide trail about 20 or 30 feet long, bait it with chicken feed or cracked corn.

When the birds congregate to get a free meal, a 12-gauge loaded with 7 1/2's does a fine job of reducing the population. Not so good, however, if cardinals and other song birds are at the trough. Just shoo them away and the sparrows will return pronto.

[Greybeard]

Web site given in my post above will also have some low-velocity .22 rounds if you chose to start out plinking 'em one at a time.

And speaking of your "neighbor", remember that some of the .22 rounds can travel up to 1.5 miles, even #8 shot as much as 250 yards.

Trap idea above might be a quieter solution if you have a pond or stock tank handy. ;)

[Joe Demko]

Trapping is the way to go if you really want to thin them out. Shooting them, while higher in entertainment value, requires you to actually be there spending time shooting them. It is also a continuing expense. The trap that Byron Quick described will work continuously and only require you to bait and empty it.

[zahc]

Birdshot is hella expensive and patterns poorly usually. Shotgun.

[H&Hhunter]

Save yourself the nasty unpleasant morally dubious task of killing them (just kidding H&H) and buy about 30 domestic cats.

Then film yourself shooting all thirty charging cats with various types of heavy rifles.

Just make sure that they are wild and not pen raised. Shooting pen raised cats is just not cool.;)

[JohnKSa]

The funnel traps are pretty effective.

If you don't want to make one, there are folks selling them online.

I couldn't do it--I like airguns too much! ;)

[sm]

I "participated in the eradication" of a nuisance, once upon a time * ahem*

I just happen to have some #12 shot, fixed up a batch in 1 1/8 oz loadings...umm...well... bunch of "nuisance" fell, kept falling. Heck we had to go back out that night and take care of some other nuisance going after the first nuisance. Do you realize how many pellets that is?

1 oz of #9 ~ 600 pellets

1 oz of #12 ~ 2360 pellets !

[Sven]

#12 sounds like a funnel of almost liquid lead

[sm]

Sven,
#12 is "interesting", kinda hard to describe. Pattern board is "unique". I have not seen #12 for sale in quite some time.
Though not allowed for clay games competitions...well find some and run it thru your 870...I won't tell...:D

[Sven]

Sweet - I'll shoot up my hat (25 straight) soon with your help.

[JohnMc]

I'd only like to add that you make sure the lead, from whatever your projectile choice may be, doesn't fall into your chicken coop. The chickens would probably pick it up, more or less like waterfowl. Then the lead would end up in you, presuming you eat the chickens or their eggs.

Oh, yeah, pidgeons are winged rats, English sparrows are winged mice.

JohnMc

[Bigjake]

get a good vantage point within 30 feet, zero the scope on your.22 for 20 ft, and go at em with colibri subsonics. those work on morning doves that used to poop all over our skylight, should be no trouble on sparrows.

[JShirley]

Steel shot, or, tungsten.

[MFH]

To improve the shotgun kill rate, set out a line of feed... several feet/yards long and only a few inches wide. When you get them stacked in a line on both sides, heavy 12ga loads make an awful mess. Just make sure that you shoot down the line and have enough pattern to cover it. There won't be much flock left after.

MFH

[Bigjake]

If you have some sort of semi auto shotgun i bet MFH's technique would work exponentialy better. never tried it, but i can picture the carnage that would be wrought with my 11/87 and tube extension. 10 rnds of #9 real fast would be impressive.

[MeekandMild]

Er, be careful that you know what you are shooting. Most all the sparrows look pretty much alike to someone who hasn't studied them, and sparrow flocks will usually be of mixed species.

English sparrows are a nuisance but native song sparrows are protected and it is really hard to tell them apart unless you can get close enough to see their stripes, cheek color and cap color. It is conceivable that a person could be arrested if they were caught shooting the wrong type of sparrow. This is the same sort of law that makes it illegal to pick up a single feather from a road kill hawk. :uhoh:

[12-34hom]

Film at 11????....;)

12-34hom.

[Moyer]

I had to register just to reply to this.

I have to second Carlos Cabeza's idea. If you know ANY youngsters in your area that you can trust with a BB gun (neighbors, relatives, ANYONE) see if they would be interested in shooting the sparrows for you.

I spent A LOT of time in my childhood (not that many years ago) shooting sparrows and starlings with BB guns. I was fortunate enough to have grandparents who live on a farm and always had large flocks of birds around their livestock buildings. Most young BB gunners would be thrilled to try and attempt a genocide of an entire flock. I probably killed 1000+ birds over the years with my daisy, not to mention my brother and my cousins. Luckily BBs are cheap.

We used to open all the machine shed doors and leave for a few hours, come back and simultaniously close them, usually shutting in a few dozen sparrows. When we were really young and couldn't shoot very well, we'd just chase them back and forth. Shoot at them on one end of the building, then they'd fly to the other side, shoot at them again, they'd fly back. Sooner or later, we had to get good at it. They didn't even go to waste either, we always fed them to the cats.

The best way to really slaughter them with BB guns though is to hunt them at night. Check all around the inside and outside of all surrounding buildings with a good flashlight. They will not move unless you shoot and miss, even then they sometimes just sit there and let you take a second shot. For real pest control my grandpa has these small open buildings with low ceilings for feeder pigs. They had insulation above that sparrows would always roost in. We'd take flashlights and tennis rackets...

[Joe Demko]

I probably killed 1000+ birds over the years with my daisy, not to mention my brother and my cousins.

You killeed your brother and your cousins with the Daisy? Why? Were they barnyard pests too?

[Moyer]

LOL. I didn't realize it would read like that. I mean they probably shot just as many as I did.

[Balog]

If you're going to kill your family members, use enough gun! :p

[Diggler]

Steven Wright: "I was an only child... eventually..."

:D

[Byron Quick]

:rolleyes:

talk about strange humor!

[ThreadKiller]

I was fortunate enough to grow up on a farm and learned to do battle with the wily English sparrow in many different ways. Our favorite tactic was to hunt them at night in the barn on cold winter nights. Get a good pellet gun and a flashlight and you're set. Every cat on the place would follow us from building to building waiting for their chance to dine on fresh sparrow.

Sometimes after a miss, they'd fly but since it was dark, they didn't navigate very well. They'd fly low and slow trying to get their bearings. Many times the beam of the flashlight, tracking the sparrow, would catch the blur of a feline plucking the sparrow from midair.

We used birdshot loads occasionally from a DA High Standard but the range was limited. My brother shot some on the wing with the pistol at close range. Sometimes if we shot them sitting, the bird shot would drive their feathers into the rafter and pin 'em up therel.

We also would carry an old tennis racket with us. If one of these "feathered mice" would fly by, the tennis racket would come into play. It's amazing how far you can launch a sparrow with a tennis racket.

Occasionally, we'd whack 'em with a 12 gauge (trap loads) during daylight missions, but Dad didn't see the humor in that. Shotgun shells were too expensive to waste on sparrows.

When we could get away with it, we'd do a "drive by" on 'em. The house had a "U" shaped driveway around it and we'd put our gunner in the back of the old Scout 4x4. The sparrows were not afraid of a moving vehicle so we could drive around the house to the back where the trees and the sparrows were. Soon as we were within range, the driver would stop the Scout and the gunner would open up with dramatic effect. You could not approach them on foot with a firearm in hand, so they left us no choice but to go "drive by" on 'em.

Wristrocket slinghots are devasting on sparrows, but it takes a great deal of skill to hit a sparrow with a slingshot. But man what a ball bearing or a marble will do to a sparrow! :)

We naturally used Daisy BB guns, but we found their range inadequate. The Daisy's were much better suited to wasp nests and the big brown buzzing grasshoppers in the barnyard.

[Greybeard]

Moyer - Welcome to THR ! :) 'Glad to see this thread got ya motivated to register. Ya been "a lurker" for long? ;)

Yep, I too started with a BB gun, but it was not long before the "need" was realized to move up to a pump-up .22 pellet gun and scope for the longer shots - and crows. :D But, the BB single-shot remained the "go to" gun for first thing in the morning when the chicken house was full of sparrows. For a little while anyways ... ;)

[Moyer]

Moyer - Welcome to THR ! 'Glad to see this thread got ya motivated to register. Ya been "a lurker" for long?

Thanks for the welcome. Just been reading here for a month or so. Pretty nice site. This thread brought back a lot of good memories.

I also upgraded from my original Daisy (model 105B) to a single pump Daisy Model 840/841. I finally broke the seals on both of them though. They no longer hold air.

BTW, if anyone knows where I can get a Model 840/841, I'd really like to buy another one. I've seen many that look like it, but they all have different sights.

[Balog]

I'll second that welcome. Good to have you aboard.