Hi Cally, short of building a wooden structure that is covered in screen material or netting that you can place over your berries to keep the birds out, it seems making a sugar spray or even a Grape Kool-Aid spray can help reduce berry damage by birds. This article from UMass Extension Center for Agriculture has a few ideas that may be worth a try. Hope that helps and good luck!

I don’t mind the birds being around except we are growing raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, strawberries and elderberries etc do you Have an article or suggestions to repel them? Netting doesn’t work as well and is a huge pain. Birds aren’t stupid so owls and scarecrows don’t work even if you move them around. Scare tape doesn’t work and motion activated solor powered pest control for birds doesn’t work. Wind chimes wont work on an unwindy day. I read 5 pounds of raw sugar to 1 gallon of water sprayed on plants will repel them because sucrose and fructose repel them since it makes them sick (but doesn’t kill them. It just makes them sick so they learn to stay away from it) sacrificial plants don’t work very well either. Any suggestions? I don’t want to have to resort to other measures but In my case I’m not trying to attract them at all. I’m putting in too much work on my berries. They are starlings, blue Jay, cardinal, black birds and the occasional pigeon.

Hi CB, that’s exactly what we were thinking, chances are they will figure it out pretty quickly and will be flying the “coop” before we know it.

I completely understand the issue and concern. We never had outdoor cats before (indoor only) until we moved to this property, where we inherited 2 “feral barn cats” left by the previous owners – that the realtor said they’d have trapped if we didn’t agree to take care of them. As lifelong cat lovers, of course we said we would. But again, I’d never choose to have outdoor cats if this circumstance literally hadn’t fallen into our laps. To help address the threat to wildlife, we feed them VERY well (both wet food and dry food, lol) so they won’t be as tempted to hunt. With that, they’ve lost their value as “mousers” or “barn cats”, but have instead become very tame, chubby, sweet, and perhaps a bit lazy – though they’re still too wild to bring indoors. Fortunately, we’ve never seen them show interest in birds or evidence of hunting (feather piles, etc). I actually have many photos of Badger lazing around on his back with a covey of quail just 20 feet away. We hang our feeders and houses far out of cat reach. Plus many of the larger birds on our property actually harass cats if needed, including the jays, crows, and male quail. Finally, our outdoor cats do have natural predators here too, including coyotes, hawks, owls, bobcats, and even the occasional mountain lion in our area… People lose outdoor cats here all the time to coyotes, I’m very fearful of that day for us. Though again, I understand the issue and not all cats/situations will be like ours!