Bird Proofing: Keep Birds Out of Your Business
For better or for worse, birds and businesses seem to have a complicated relationship. For every sweet songbird perched on the rooftop there seems to be an annoying woodpecker, pounding away at the paneling looking for a bite to eat. It’s often not up to business owners which birds choose to make a home in your building, but when a bird gets comfy it can spell big trouble for your business.
Birds who enter or hang around your business can steal food, annoy customers, and even spread disease - all of which can pose major problems for any business dealing with a bird problem. Here’s a look at what business owners can do to keep their shops bird-free through the spring and summer.
Eliminate Temptation by Removing Food Sources
Birds, like most other pests, are really only after a few key things: food, shelter, and a place to breed. For birds, meeting these needs can be fairly easy. The ability to fly offers most birds access to high, secure places - from tall trees to high indoor ceilings - where they can settle down and start building a nest. This is made much, much easier when there’s plenty of food around to be had - and more often than not, this is what draws a bird to settle down in the first place.
Outdoor retailers, warehouses, and even grocery stores offer a wealth of tasty snacks for birds of all kinds, from seeds to scraps, and even other pests, like bugs, that a bird might like to chow down on. In some cases, this is easy to fix - netting around fruit trees or bushes at a garden center can restrict access to food, while good cleaning standards in a warehouse or grocer can help reduce the amount of food available for birds to grab. While food stores may be unable to completely eliminate temptation for birds to come and roost, any steps to control food availability will help in the long run at preventing birds from setting up a permanent home.
Fake Them Out With Plastic Predators
Ever done a double take after seeing an owl, eagle, hawk, or other bird of prey perched perfectly still high up somewhere, only to realize it’s actually made of plastic? Birds do the same thing - although they aren’t quite so smart as to figure out it’s just a dummy. That’s why false birds of prey can be so effective at keeping small birds from hanging around, especially in areas like barns, small fields, and even warehouses. Many of these false predators come as full-size plastic statues, and still other utilize simple cut-outs or paper painted to look like eyes. These can be extremely effective at keeping birds from getting too comfortable - and they don’t require much work at all.
Plastic birds of prey will not prevent every bird, however. There is some evidence that some birds come to realize the statue poses no immediate threat, at which point they may become more bold in their efforts to roost or snag food. In many cases, this solution works best when combined with other practices to keep birds from making a home of your business.
Install Bird Spikes To Discourage Roosting
Next time you’re visiting a famous building or monument, look up - chances are, you’ll notice an impressive absence of birds roosting on the roof or in the rafters. That’s probably thanks to bird spikes, an ingenious and non-harmful way of keeping birds from settling down overhead.
These small “spikes” - not so much sharp as simply uncomfortable to try and stand on - are placed on the most likely roosting spots on a building or outdoor structure, and can prevent damage from droppings that accumulate as birds gather in one spot. This will also prevent birds from visiting the area altogether, since there won’t be a place for them to safely stay out of danger while they’re there. Bird spikes are easy to install and require little upkeep, and can help keep birds away without the need for constant vigilance.
Keep Your Business Bird-Free
For some businesses - like grocery stores, garden centers, and warehouses - keeping birds from intruding on your business can be a tough task. With basic bird-proofing techniques, however, you can prevent the worst offenders from doing serious damage well before the problem gets out of hand, or customers start to get sick.
If you’re battling a bird problem in your business, our pest control experts at JP Pest Services can help get you outfitted with the right bird control solutions to get the job done. Get in touch and let's get those birds away from your business - your customers may just thank you.
