- #*intro music#* - Welcome to Digging Deeper with Backyard Farmer.

I'm your host Kim Todd, and on Digging Deeper we have those in depth discussions with extension in industry experts about those important landscape topics.

Tonight, we have our own critter creature Dennis Ferraro, and he is going to be talking about something, as usual.

- Right.

- So with Dennis, he could go on for hours and days and months on critters, and we would have a fascinated audience, regardless of what you talked about, Dennis.

So what have you brought and what do you want to concentrate on?

- Okay, I am going to talk first about starlings.

Um, they are one of the three birds in the state that are invasive, therefore they can be controlled in any way or form, okay.

All other birds are protected in some way, but the Starling can be definitely taken care of.

And there's all different ways and so I am going to talk about, mainly, exclusions so, you can use exclusion on a lot of birds besides the Starling, in Pigeons, and the House Sparrow.

The three are considered pests in the state of Nebraska.

- So a Grackle is not considered a pest, even?

- No it is not, and you hurt a Grackle, that's a $400 fine, per Grackle.

- Really?

- Yes.

- Even though they are the ones that a lot of, that are very urban and are all over in people's bird feeders and everything else?

- Right.

Yep.

- With the blue head, right?

- Yep.

- Yeah.

- So Starlings have the speckles, as you can see.

- Right, yeah, wow.

Keep that in mind audience - Orange beak.

- If you have a blue headed bird it is not a Starling.

Don't hurt it.

(laughing) - And Barn Swallows, that dive after you, but they'll never hit you.

I try to catch them when they dive after me, and I can never catch them.

So, I don't know why people are afraid of them.

(mumbles words) Well if they are around one area, you can even, Barn Swallows, you can stop them from nesting, by using one of these kind of porcupine wire type things; as you can see, it's very sharp just stainless steel, so it doesn't, kind of cause much problems, and they have cheaper ones than stainless steel that are plastic and have several prongs.

- So, do those come in, like a - A roll - A roll, okay.

- Yeah, these, they come in 2 foot sections.

And then for short areas, for bigger birds you have this type of one.

- Those look like the things you can put on benches for skateboarders.

- Yeah, you can do that too, yeah, cause it's plastic.

And if you have a place where Pigeons are roosting, um, kind of like, you know, outside your window, this is just fairly simple, and it's just a piece of plastic (flick noises) that will last a long time, and can be painted.

But, since it's like that, the birds don't like to nest or put their nest there cause it will slide down, and so it can be put different ways.

I'm going to put that there.

And if you're really don't like the birds, you can go with the electric wires.

Again, it's not going to hurt the bird, but when the bird puts its claw or paw against both these two electrodes it will shock the bird, and the bird won't stay there any longer.

- So, do those plug in somewhere?

- Yeah, you can plug them in, or you can use a solar type device for them.

- Mhm.

- I'll put that there as well.

Um, another deterrent, I have to grab it over here, is tangle foot, um, or bird repellent.

It's called a repellent, but there are several brands of it.

But all it is, is stickiness.

And so they land on it, and their feet get all stuck and they just don't want to land there anymore.

The only bad part about it is very temporary, cause once dirt gets on it, they just land on the dirt.

But if, say above a light fixture, or a place where they are putting mud or a nest You can use something along those lines.

- So I assume, Dennis, our audience, their next question is going to be where can they find these things.

- A lot of it online, okay, um, but a number of different things, such as this, and some of these others.

Maybe not the stainless steel one, you can get at farm stores.

- Oh, sure.

- Real easy.

One that is very easy to get at almost any box store or farm store is the monophyletic netting, and this is good for Sparrows or if you have a landing, you know, in your house, under the eves, you can just drape this and they can't get by it, and then maybe you might have to leave it up there 30 days.

Um, there's also things called effigies like owls or things like that snakes, those don't work, they become habituated to it.

Um, ultrasound units don't work.

A gentleman sent me a picture, he spent $1000 to have this ultrasonic device put up for birds, and um, he had electrical done and everything that's why it cost that much, and he sent me the picture a week after, a bird put a nest on it.

(both chuckle) Yeah, it was just great.

- So one of our producers just, in the voice in my head, Shawn said he had a bird nest in his grill.

What do you do about that?

(laughs) other than cook the bird.

- Yeah, well there you go.

Now, this works for flickers and things like woodpeckers.

You blow it up, it's like a beach ball it's called a predar-eye or evil-eye.

And you hang it where they're pecking on the house or the barn, and leave it up there for about 30 days and then they won't come back.

Cause it's a little unsightly to leave it up there all the time.

But they work very well for that.

And they are called predar-eyes, evil-eyes, or scare-eyes - Well that's a fascinating one that they, well they go to a different window or a different - Well you try to put a couple of them along that side of the house, and hopefully they go to somebody else's house.

- (chuckles) Exactly.

- Then you sell these to your neighbor for twice the value - Exactly - And make some money that way.

- Make a little profit on marketplace - Right, well this works not on all birds it works great on Woodpeckers and Flickers.

- And so how about the little Nuthatches?

- It won't work on those, so you'll have to use some kind of other deterrent, such as the netting for those.

Now, if the birds, whether it's Sparrows or Starlings or something like that, are going into part of the house, say you have a vent for your kitchen hood, or for your grill or something you can use these one way doors And so the starling can't come that way Or you can put this on there so the Starling can go out, but it can't come back in.

- So the whole point on those is sort of like your bat devices, you gotta put it on the right direction - Right, so yeah, so they can leave but they can't come back.

- Wow, all right, so this is to exclude or to repel birds, of all types, - Birds, of all types, mhm.

- And, talk a little bit about the migratory bird acts.

- Okay, so 1974 Migratory Bird Act, which is the United States, Mexico, Canada, Japan, several other countries, says that any bird that migrates, that's Robins, Barn Swallows, are protected, and you can't do anything.

You can stop them from nesting, but once they build a nest, you have to let the nest stay until their fledglings are gone.

So, I had a Robin build a nest, like she did last year, above my gutter not in the gutter, but just below it, the angle And so, she has her young there now, and I can't touch that nest until she leaves for the season.

So, she'll likely put another group of eggs in there when these babies are gone, and bring them up too.

So I have to wait until that's done, legally before I can remove that nest.

- So what happens if you have, if you want certain birds, Cardinals, and you know they don't build very good nests to begin with there are these kind of not very good nests.

But the Blue Jays are in, what do you do about a bird that is not a Starling or one of those, and they are attacking another bird or the bird's nest, is there anything you can do?

- You watch it, and enjoy biodiversity.

That's all you can do.

- I don't want to - If it's not invasive, it's natural, and you let it go.

And so, that's the way it goes.

- And if you have, for example, which Sparrow is it that's the one that's such a - The House Sparrow, that is invasive.

- That one is invasive.

- Yep, the House Sparrow is invasive.

- So when they try to take the nest or - You can do whatever you want to that.

- To those, if you could (mumbles) - House Sparrows, Pigeons, and Starlings are the fair game.

- Right.

- And there is a season on Crows.

- Wow.

- That you can control Crows, and it's a big, long season.

- Wow.

- Wow, that's very interesting - But there is a season for controlling crows.

- All right, so, for people who really want to protect some portion of their home, or not have You know, birds doing their bird thing all over everything, this is a really excellent idea.

- Right.

- So, what else do you have to talk to us about?

- Okay, we are going to move all out birdie stuff away.

- And while he is doing that, I want to remind all of you to make sure that you give us your feedback on Digging Deeper.

We want to hear from you about what are all of the great things we are talking about.

Are we hitting the mark, are we missing the mark?

Give us your feedback, watch us, because that's a whole lot of fun.

- All right, what in the world?

- Okay, I'm going to talk about deer.

And I didn't bring any in, okay.

- That's good.

No venison, no deer sausage.

- Nope, no deer sausage.

- Oh, I'm hungry that would have been good.

(laughs) - Again, deer do have a season and if they are causing problems to crops, you can get a special license to take them out of season, and to take more deer.

That's allowed, but if they are coming into your acreage, or your yard, or even the hostas, which they love or a lot of plants, there is several ways you can deter the deer.

These are devices that actually stick in the ground and you put batteries in these parts and if you look at this part here, you can put an attractant, like acorn scent in there, and the deer, most sensitive part of the deer's body, is its nose and when it touches its nose to this, it's gonna jump away and not cross that line.

And so, you can put one of these by each hosta to stop the deer, and for, you know this one is a bit larger, and it is the same thing.

You can put the deer attractant in these holes right there, and you poke this in the deer puts its nose there, the most sensitive part of its body, and boy that, he just flies back on his hunches, and he is gone.

- So, if you do have an acreage, and I know that we have, I mean, we have deer occasionally on East campus, I'm sure, all the time - Oh yeah, a lot of the time.

- Yeah, how far, how many of those do you need and how far apart?

- Well, it depends on what you are protecting.

- Okay.

- Okay so, if you have a group of hosta you put one of these by each group of hosta in front of it, okay?

And hope they'll go this first.

If you have trees, you can use this, but also repellents do work on deer in most months, except for the winter.

Of course, deer do a lot of damage in the Winter.

And the reason is, most of these repellents are what we call aromatic.

And, in cold weather, they don't smell as much.

Okay, one is just soap, and you can buy these types of soap, it's just natural soap, and hang them on the tree.

- So it really does work?

- It works very good, and you can even hang a bar of soap, okay.

That works, and there are repellents that work on the market, there's a whole mired of repellents.

They have one that smells like garlic, and you clip it on the tree, and again, it works when it's not cold.

- Interesting, so I know there are, we have lists, of course, of plants that deer don't like, and garlic and onion are on that list.

As are fuzzy foliage plants, usually.

- Right, right.

- They don't, they are resistant to that.

- Resistant, right, so you could potentially surround a beloved plant with something they won't eat, and that might help as well.

- Right.

The other thing you can do, especially in the winter, when the repellents aren't working, you can protect your seedlings.

- Right.

- Now, the corrugated protection, I don't know if everyone can see that how its corrugated.

- Like cardboard, kind of.

- Yeah, and of course, you can get this you don't wanna girdle the tree, and these come high, you can get these up to 6 foot high to stop them from rubbing.

And you do have to stake them down, or put them below the branches, or the deer will actually pull them up.

- Really?

- Yeah, if they know there's a seedling in there.

- So, you know you mentioned that you have to put them below the branches and go all the way up the trunk.

How high can a deer reach?

- Well.

- Depending on the snow, obviously.

- Well, they sink, so.

- Well that's true.

- For, especially bucks rubbing, you have to go almost 6 foot up.

- Wow, yeah, so if you have a, I am thinking of dwarf apple trees, as an example, the branches are 3-4 feet.

- Right, so you protect the bottom part but you have a hard time - Pressing your fingers on it - Right, you may have to cut it a couple times to put it between the branches.

- Right.

- Cause you cut it, and then zip tie it.

- Right, exactly.

- Things like that really work well.

- All right so, we have birds, we have deer, we have a little handful of minutes left.

Anything else you want to deter?

(giggles) - Yeah.

Real quickly I am gonna talk about moles.

- So this is a mole, here.

Put all of this other stuff aside.

- Where is its hill?

- It's tail?

- No, its hill, to make that mound - Oh, mole hill?

- To make that mountain out of a mole.

- You can make a mountain out of a mole hill.

Right right.

(both chuckle) So the best thing, of course, there are a lot of mechanical devices and there's new ones on the market all the time.

This one here, that will take a hole plug out of a mole.

- It looks like a Nerf gun.

- Yeah (mumbles) It is pretty bad on the mole.

(both laugh) But, of course you have the ones that you can put on the ground, that scissors them in half.

And the ones that - Aw, so much evil.

- Yeah, and the ones that stab them to death.

- (laughing) Good grief.

- People must hate moles, I don't know why.

- Yeah, they don't like them very well.

- But, the thing that works the best is one of two things: one is the black hole.

That the go into, you bury.

- So you bury and run?

- Right, and you bury inside and that kills them.

And, if you don't want to do these, you can buy the gummy worms, which is only poison.

Which works, and they now have not only gummy worms, but they have it in gummy grubs.

But they like worms better.

- Okay.

- Now these gummy, there there, they are expensive and you can't cut them in half.

The poison is only in the sitowa, in one part that they bite first, they do work on the moles.

You should not touch them, cause you will put your scent on them.

You should use rubber or nitro gloves or latex gloves.

Bury them in the run, cover the run a little bit, these are distasteful to birds and distasteful to children.

They have bitterin in them, but the moles will eat them and die.

- So I think one of the issues, cause we do get I think about every week, we have a mole question on backyard farmer, I think one of the issues people have is how do you identify the active run?

And how deep do you have to dig, or where do you put these devices or the worms?

- Both the bait and these devices will go on the active runs.

So what they are doing, is they are swimming through the soil, just below the turf level.

Okay, they are not deep, so they are only about maybe 4 inches deep.

- Okay.

- And so your ground is upheaved, and its still green the first time they do it, because not eating the roots, they're just ripping the roots.

And as long as it's raining, they will stay green.

But once those roots dry, it will turn brown.

So you walk it down, okay.

If it reappears the next morning, those are the ones you are going to put the device or the worms in.

- Mhm.

- And you can do it, they usually feed at dawn and dusk.

- So I think people get confused between the mole run and the pocket gopher, the ground squirrel, because they want put these things in holes.

- Yeah, they do.

These guys leave small mounds and leave no open holes - No open holes.

- And you don't put anything in the small mounds.

You put them in the upheavement or the runs.

And their runs, its not like a trail, like voles, their runs are upheavement of the soil.

And you can walk on it, it's squishy.

- Mhm, all the way along.

- Mhm.

- So I think always, we get the follow up question of well, if you think you've killed or gotten rid of the moles, is there anything people can do to keep them from coming back in to a property?

- Well first off, one male territory is about 3 acres.

And a female is only 2/3 of an acre.

So you probably only have one or two moles, and yes, others can move in, once that habitat has been vacant.

There isn't much that stops them.

In our guide, there's a repellent.

But you have to repeat it every two weeks.

And that is 6 ounces of unrefined castor oil, put into a gallon of water, preferably distilled water and then one tablespoon of a surfactant, a soap Not a detergent, a soap.

You mix that up, and that gallon now is a concentrate that you could buy as a liquid spray in the store.

You in turn mix that, 1 oz per gallon and spray it on 25 square foot of lawn.

And that will protect that, just that 25 square foot of lawn for about a week or two or until it rains heavy, and that's it.

- Well for somebody who really is concerned or can't, you know you can't catch and kill the critter, that's actually, so give people that website - Sure.

Oh, the website is Wildlife.unl.edu and then go to moles.

- And that's really where you have all your good information for people.

- That's where all the neb guys, the videos, and we are constantly putting more up.

- All right, excellent.

Well, unfortunately, that is all the time we have for Digging Deeper with Backyard Farmer.

Thanks as always to Dennis for coming in and talking, because he is always so much fun and has interesting stuff to show us, even if it's a little creepy.

We will be back next time with another in depth discussion.

Do be sure to watch Backyard Farmer live every Thursday, 7pm central on Nebraska Public Media.

Thanks for Digging Deeper with Backyard Farmer.

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