The quail are eating my garden!

[RobinB]

This evening right around dusk, my husband looked out the window at our back garden and said, "wow, look at the quail!" I ran out and chased away about a dozen birds. They had pecked and dug several 6" deep holes around the bases of my back row of tomatoes, ate some of the lower leaves of the tomato plants, and took the top leaves off of a row of pole beans that are just coming up (yes they were put in very late). The good news is that they didn't kill any of the tomatoes (this time) and most of the beans aren't up yet.

That back row of tomatoes is still fairly small, so I rushed around and put cages around them.

The plan tomorrow? Well, a trip to Home Depot for sure. I will wrap the bottoms of all the tomato cages with bird netting or chicken wire, unless someone has a better idea. But, how do I cover the beans? We don't have much money. We live in a very windy area, so solid cloth like row covers won't work. I have some grade stakes, so I guess I could pound them in around the beans and somehow drape more bird netting or chicken wire (whatever is cheapest) over and or around them... Quail don't fly very well, does anybody know if I need to cover the top? How tall should the sides be? The area is too large to completely fence in, so I'll probably have to cover things separately. How can I attach bird netting or chicken wire to wooden stakes very cheaply? I do have some cable ties. Any help is greatly appreciated!

My guess is that once the plants are tall enough, the birds won't be able to do much damage... right? Two 8 ft tall rows of beans should stop them... right?

Aaaaaaahhhh, I didn't need this right now!

[barkeater]

Mmmm, I love quail! I'd trade beans for quail any day.

[PA_Julia]

Dan Quail jumped the fence last week and was eating some of my pumpkin leaves and non mature tomatoes.

I yelled at him and shooed him away with a broom.

Life post White House has had to have been interesting for him.


Julia

[barkeater]

Originally Posted by PA_Julia

Dan Quail jumped the fence last week and was eating some of my pumpkin leaves and non mature tomatoes.

I yelled at him and shooed him away with a broom.

Life post White House has had to have been interesting for him.


Julia

You better check closer because I'm sure he took every last "potatoe" too!

[PA_Julia]

Originally Posted by barkeater

You better check closer because I'm sure he took every last "potatoe" too!

That SOB!!!!

[RobinB]

I'm glad that my distress at the birds eating my plants is amusing to you all. I had hoped to hear some serious suggestions and help.

[Crandrew]

oh you have to give people a break, at least you are receiving responses.
I would trap them and either eat or relocate them. You could try and put chicken wire around the plants and that should keep them out, for the most part.

[PA_Julia]

Robin,

I apologize for that.
It's just that I'm funny, really quite funny.
I return your thread to you.


Julia

[bcday]

Crandrew, quail are protected unless you have the proper license to trap them. Chicken wire around the perimeter of the garden is much less expensive.

[tuk50]

My covey yesterday had over 30 birds in it and I know how you feel..... I use 3 or 4ft pieces of chicken wire 2ft wide... if longer it tends to be harder to handle... its fairly cheap at HD or Lowes... just fold lengthwise and the little wire tents help stop the birds till the plants get large enough so that the few leaves they eat afterwards won't be a problem... I use the same ones over and over .. just hang them on the garden fence till needed or just stack them in the corner of the garden.... In the spring they will get everything just as it sprouts when the plant is most vulnerable... and remember we are having fun gardening or it turns into work... LOL.

[RobinB]

I have had some problems in the past with birds pecking at ripe tomatoes at the end of the season, but I have never had problems with ANY critter chomping down at the beginning of the season. Combine that with my general lack of "handiness" in building things around the house and garden, the pressure of these hundreds of pole bean plants and dozens of tomato plants being our main veggies during the Winter season, and I completely PANICKED. A lack of funds didn't help either. Whatever I spent had to come out of our budget somewhere and it's already cut to the bone, as my husband is out of work. I ended up mostly using what I already had. I did buy some 3' tall grade stakes and two rolls of bird netting at HD. I put the stakes all around the two 15 ft rows of beans and draped one entire roll of bird netting across the top and down all the sides and secured it to the ground with garden staples. That looks pretty good. What's not pretty is the bird netting attached to the lower portions of the tomato cages, but just around the perimeter of the three 15 ft rows of tomatoes because I ran out of daylight last night. You should have seen me out there alone (while hubs made dinner) struggling with the bird netting in the 25 MPH winds. It will be a nightmare if a quail gets inside the perimeter of netting that I laid out, but I have to take that chance. I plan to go back and wrap each of the three rows separately front and back with the second roll of bird netting, but that will have to be tomorrow's task.

In doing some research yesterday, I did learn that HARRASSMENT is the best way to deal with quail. Some birds you can just put a birdfeeder in a separate part of the yard, but if you try that with quail you will just have a giant quail party. I have a few mylar pinwheels out there as well as some silver colored Christmas ribbon tied to cages. I also have some cheap aluminum pie tins and some old CDs that I plan to tie up somehow so that they will move in the wind which is a constant here in Reno. I went around the house yesterday with a "what do I already have...?" attitude and found quite a lot of things to potentially use.

Sorry for the tone of my message yesterday, but I was desperate for help.

[jennifer28]

mmmm I just saw this thread and I was thinking something along the lines of a quail scarecrow or a "quailcrow" Someone on the forum also mentioned that he hangs old CDs from the trees and it keeps birds AND Squirrels away. I like the idea of shiny things that might scare them off.

[BarbJ]

Cats. Outdoor cats that you feed only once a day. That should do it.

We had a neighbor with a half dozen semi-wild cats that he fed once a day. We never had any quail in our neighborhood, despite being only a block from a year-round creek and three blocks from a wildlife area.

Said neighbor moved and took the cats with him, now a year later we have lots and lots of quail. They are ground nesters so the cats have a big impact of their breeding.

I don't have a problem with these quail though, because I've got a ton of gophers, so I only garden in containers. (Cats controlled the gophers too, never had much of a problem with them either when the cats were around)

[janezee]

Robin, I have found that those exact things you are doing, netting and flashy things, are the things I do, too, and they've worked very well for me. I use cable ties to fasten the netting to the wood, and to conduit trellises, too.
If you can borrow a conduit bender from an electrician, it's the cheapest, sturdiest thing I've found to use in the garden. It's $2 for a 10'stick, and that makes a 3' high trellis over a 4' wide bed, or, I use them with a joiner, and have 6' high hoops over an 8' long bed. Once I figured out the math, it was easy to bend the conduit to the shape and length I wanted.

Sounds like you're well on your way to success. Let us know how it works out!

jane

[RobinB]

Our best little cat-huntress passed away in February. We still have two cats, but their attention to detail is lacking in some ways. Our big guy is called Thumper and he gets birds all the time. He is the reason that we have no rabbit problems. We get the cats inside at night because there are coyotes and other creatures out there. The quail come in the yard right around dusk, so I've been letting them stay out a bit earlier and go out a bit earlier in the morning. I guess there is a reason that the logo for out town is a quail!

In my reading the last 24 hours, many people say that moving, flashing, noisy items in the garden are good, but you apparently have to move them around occasionally so that the birds don't get too used to things....

I like the conduit idea, thanks!