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We had a horrible time with Doves, neighbors ducks, and a few other types eating feral momma's food. We did this to an end table and it worked. GREAT! No issues.
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Any new suggestions on keeping starlings from devouring feral kitty food?
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All living creatures can. I'm sorry to hear that happened nature is cruel sometimes
All living creatures can. I'm sorry to hear that happened nature is cruel sometimes
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I don't like the idea of poisoning anything, but occasionally we have a dead starling around and nothing, absolutely NOTHING will eat it! However, the only way we've been able to keep starlings out of the cat feeders is to have a cat catch one in there and kill it. The rest will stay away for about a year. But, they keep watchers out so it's really hard for a cat to sneak up on one of the feeders so they can catch one. I don't think our colony even tries anymore. But, one dead starling will scare the others away for quite a while. That being said, we used to put plastic over the entrance to each feeder, like a cat door. The cats figured it out easily and it kept the starlings out for quite a while. Then, one came off of one feeder. We finally remembered to take the stapler with us when we went to that one -- away from the house -- and put the plastic back on. From that day on, the starlings swarmed the feeder! Aaarrrrgggg! It's so frustrating to be outwitted by a BIRD!!!! :-(
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Sorry to tell you, but we have a bird feeder out, too, and the starlings much prefer the cat food! Even teach their babies to come and sit on the fence and scream until they get some delivered to them by their parents!
I found a solution to the problem. I posted a link on another thread recently about a bird proof pet feeder I ordered online, it kept all the birds out, even the starlings. I'm not at my computer now, but if you want the link to the site I can post it kater.
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I can't believe this thread lives on.....it amazes me how much trouble starlings cause! We ended up finding nothing that worked for the starlings - - luckily we haven't had trouble with them again except that one year during the dead of winter (of course when the cats needed the food the most).
I'm happy to feed virtually anything (although my husband is terrified at the VERY bold raccoon that now LIVES in the partially open attic of the detached garage where we feed and and provide heated housing for our little feral group. When they were here though, the starlings even came into the garage if we'd leave the garage door cracked even 6 inches for the cats to slink under. Absolutely amazing. And now we have to leave our garage door up a bit more bc we can't keep the raccoon out of the attic (my husband's so terrified of him - - this raccoon actually comes TOWARD YOU if you step outside and he's in the cat food---it is unnerving. And if a bit of cat food or treats gets dropped near the straw in the kitty houses - he rips the houses to shreds. He's a bit terrifying I have to admit - and I used to foster (among other things) raccoons for a local wildlife rehabilitation!
But luckily - no starlings (knock on wood) since that one winter. Their eating of Flick's food - which was what we think drove her away for over a month - eventually resulted in us taking a chance and bringing her indoors to join our indoor crew.....which turned out to be the most amazingly wonderful thing we've ever done. She's the most loving, sweet, funny caring cat (and she was a feral!) I've had in the 45 years I've had cats!!! So I guess I owe the starlings something
I'm happy to feed virtually anything (although my husband is terrified at the VERY bold raccoon that now LIVES in the partially open attic of the detached garage where we feed and and provide heated housing for our little feral group. When they were here though, the starlings even came into the garage if we'd leave the garage door cracked even 6 inches for the cats to slink under. Absolutely amazing. And now we have to leave our garage door up a bit more bc we can't keep the raccoon out of the attic (my husband's so terrified of him - - this raccoon actually comes TOWARD YOU if you step outside and he's in the cat food---it is unnerving. And if a bit of cat food or treats gets dropped near the straw in the kitty houses - he rips the houses to shreds. He's a bit terrifying I have to admit - and I used to foster (among other things) raccoons for a local wildlife rehabilitation!
But luckily - no starlings (knock on wood) since that one winter. Their eating of Flick's food - which was what we think drove her away for over a month - eventually resulted in us taking a chance and bringing her indoors to join our indoor crew.....which turned out to be the most amazingly wonderful thing we've ever done. She's the most loving, sweet, funny caring cat (and she was a feral!) I've had in the 45 years I've had cats!!! So I guess I owe the starlings something
Here is the site where I purchased the bird-proof pet feeder for my porch. It worked even with the flap taped up. Not even the starlings can get into this. I didn't fill up the whole inside with food--I just placed my cat's regular bowl inside of it. I had tried everything else, and only this worked.
http://www.outdoorpetfeeder.com/
http://www.outdoorpetfeeder.com/
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I saw this earlier, and found the site and saved it, because I wanted to discuss it with my husband. I'm going to order one, put it in one of our feeders, and still keep food in a bowl for them. Then we'll see if the cats figure it out, hopefully they will, but it's different and feral cats are very wary of anything new. But, they can eat out of the bowl until they're comfortable, then take the bowl away and maybe the starlings will not eat all the food.
They were mobbing the back porch this morning. I opened the window and told them to get, and they left and stayed gone for probably ten minutes? Ten minutes of peace and quiet! All the babies sit on the fence and scream at their parents to feed them. It's right there, they could eat if they wanted to. When they came back, I was still fixing breakfast, so opened the window again. Once again peace for a while. But my attention span is too short any more to do that for long! :-)
Thanks for trying this and reporting back on it!
They were mobbing the back porch this morning. I opened the window and told them to get, and they left and stayed gone for probably ten minutes? Ten minutes of peace and quiet! All the babies sit on the fence and scream at their parents to feed them. It's right there, they could eat if they wanted to. When they came back, I was still fixing breakfast, so opened the window again. Once again peace for a while. But my attention span is too short any more to do that for long! :-)
Thanks for trying this and reporting back on it!
I can tell you that I tried every method under the sun, including high-powered magnets, to keep the starlings away. Nothing worked except the feeder. I taped up the flap so my cat didn't have to push through it with his head and he used it right away. The only problem with the flap up is that flies can get into it when it's very hot. But that is preferable to the birds eating the cat food and then pooping all over.
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I might try taping the cover up first, too. Although I've used clear car mats cut to size for the doors and they learned that quick enough. But ferals are just so different from regular cats.
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Hi Folks,
My name is Shawn, this is my first post on the forum. I found the forum a couple of weeks ago while searching for ideas to prevent Starlings form eating cat food from a couple of feral cat food boxes we maintain in our rural neighborhood. I am grateful for the forum and all of the ideas.
We live near vineyards and the Starlings are out in the thousands this time of year. A large bowl of cat food is devoured in an hour by the rascals, even in an enclosed area. Anyway, after some recent testing I seemed to have found a solution that works for our needs.
For starters, we always use the ant proof bowl called "the mote". We've used these bowls for years without any ants or bugs getting into the food. They also hold a lot of food which is good for ferals.
I've built a few types of feral feeding boxes, always trying to improve up the last. But as I said the Starlings still invade the boxes.
The latest version is a bit small and has openings on either end of the box. I covered the openings with pieces of a towel which simply drape down over the openings.The ends are otherwise covered in wired fabric and the remainder of the box is plywood. Sorry for the poor photo quality, these are from a game camera I use to monitor the feeding box. I was so happy to see the Starlings have not entered the box.
My name is Shawn, this is my first post on the forum. I found the forum a couple of weeks ago while searching for ideas to prevent Starlings form eating cat food from a couple of feral cat food boxes we maintain in our rural neighborhood. I am grateful for the forum and all of the ideas.
We live near vineyards and the Starlings are out in the thousands this time of year. A large bowl of cat food is devoured in an hour by the rascals, even in an enclosed area. Anyway, after some recent testing I seemed to have found a solution that works for our needs.
For starters, we always use the ant proof bowl called "the mote". We've used these bowls for years without any ants or bugs getting into the food. They also hold a lot of food which is good for ferals.
I've built a few types of feral feeding boxes, always trying to improve up the last. But as I said the Starlings still invade the boxes.
The latest version is a bit small and has openings on either end of the box. I covered the openings with pieces of a towel which simply drape down over the openings.The ends are otherwise covered in wired fabric and the remainder of the box is plywood. Sorry for the poor photo quality, these are from a game camera I use to monitor the feeding box. I was so happy to see the Starlings have not entered the box.
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Thanks for your update. I think our starlings might be a little smarter than yours, sorry to say. I've used those clear plastic floor mats for cars over the doors to our feeders and the starlings seem to think it just adds to their fun. I've gotten one of the feeders that has been mentioned here before. Got it day before yesterday, put it out yesterday morning. This morning, a little food had been eaten, but not much. The rest of the bowls were empty, but the water was muddy so a raccoon helped himself/herself to the food that was left in the bowls but did not get into the new feeder. I pinned the screen up, using the lid, just to see if that will help the feral cats get used to using it. I will post again if it really does work well. If so, we're going to get three more, for other feeding stations for the feral cats!
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I put an wildlife camera in one of our feeders to see just what happens with the new feeder. Of the probably twenty or thirty cats that use that feeder, I actually saw five of them use the new one! The birds didn't even try, just ate the food out of the bowls. However, after about 8 in the evening, the raccoon and skunk (maybe more than one for all I know! but one at a time) had a field day with the feeder. Sometimes all the camera would pick up was a raccoon hand stuck in the feeder, pulling food out!
Sometimes the skunk came and the raccoon was still in there so the skunk had to wait! Really quite entertaining at night. During the day however, unless a cat was in eating, the feeder was full of birds! So, if I had my druthers, I rather feed raccoons and skunks -- they're a lot tidier than starlings. I even saw blackbirds in there!!!! I just have to wait until more of the cats catch on, then I can remove the bowls and stop the starlings in their tracks!!!! Something to look forward to.
I just wanted to let others know how our new feeder was faring. I am optimistic about it.
I just wanted to let others know how our new feeder was faring. I am optimistic about it.
I'm glad the pet feeders are working for you. I always kept the flap taped up for my feral, and it still kept the birds out, though flies got inside--but that never seemed to bother him. I didn't leave food in it at night, though, because of the concern that wildlife might head their heads stuck inside. My feral knew to eat the dry food inside the feeder during daylight. If I had to leave food out at night due to my work schedule, I left it out in a regular bowl. I'm sure that all of your cats will catch on to the new feeder, especially when they see the others eating out of it. The thing I like about this feeder is that it's clear plastic, so they can see outside while they're eating and not feel vulnerable. It was a very good investment for me, because it saved me tons of money on cat food. Starlings will devour a bowl of food within minutes. This feeder was the only thing that ever worked for me, and I had tried tons of other things.
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Hello.
I am brand new to this site (just joined today). I know this thread is three years old but when I got six inches of snow this week, the starlings abandoned my bird feeders in the back of the house and descended on the bowl of Friskies I leave on my front porch for my feral kitty, Okie. Last year I tied a tinfoil pie plate to a string on my front porch and let it flap in the breeze, making a banging sound every time it hit the post right outside my home office window. It was annoying but it worked to deter the starlings, and Okie (and I) eventually got used to the banging.
So yesterday I tied a new pie plate to the string. Less than two hours later the starlings were back, ignoring the wildly flailing pie plate and gorging themselves on cat food – while leaving their poop all over the porch floor to add insult to injury!
Finally, in desperation yesterday I googled what to do about “starlings and cat food” and found your helpful site. One of the suggestions in this thread was to wrap a foil-covered piece of cardboard around the cat's food bowl, the theory being that the shiny foil would deter the birds visually. Someone else suggested placing a few magnets near the food, as magnets interfere with bird brainwaves, making them dizzy and causing them to avoid the immediate vicinity. The post promised that the magnets do not harm kitties.
I decided to combine the two ideas to see what would happen. I took my pie plate off the string and cut it straight across the bottom, then fastened it to the cat food dish with a thick rubber band. I had some rare-earth magnets lying around so I slipped them between the food bowl and the rubber band. I placed the food bowl back on the front porch.
The starlings came, but they wouldn’t actually touch the food bowl. They picked up the kibble that had been scattered on the porch floor but left the actual food bowl alone. I was amazed.
Then Okie came, and the foil plate wrapped halfway around her dish frightened her, but hunger won out and by the end of the day she was eating from the dish. This morning the starlings returned, but once they saw there were no more kibbles scattered on the floor to pick up, they flew away and they haven't been back. True, it's only been one day, but I seem to have won this battle!! I've attached a photo so you can visualize what I did.
If you are wondering what that dirty ring is around the base of the food bowl, let me explain. Many years ago I learned that if you rub Vaseline around the base of a food bowl in the summer, the ants won't bother it. I not only "slimed" the bottom of the food bowl, but the legs of all my patio furniture, as well. It works! Ants haven't bothered me now in several years.
A quick word about me. I have three indoor cats, all rescues, as well as the feral on my front porch. I'd love to tame the feral, but she was apparently trapped and spayed a long time ago because one of her ears is clipped and she won't go near a Have-A-Heart trap, so she must know what it is. I chose as my avatar a photo of one of my indoor kitties, Ember, a black Bombay who came to me in 2012 after being set on fire by a juvenile delinquent when she was just eleven weeks old in 2011. Ember had undergone several surgeries to close her burn wounds but still aggravated the burn sites on her spine, preventing them from healing. The big Elizabethan collars kept her from licking her sores but ruined her quality of life. I designed a cover from an infant's onesie that she could wear as a shirt. It worked! She wore the shirt for two years, until she finally stopped her licking compulsion. You can read about Ember and how to make a "kritter kover" yourself by Googling my blog, Lynell's Vintage Look, and then searching for my post titled "Pawsitively Purrfect".
I hope this is helpful to everyone.
Lynell
I am brand new to this site (just joined today). I know this thread is three years old but when I got six inches of snow this week, the starlings abandoned my bird feeders in the back of the house and descended on the bowl of Friskies I leave on my front porch for my feral kitty, Okie. Last year I tied a tinfoil pie plate to a string on my front porch and let it flap in the breeze, making a banging sound every time it hit the post right outside my home office window. It was annoying but it worked to deter the starlings, and Okie (and I) eventually got used to the banging.
So yesterday I tied a new pie plate to the string. Less than two hours later the starlings were back, ignoring the wildly flailing pie plate and gorging themselves on cat food – while leaving their poop all over the porch floor to add insult to injury!
Finally, in desperation yesterday I googled what to do about “starlings and cat food” and found your helpful site. One of the suggestions in this thread was to wrap a foil-covered piece of cardboard around the cat's food bowl, the theory being that the shiny foil would deter the birds visually. Someone else suggested placing a few magnets near the food, as magnets interfere with bird brainwaves, making them dizzy and causing them to avoid the immediate vicinity. The post promised that the magnets do not harm kitties.
I decided to combine the two ideas to see what would happen. I took my pie plate off the string and cut it straight across the bottom, then fastened it to the cat food dish with a thick rubber band. I had some rare-earth magnets lying around so I slipped them between the food bowl and the rubber band. I placed the food bowl back on the front porch.
The starlings came, but they wouldn’t actually touch the food bowl. They picked up the kibble that had been scattered on the porch floor but left the actual food bowl alone. I was amazed.
Then Okie came, and the foil plate wrapped halfway around her dish frightened her, but hunger won out and by the end of the day she was eating from the dish. This morning the starlings returned, but once they saw there were no more kibbles scattered on the floor to pick up, they flew away and they haven't been back. True, it's only been one day, but I seem to have won this battle!! I've attached a photo so you can visualize what I did.
If you are wondering what that dirty ring is around the base of the food bowl, let me explain. Many years ago I learned that if you rub Vaseline around the base of a food bowl in the summer, the ants won't bother it. I not only "slimed" the bottom of the food bowl, but the legs of all my patio furniture, as well. It works! Ants haven't bothered me now in several years.
A quick word about me. I have three indoor cats, all rescues, as well as the feral on my front porch. I'd love to tame the feral, but she was apparently trapped and spayed a long time ago because one of her ears is clipped and she won't go near a Have-A-Heart trap, so she must know what it is. I chose as my avatar a photo of one of my indoor kitties, Ember, a black Bombay who came to me in 2012 after being set on fire by a juvenile delinquent when she was just eleven weeks old in 2011. Ember had undergone several surgeries to close her burn wounds but still aggravated the burn sites on her spine, preventing them from healing. The big Elizabethan collars kept her from licking her sores but ruined her quality of life. I designed a cover from an infant's onesie that she could wear as a shirt. It worked! She wore the shirt for two years, until she finally stopped her licking compulsion. You can read about Ember and how to make a "kritter kover" yourself by Googling my blog, Lynell's Vintage Look, and then searching for my post titled "Pawsitively Purrfect".
I hope this is helpful to everyone.
Lynell
I posted a link earlier in this thread for an outdoor pet feeder that birds can't get into. It costs about 20 bucks and completely solved the problem for me. The card board with foil type of thing won't work long term, starlings are clever problem solvers.
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Hi, Aimee.
Unfortunately, my feral was trapped and spayed once, so she won't go near any kind of box. I just wanted to post an alternate suggestion for those facing the same issue. So far, the anti-starling pie plate solution is working perfectly.
Unfortunately, my feral was trapped and spayed once, so she won't go near any kind of box. I just wanted to post an alternate suggestion for those facing the same issue. So far, the anti-starling pie plate solution is working perfectly.
The link for the bowl is no longer active. (
http://www.outdoorpetfeeder.com/ ) Can anyone send a picture of it so I can search and/or build a similar one. Thanks in advance.
http://www.outdoorpetfeeder.com/ ) Can anyone send a picture of it so I can search and/or build a similar one. Thanks in advance.
