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The Original All Roller Talk Discussion Board Archive >
Managing Flying Predator Attacks
Managing Flying Predator Attacks
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Tony Chavarria
Site Publisher
912 posts
Dec 13, 2006
8:26 AM
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Hey Mike, I thought that other thread you started deserved a focus on flying predators...
At first look its seems you have a dilemma, but then after getting past the emotion caused by the frustration due to the heavy losses you have taken this past year, it is not too hard to see what to do.
When I was breeding as a hobby in California, I had few problems with preds. I culled so hard my birds probably wished a pred would have gotten them first. lol
I very often ended up with about a dozen birds come the Fall. So I am not too concerned with the numbers you’ve ended up with per se.
Due to the number of preds you deal with, it sounds as though the rollers that survived have some level of hawk/falcon awareness that most of the others did not. So now they have some savvy rollers sharing their friendly skies. lol
First:
Go ahead and fly the birds a second year and see what you have with them (I say this because you have the original breeders and can replace any losses). Look for the ones that develop the roll properly and hold up well with the pred challenges you have, some or perhaps all of these will become your future breeding stock.
Second:
Breed the same pairs this year and start pumping using some fosters to help you with breeding the numbers you may be required to keep due to the heavy pred losses you take.
Third:
Find a way to minimize your pred losses. So far here in MO, I have had no pred losses, I have had attacks and had one grabbed but the pred let go (I was making noise to distract the pred the entire attack, more later) and he went on his way and the Ruby Roller did not have a scratch.
You will need to adjust the way you fly your birds so as to minimize their exposure to attack. Here are some things to consider:
Only release kits of 10 at a time, try to identify the best time to fly, don’t let your birds lounge on the top of kit boxes, the loft or wander on the ground. Get used to the idea of flying your birds for 20 to 30 minutes ONLY. This will reduce the birds to exposure. Fly them sufficiently hungry so you can call them in much faster should you see ANY pred activity starting to gather off in the distance.
Keep your senses aware of what the other animals are doing in the area. Do you see fewer birds flying around; do you see flocks of birds fly from a point A to a point B as though maybe trying to avoid the area or perhaps find a safer roosting area? Do things (animals) become quiet?
Do you ever see crows flying up higher than you normally see them? Sometimes I have found they are rising to confront a predator. Are they calling out and making a fuss over some trees? Could be a pred hanging around in the branches.
Watch your birds. Do they suddenly change their flying behavior? Do they tighten up the kitting? Start flying faster? Going up higher for no apparent reason?
When you start seeing some of these behaviors or subtle signs, DON”T FLY! Or, call your birds in! If you can catch on to what is happening before the kit panics or becomes overwhelmed with trying to stay alive, you might still have the chance to call some or all of them in to eat.
This is where your ability as the loft manager having trained them can shine, in that they respond to your immediate efforts to call them in and eat.
I am of the opinion that a roller pigeon can only think one thought at a time, and once a biological urge like hunger or “flight” from a predator dominates it thinking, you either have an edge on some level of response that you want from them (land to eat) or you have no influence (running from a predator).
If you are aware of your surroundings and properly watch your birds when you fly them, you may have a few seconds to act.
For example, when flying my birds, my Rubys fly about 200 to 300 feet high, if I see a flock of wild birds or a single bird or two fly overhead very quickly from point A to point B, I immediately think predator, I start to look in the direction in which they came, I may see a pred hovering down the way working his way toward they activity he sees in the kit.
It is at this point (you may have up to a minute or two to make this work) I start to whistle my birds in and shake the feed can. If I am intense enough in my efforts, they will usually start to drop in altitude.
I keep this up as the pred gets closer, by now the birds are focused on eating and are now trying to find the right angle and speed to in which to come in to land as a group.
Usually I can get about up to half to respond right away while a few others have much energy and seem to want to fly even though they came down in altitude with the kit. I put the feed trays into the kit box and get those that landed to quickly trap. The others see this feeding activity (the feed tray in my hands, the whistling, feed can shaking).
However, the others are now at an immediate risk of pred attack. This is when I go into loud noise mode. The reason for this is I also believe that the predator too like the roller can only have one thought at a time. He is tracking my birds and is only thinking about which roller looks most likely to become his next meal.
This is when I start clapping loudly enough or banging on something in an effort to distract him from his thought process. I continue to whistle and shake the feed can to coax the others in.
I believe that the predator only wants to work in a way that allows him the easiest meal possible. Left to his own instinct, he will dive on and chase the roller down until he snatches it.
In my way of thinking, I want to disrupt this normal instinctive reaction by injecting myself into the predator’s world by making loud noises and maybe throwing a ball or crumpled bag into the air while continuing to make loud noises.
If I am successful, the predator becomes distracted and either stops the attack or never gets into it full swing. This buys me more time to get the last rollers to respond to my whistling and get them to trap.
Once I have got the birds to trap. I shut everything up and go into the loft or house. The predator is hovering around wondering where his lunch went. (It is not uncommon to have some rollers sky up and leave the scene while all the other is going on. That too works for me because the pred has forgotten about those too. In addition, I have fewer rollers exposed to the possibility of attack as most have come in)
The reason to shutdown and disappear from the scene is now he does not get used to me walking around helplessly on the ground. He is better conditioned to watch for me, the loud noises and things being thrown in the air and goes to look for an easier meal.
I just need enough time to get as many of my birds to trap as quickly as I can and use the instincts of both birds to save them or throw them off their normal instinctive patterns.
This technique has so far, worked well for me now and in the past, but it does take a certain instinctual animal awareness to know when something is not quite right. You will need to listen, look for signs, and interpret what they mean and take action, now!
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FLY ON! Tony Chavarria
Last Edited by on Dec 13, 2006 8:27 AM
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nicksiders
929 posts
Dec 13, 2006
9:06 AM
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These are the things that I do as well. I basically try to "fly around the preditors". I look for the signs of a BOP in the area before I put my birds up. If the signs are not right I don't put'em up. If you feed culls to them, they will stay around so beware of that. They have good memories and once you have them living in the area you may be doomed.
Nick
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Snicker Rollers
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Ken west
8 posts
Dec 13, 2006
10:25 AM
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What kind of feeder do you use in the Kit box? Size Ken
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motherlodelofts
1081 posts
Dec 13, 2006
11:24 AM
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I think that many make thier problems worse by management or lack of.
Ken , my feed trays for the kitboxes are 30" X 30" and made of sheetmetal
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J_Star
721 posts
Dec 13, 2006
11:50 AM
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I do just the opposite to save their skin since we have no falcons in my area and only coops that I have to contend with. When there is cooper in the area, I will not call my birds in. They are much safer in the open sky than above the roof or tree tops. They will not get ambushed that way. When a copper is on the prowl, my birds go up and up and away from him. If the coop was high up in the sky, I noticed the birds will fly next to him without fear. The only problem I have with the coops is when the birds are leaving the kit box or coming down for feeding. Being attacked when leaving the kit box is almost none existent for me due to my attention to my surroundings and the wild birds’ activity in the area. However, while the birds are flying and a coop comes to visit, that is another story and best for the birds to stay in the air and fend for themselves. Their instincts takes control and they know how to avoid the predator.
A couple pages back someone was complaining that his birds land on the electrical wires instead of landing on the kit box roof. Has it occurred to you that the birds will use the highest point to land on when there is a predator in the area, even thou you don’t see it, so that they can have a good view of their surrounding before landing on the kit box roof to avoid an ambush? Sometimes we try to intervene thinking the birds are dumb but in fact they are smarter than the credit we give them.
Jay
Last Edited by on Dec 13, 2006 11:51 AM
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bman
123 posts
Dec 13, 2006
11:56 AM
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"I think that many make thier problems worse by management or lack of."
Scott care to elaborate?
J star,
Buckle up buddy,ODNR fledged 20 some perigrines in the state this year including Cleveland. I had my first falcon attack about one month ago.----------
Ron
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J_Star
724 posts
Dec 13, 2006
12:08 PM
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Ron, yes we have falcons in the Cleveland area for years to keep the pigeon population at bay. From Cleveland to where I live, it will take 10 falcons 10 years to eat up all the food supply to reach to my area. At least I hope.
Jay
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Major-ret
32 posts
Dec 13, 2006
2:59 PM
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Up in the Calif foothills where I live the coopers make half hearted attempts at catching the rollers when they are flying at roller height. Its when they come out of the box or starting to land that the attack is more in ernest. I also have 3 coopers around right now in the area and they have been pushing the birds further away from the normal fly zone and have lost, between this and direct hits, all but 1 of the A team. I agree with tony in that the once the birds are focused on the attack they are oblivious to anything else and they get lost out in no man's land! I have changed fly times and days but it's tough to beat the preds!! Steve
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Fr.mike
208 posts
Dec 13, 2006
6:12 PM
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Tony--First of all let me thank you for your advise.Most of what you said is exactly what I did. I must add that my biggest losses came after flying the oldest birds.I worked on keeping it down to 30-40 mins.The coops would let the older birds alone for the most part(only 4-5 kills) It seemed as if they would wait until the babies would come out.The majority of losses were not direct kills.The majority were on their-- first- to--fourth flight.(chased up before they really knew how to fly let alone evade a hawk )I watched listened for everything I could.I watched one of my Rubys get killed and plucked as a couple of doves watched the whole thing go down Lol--I thought I was safe If I saw doves sitting in 60ft. tree.They were just smart and not moving!Lol.I changed fly times and switched fly days etc.I did save a few by making loud noises and I even chased a few down that had grabbed a bird and had yet to kill it.I even had one poor bird wile evading a hawk do a 60 mph. head first into the side of a little hill in my yard.Seems he was looking back at CHUCKY THE MURDERER--when he should have been looking at the fast rising horizon.Lol
I will breed the same pairs for a few rounds and then change them up later. I thought about it for awile before you posted-- and thought I will have to breed two years of the same pairs inorder to get some sort of baseline that I would normaly get in one. At least that is my plan for now! Thanks again!(I printed out your post so I can go over it )
Fr. Mike
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fhtfire
707 posts
Dec 13, 2006
10:23 PM
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Well,
I use loud profanity and name calling....but the hawk still attacks even if I call it a "M&%$^R F&$*ER"...LOL
rock and ROLL
Paul
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JMUrbon
117 posts
Dec 14, 2006
7:16 PM
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Mike, Steve, I flew rollers for years all year round and all I was ever left with was the scraps. I mad a decision 5 years ago to lock my birds up as soon as the hawks hone in on my loft. I know that we raise these birds to fly them but they are absolutely useless to us if we cannot survive them past their first season. The preditors will get them and the ones that make it arent smarter than the rest ( contrary to popular belief ) they are just lucky. I got to looking back and was thinking about all of the good birds I had been feeding the hawks and falcons and realized that thay would have made me one hell of a team. The next year I locked them down and in the spring won my region in both the WC and the FF and have since repeated on several occasions. I am not saying locking them up is going to work for everyone because some just cant stand to see the birds locked up but look at it this way. Would you rather not see them at all? JMHO. Joe Urbon
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