protecting strawberries

[horselady]

Is there anything apart from netting that will protect strawberries from birds? They are lining up waiting for the fruit to ripen and I know they'll pinch the lot but I hate the thought of them getting trapped in netting.

[PeteHull]

How about small guage chicken wire made into tunnels?
Of course this is an expensive solution especialy if you are protecting a large area but it is a re-useable one and won't harm the birds.
Also bed them on straw.

Hth
Pete

[horselady]

No it's only a small area. Thanks I'll get some chicken wire and construct something. Two of the fattest pigeons in the world are very, very interested and they certainly don't need feeding!

[carmalee]

can appreciate your concern about trapping birds - be awful to get to the veggie patch and find a bird hanging in the netting. We've put enormous amounts of silver paper, cd disks, fluttery paper whatever all over the netting for years now and have been lucky - the birds stay away (or maybe its the resident cat!)

[tamborine]

insert bamboos with strings across strberry patch & hang CDs

[Lonnie]

To take carmalee's suggestion of cds, I use this for my vegies, not Strawberries, but it works, and would be worth a try.

get a lot of old cds, glue two together with only the silvery sides showing, I have them about a foot apart, threaded onto line that goes around the area you want to protect.

As said, it works, and you can use them year after year.

[horselady]

Thanks everyone. We now have chicken wire and CDs protectiong the strawberries, so the birds won't get caught. Yesterday afternoon a young Thrush smashed into one of the house windows and broke it's neck, sometimes you just can't look after every living creature can you?

[a-nigma]

I have loads of strawberry plants fruiting right now on my allotment and I protect them from the birds and slugs by putting the fruit into halved plastic bottles and open ended yoghurt pots. This reduces an enormous amount of damage from air and ground attack. The strawbs don't need sun to ripen them and I usually pick them before fully ripe to finish off (in both senses) at home.

[glasman]

I've been using netting for years on many different fruit and have never had a bird getting entangled . I think they're too smart to let this happen.