Many birds view grass seeds as food and will come to your new lawn whenever they can. They will eat your grass seeds if they get into contact with them and even if they do not eat, they will scrape the soil and have a nice dirt bath on your fresh raked soil.
After everything you have done for your lawn, it is understandable that you want that nice new lawn to stop being disrespected.
Let’s discuss some ways to make sure that the birds don’t invade your new lawn!
Short Answer!! There are many things you can do at its basic level to deter birds from eating your grass seeds. All you have to do is cover the grass seeds with various materials (such as netting or mulch or floating seed covers) or noise deterrents (like wind chimes or reflective tapes) to scare them away with noise.
7 Methods to Keep Birds Away From Your Grass Seeds
There are many methods to prevent birds from eating your grass seed after you sow it. Regardless of how you proceed, you will want to rake your seeds in to a depth of ⅛ inch below soil level.
Let’s go through the 7 options you should consider.
#1. Cover Grass Seed.
In some cases, simply covering the seeds is all you need to do to keep the birds away. There are many ways to protect your grass seeds and we will cover them below.
Mulch
Mulch is an easy and effective way to prevent your birds from getting onto your lawn. Mulch is anything that is applied or laid on the surface to cover your lawn to protect it.
Straw is a great option, and it allows water and light to still penetrate to your grass seeds.
In addition, you will want to thinks about scattering your mulch to leave around 25 percent of the soil showing. You can later rake the mulch up once the grass is growing, as birds will lose interest once the grass has sprouted.
This option may not be for you if you live in a windy area.
Repellant Net
You can use grass seed netting, floating seed cover, or bird repellant netting. You should think about using a few stakes in the ground or stones to keep it secured, especially on windy nights.
Also, the netting material should be lightweight and can be laid right on the sown soil. To deter birds from pecking through the holes, you can also elevate the netting a few inches above the ground.
Burlap
Burlap is another good option if you are in an area with a goodly amount of wind, as you can weigh it down. And as with the previous options, burlap allows in light, water, and heat to reach the seedlings.
#2. Using Fake Predators.
Many have used fake owls, hawks, or dogs around their yard with good to great success to deter smaller birds. Birds are smart enough to avoid predators, even if they can’t distinguish real birds from fake.
As well, you will want to be sure to move it around to give the birds no chance to become accustomed to it being stationary. Even a rubber snake on the bare soil might do the trick to deter birds.
#3. Using Deterrent.
In any case, whether it be a noise or light deterrent for birds, either will scare your birds away. Pick whichever deterrent (noise or light) causes the least intrusion on your ski.
Noise Deterrent
If there’s enough wind to make effective noise, windchimes can really keep your lawn noisy enough for birds to consider it unsafe. If you’d rather not have sound, there are also ultrasonic devices that are also undetectable to the human ear.
Light Deterrent
Birds are afraid of apparatus that reflects light, and bird or mylar tape reflects light and makes a humming noise with the breeze. Just stake some around the yard, 1 or 2 ft apart, being sure it is in a spot to catch the light, not shaded.
You could also use cheap pinwheels and place around the yard. Another easy, cheap way would be to string discs and hang every 1 ft.
#4. Hang a Decoy Feeder.
If you still want birds, just not on the ground with your fresh grass seeds, you can hang a decoy feeder. Make sure to make the seeds in the feeder more attractive than the grass seeds.
To elaborate, feeders are easier to access than seeds on the ground, and they prefer their seeds. You could even take the research a step further and look up what seeds the birds from your area prefer.
Keep in mind that this will attract more birds, so the feeder should be quite a distance away from the area sown with grass.
#5. Lay Bird Repellent Seeds.
There is the option to purchase bird-repellent grass seeds and while this is the easiest option to deflect birds it essentially involves just laying seeds.
Unfortunately, the bird-repellent seeds can still be eaten by birds but they definitely won’t be the preferred seed.
#6. Insert a Motion-Activated Sprinkler.
A motion sensor water sprinkler is a successful scare tactic at keeping birds away, while also providing water to your sown seeds.
You won’t ever have to worry about watering your lawn, while also trying to fend off the birds from grass seeds. The motion sprinkler will activate watering when anything with motion or a bird enters the yard.
#7. Sow Extra Seeds.
If there is nothing you can do to stop birds from eating some of your grass seeds, then you might as well sow enough for everyone.
This tactic is a double advantage for the lawn as this will not only help with the bird problem, but will help ensure enough seeds in contact with soil to sprout.
We realize this is not a very good alternative but if none of these options work for you, then this is probably the second-best alternative.
Bottom Line
After discussing a handful of ways to deter or scare off birds from eating your grass seeds, we understand how discouraging it is to put all the effort into your freshly sown grass seeds only for it to be eaten away before it even sprouts.
So go ahead – find a method that works for you, given your budget, climate and lawn, to keep your seeds in the ground and the birds at bay.