Birds Eat Tomatoes?

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sattie

Washing Up
Joined
Jan 16, 2006
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5,296
Location
Texas
Dang-nab-it!!!!!! :angry: I finally get my first ripe tomato of the year and it looks like something had a bite of it! It does not look like bugs either, it almost looks like it was pecked at. Do birds eat tomatos? Any idea how to keep them away?
 
Hi Sattie - This is my first year at tomato growing and I have a couple that are almost ripe. I've heard many complain about mockingbirds pecking at their tomatoes. Their solutions vary. One said to surround the plants with chicken wire. Another said to put water in a bird bath and hope they leave the tomatoes alone.

I've also heard you're better picking them early, and let them ripen on a windowsill.

I haven't tried any of these yet. I hope I don't have to.

Good luck!
 
My dad went and got a very large blow up nasty looking snake and put it in the tomatoe patch..worked like a charm.I've hung baloons and foil streamers and that helps..The birds love tomatoes, apricots, peaches we've learned to share with them..It's easier than standing out there making like a scare crow:LOL:
kadesma
 
Yes, birds will eat your tomatoes, as well as terrapins, tomato worms, squirrels and ground hogs.

We pick ours when they first start to turn, and ripen them on trays on the dining room table. They don't need light to continue ripening. The critters do get their share, though.
 
My chickens love tomatoes.... once they figured out they were food.
 
Another good deterrent my Grandma used to use: hang some CDs from fishing line around your garden - they twirl around in the wind and birds can't stand them.

(and the mockingbirds, finches & sparrows around here help themselves to my loquat tree WAY too regularly! So I understand your pain!)
 
Shoot Uncle Bob, I haven't had watermelon in my house..... ever, but that sounds like fun on a summer night :LOL: Might have to pull up a chair....

CDs... continence diapers???? :ohmy:
:wacko:
 
Great ideas folks!!!! Yea, I was considering just picking them early. But something appeals to me in having a vine ripened tomatoes.... guess that wont work so well if I can't keep the birds from them. (So do they taste better if they are vine ripened vs off the vine?)

I am doing the container gardening and the pots are up on a patio table. I did not have this problem last year when my plants were in the ground. I guess they are more accessible this way being up off the ground for better viewing.

Thanks for the replies!!! I knew I could count on yall!
 
Last year the squirrels made off with dozens of my tomatoes. They even had a cache of them hidden on top of a metal cable tv junction box on a telephone pole behind my house.

They dropped a lot of them too. One day one dropped on top of my fence and got caught there. Shortly afterward the squirrel took a cherry tomato
and inserted it into a hole on the top of the tomato caught on the fence!!!


img_606272_0_c1e0934ed28e2adca32b63805c91b9db.jpg
omato

I took a picture of it:
 
I went to a fabric store and bought yards of inexpensive, light green nylon net. Covered the plants when I see the first bird strike. The light gets through, but it "camoflauges" the plants enough that the birds don't see them. The garden looks odd, but the tomatoes keep on coming and that's what counts. I've had this problem a little here and in Florida, but Hawaii was the worst.
 
:) I grow my tomatoes in a 8' x 10' green house in containers I had a problem with rats. Nothing that a rat trap and some peanut buuter to fix that problem. I'm pretty much a "Live and let live" person but when you mess with my tomatoes ?
 
Yea, I caught the Mocking Bird red handed!!!! He had started pecking on yet another ripe tomato so I picked it off and laid it in the bottom of the container. He pecked at it all day and left the other fruits alone. I'm harvesting green and allowing them to ripen... or at least trying to. I had fried greem maters last night, so I gots to start over again!
 
An old apple growers' trick which is SUPPOSED to work is to hang red Christmas tree bulbs. The birds are supposed to peck on them and find they are inedible and then don't bother the apples when they ripen. Not speaking from experience, but it sounds good!
 
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