Dead birds in horses water

cjwchez

cjwchez

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Hi

My horses live out 24/7 and have multiple (4) baths in their field for their water. Over the last few weeks, I have found several Jackdaws dead in my horses water. It has only been one bird at a time but it has happened on multiple occasions and it is happening in different baths, not the same bath.

There are no visible injuries or blood etc - I believe that the birds are hopping in for a drink or a bit of a wash / 'bath' and they are misjudging the depth of the water and then are struggling to get out and are unfortunately drowning. (I don't believe this is anything strange or sinister)

My question is - what can I do to prevent this from happening? Does anyone have any ideas of anything I can put into the baths to help the birds climb out that is also horse proof? (something my horses won't end up chewing or destroying)
 
^^this
I had a baby goldfinch the other day :( a stick poking into the trough at a shallow angle will give other critters a way to crawl out.
 
Is there anywhere you can tie a thick piece of baler twine to dangle into the trough? (maybe through the hole where the taps went when it was a bath)

relatively horse proof and won't come off if the horses choose to play with it.

I worry that my bunch of wanton vandals will wonder off with a stick / plank / anything not tied down!
 
I found a Robin in ours the day after the really hot weather :(

Do you think if we left shallow bowls of water around that they'd use those instead? It sounds like there are a lot of birds struggling.
 
Thank you for all of your replies and ideas, I will try them out and see which works best and which my horses won't tamper with. It's upsetting to hear that I'm not the only one with this issue and that there are other poor birds dying this way:(
 
Squeak said:
I found a Robin in ours the day after the really hot weather :(

Do you think if we left shallow bowls of water around that they'd use those instead? It sounds like there are a lot of birds struggling.
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This is good idea, I could definitely figure something out where I could maybe put a bird bath in the field and keep it out of reach from the horses but so the birds direct to that instead of the horses deep water
 
I think you can maybe source some plastic/metal grid type things but I guess they don't fit exactly to a bath, presumably light plastic ones would float and therefore go up and down with the water level.

Good idea about a bird bath instead to try and lure the birds away.
 
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/science...s-left-baffled-birds-pools-ponds-BUCKETS.html

I know this was some years ago now but it does happen more frequently than you'd think. I had a crow drowned in mine water tub in my paddock the other week, staff kindly got it out for me and the container was scrubbed and water replaced.

They often drown in things with high sides as their feathers become water logged. A few days later a dove was found drowned in a water trough.
 
I always float a stick of approx. 2 inches in diameter for the birds to land on and drink from the tank. The horses ignore it and it's never caused any issues.
 
Sealine said:
I always float a stick of approx. 2 inches in diameter for the birds to land on and drink from the tank. The horses ignore it and it's never caused any issues.
Click to expand...
That's a good idea as I was trying to work out what I could put in my tub to mitigate against such a think happening again.
 
I had a couple of dead crows and a robin a few weeks ago. Since then I have put out a few shallow trays of water dotted about and have no had any issues since. I’m also finding I have a lot of very thirsty wasps!
 
I've had a dead Robin in mine recently & it does already have a branch in it, hoping anything would use that, sadly didn't work ?
 
I've used the same drinkers for 11+ years. It's not been unusual to find a lizard in them ,but until earlier this month, no birds. This month, so far 1 sparrow and 2 magpies together and that was before the real heatwave.
 
I’ve netted my pond (blasted heron) and the starlings sit on the net to drink/bathe. You could dip a net in, fix it an inch or so under the surface. Mine dips naturally. I don’t know if the floating plastic discs that clip together would work or if the horses would pull them out.
 
Old electric fencing post. The birdies line up on mine and shuffle down it to bathe. It's very cute and no dead tweeters (or rabbits!!).
 
I kept getting mice drowning in my water bucket in our old stables. I tied a bit of pleated baler twine to the side and let it sit in the water. Never found another one drowned. Horse didn’t mind the baler twine either.
 
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