My daughters talked about it for a few years and showed me some videos of people that had they get them to talk. . They were pretty cool. They are invasive so no wildlife laws to worry about so figure whay not.

The largest challenge was geting my boys to not shoot then when building and nesting. Due to time limits she is leaving the young longer than she would like since she cant feed them as often as they would need on work days.

Has anyone ever messed with them before.

Only good starling is a DEAD starling.....

X2

They are smart for sure. If I walk outside unhealed they just watch me walk under them. The second I step out the door with a gun in my hand they take off in a panic.

No, never heard of taming them,... but interesting fact,.... had a cat that waited under the deck for an English sparrow to fall, and would eat the whole thing, but she'd sniff the starlings and walk away in disgust, lol

We had hundreds of thousands of starlings when the duck farms were active, the large flight formations were fascinating to watch...

They were imported as caged birds.

Super smart birds. If they weren’t so destructive they would be easy to like.

They taste good too!

They can be a challenge to feed and raise as I found out. Don't feed them live worms. Their feeding routine can be tricky. Dont feed them too much or too often.

Sorry I can't help any further.

What about meal worms?

I started to learn basic taxidermy skills using starlings, and pigeons,, they were readily available.
I never could get the mounting wires down the legs correctly,,, I kept ripping the leg skin.
I still suck at taxidermy,,, but I’m not as horrible as I used to be.

I have them trained to play dead
I can sell you an instruction manual if you need it
You pay shipping of course

That's gross

My idea for a great, terrifying prank, for many years, is to catch 60,000 young starlings, put them in huge pen and play loops of scary savings continuously. Things like "The end of the world is near.", " Hail Satan.", "Run!" and "Die!". It would cause a " War of the Worlds" type panic.

I talked a friend of mine into taking a baby starling from my barn and making a pet of it. It made a good pet. It would ride his shoulder, mimic him and fly down and eat worms, slugs and insects that were under rocks and boards he flipped. It got lost when he left it outside during a wind storm.

Keith

I got them trained to flush wildly with a red light…….so I went thermal!

She waited until they are about ready to fly instead of taking them younger so it would hopefully easier and less demanding to feed them. We will see how the experiment goes.

And yes that would be quite funny people would loose it.

What? They taste like dove. LOL

A guy from my neighborhood who mentored me when I was a kid would tell me how when he was a kid and growing up in the Great Depression his mother would spread breadcrumbs or whatever cheap bait was available and wait till the starlings were concentrated so as to kill as many as possible with one shotgun shell.

They weren’t killing them because they were pest, they were killing for table fare.

In one of the little house books Paw shot some that were eating the seed he planted and maw cooked them My daughter was young when we read the books and decided she wanted to try them so shot one and my wife cooked it for her. She said they were good.

My granddaughter enjoys eating unusual foods with me. She even had me cook up some red fox last season. Neither one of us liked it though.

It was her idea to shoot a bunch of starlings, remove the breasts and fry them up. They were very tasty simply fried on hot cast-iron in butter. And they actually do taste like dove which I find delicious.

My daughter is also the driving force behind us starting to eat beaver
She read Natives and mountain men liked them and my wife and daughter reminded me one day when skinning a young beaver so I keep the meat off the quarters and back strip to try it. Used to feed it all to the dogs before that now we eat the few beaver I trap. Found out its great.

My granddaughter and I made our famous baked pheasant and mushroom dish last weekend. I asked her what she wanted to do the next time and told her we had venison, beaver, muskrat and pheasant to choose from. She chose beaver.

I asked her how she wanted to prepare them and she said she thought we should make a pulled beaver barbecue type dish. So I brought three packs with me to camp to give it a try and use my hunting buddy as a guinea pig.

This way I’ll be able to tweak it if it needs it and be ready to make a big pot of it with her when I get back home.

Starlings provide us good income in the Spring with our Wildlife Business. They love dryer / exhaust vents and any soffit panels that may be missing.

That's great she wanted to eat some starlings Lugnut, ive never had starling, but I ate part of a red fox rear leg and also didn't like it.
My trapping buddy, Aalaiya, made us muskrat stew this winter. You and I are blessed to have these girls in our lives.

"Training European starlings anyone?"

I thought you had made another typo and meant to post; TAINTING European starlings anyone?

We really are blessed to have them.

In a survival situation, starlings, sparrows and other small birds are a great food source, that are very easy to catch in huge numbers.

My friend Sandy had a sparrow sized gap, version of the Swedish Crow trap that worked fantastic. She usually caught around 12,000 to 15,000 sparrows and starlings a year in it. It was basically a wire box, 6' tall on the sides, sloping down to 5' in the middle, with a 3" framed gap in the middle. It's footprint on the ground was 6' by 6' The birds would land on the peaks on the sides, hop down the wire to the gap and drop in. They could not fly back out. She rarely baited it. She took out the dead sparrows and starlings once a day and the live ones continuously lured more in. She often would catch a few hundred birds a day during the fall.

Here's a video of a Swedish Crow trap. They are called ladder traps too.



Sandy"s trap didn't have the rungs and worked fine without them. The gap should be sized for what you're trying to catch.

I just quickly put a trap together, out of some existing chickenwire panels, for my friend Ralph once, where I just left the top flat with a gap in the middle, to catch pigeons and it worked to.

You need to make the door big enough to easily get dead or live birds out, if you want them live, but small enough that you can block the bait birds from escaping.

During the migrations, you will have to take birds out several times a day or it will get so full you won't catch any more.

Cowbirds and Cooper's hawks frequently got in Sandy's trap too.

Keith

I was talking with her yesterday. Apparently she has one out of thr 4 that will eat out of her hand and much less skittish so that will be the one she focuses on the most.

Farmers here spend a lot of monies to keep the big flocks out of their freestall barns. Research has shown that a flock of 200 starlings can eat enough of the grain component of a total mixed ration by 2 percentage points of nutrients in 20 minutes, plus leave tons of salmonela in their droppings.
If you could train some to talk the other flock members how to leave a spot or farmstead those birds would have real value.

Bryce

Starlings are close relatives to myna birds.....same family. So probably are smart enough to train. Back during my starling killer days I did a not of research on them...........and among other things remember they had documented over 40 different sounds they make among themselves........so are able to communicate on a level much higher than we give them credit for. It appeared to me they had logical problem solving skills way beyond what anyone could fathom. If not for the fact they are obnoxious killers, one could almost muster some respect for them.

There is another type of trap that mimics cavity nest boxes (repeating starling trap), but that mostly works during nesting season. Best mass flock reduction plan I've heard of.........is to play recording of their distress call......blasted at them over loud speakers while on the roost during a pitch black night. They fly around banging into stuff or drop from sheer exhaustion and predators get them. It is a good way to bust up a roost.

Do remember one guy from middle east on an air rifle forum who was hunting them with air rifles and it was to eat. Said they were really good like doves, pigeons, etc. We took his word for it.

Duck farmers here used propane cannons to keep the flocks from camping out at the feeders, which were left open, outside the barns,..any wonder why the starlings were there?, lol

Trained thousands of starlings with DRC-1339 in situations such as Bryce described

Wetting agent on roosts in cooler weather also very effective at training them to hit the ground - and non-toxic - allows the bird to not self-regulate body temp and gravity takes over.......

Some of our farmers have used the USDA STARLINK program. Many use other commercial providers that also bait for a few days and then net them. Birds are one of the reasons one sees all the doors closed on these large barns during warm weather, to help prevent their entrance. Now with so many building the newer climate modification type barns the barns are sealed up almost all the time.
I have been to farms on the days where they netted or used the products. Lots of birds were eliminated for sure.

Bryce

I seen a starling gorging on maggots that were dripping out of the back of a garbage truck on a hot July day one time. I imagine that the puss also dripping out was its favorite gravy,
No starling for my plate thank you.

Meet Beep 1. I played with it for the first time today when my daughter was showing how she has been feeding it so I can when she is at work tomorrow.



This is the most tame one. Like your shoulder as a perch. It had just taken a bath In its water bowl befor the picture. She still has another one outside in different cage as a back up known as beeb 2.

I take it you dont like possum either? Have you paid attention to what chickens will eat by chance?

Ron's starling made a decent pet. It was surprisingly affectionate and would preen his hair and rub it's beak on his nose. Is was fun to watch it ride his shoulder and hop down to eat the bugs, slugs and worms he exposed. I would say it had a fairly high IQ for a bird. Starlings bathe a lot.

Keith

That’s awesome. Wishing her good luck with this project.

As a kid, starlings were a favourite spot and stalk species to hunt with my 28 gauge muzzle loader.
Bought it from DIxie Gun Works for $29. Those were the days.

I have several times over the years, there actually a relative of the myna bird and from my experience they pick up speaking fairly easily way faster then any parrot I’ve ever had, the only bird that did so easier was the crow I raised, in both cases I did start with them before their eyes opened so that might make a difference

They also learned trick and things very easily recognized patterns and learned to take advantage of them

I trapped Starlings for bait birds for banding Hawks. I fed them 26% turkey starter and give them LOTS of water. They love water.

What did you feed them and how often? We have been feeding supper worms
Large meal worm looking things. I pinch the heads off sho they dont bit on the way down.( dont absent mindedly rub your eyes after this, apparently the bug juice im my eye im allergic to.) She also is feeding some softened cat food, and I collected some pill bugs as well today. I feed about everything 3 hours . 2 supper worms at a time severalntimes and 5 pill bugs once.
Sounds like this will be an interesting and fun project

Ron fed mostly cat food.

Kaytee makes a bunch of formulations to feed all sorts of birds. For starlings you would want a softbill feed.

I sell a lot of baby pigeons to people who want to hand raise them, 2 different people in just the last few days. Most of them use Kaytee.

Keith

.17 hmr makes a mess of them, fun to shoot.

All the 3 that were keep in a bird cage out in the grage didnt make it to were dead yesterday and tha last one was dead this morning. Im thinking maybe a cat got after thwm and the slamed into the cage killing themselves but have no idea. . The most taime one sh has keep inside i just got done feeding . Gave him 2 of the big worm things like meal worms but larger. 5 pill bugs and one piece of cat food I diped in water . I dont want to over feed him but dont want to under feed him either. I have been feeding at 10 ,2 and 6 may not be often enough?

There is also cat food in the cage but it seems to only understand being fewd not picking things up off the ground yet. I almost got a picture of it on my head but it flew off before it took.

I saw it had splashe around in the water a day or so ago but have not seen it drink on its own yet so work about it getinfd moisture if only finding dry cat food and why I wet the piece I feed it down

I should mention that you can also feed your starling berries like mulberries, raspberries, cherries, blueberries and blackberries. They eat a lot of fruit.

They have a crop, like a lot of bird species. It's not as large as on a pigeon or chicken. When you lightly squeeze it, the crop should feel fairly full and soft. Too full can be bad. Overly dry and hard can be deadly, because they can't digest the food. If the crop is hard, giving water will soften it. With baby pigeons, which is what I have a lot of experience with, the trachea sticks up around the hole. If you hit that with water, the squab will usually quickly die, or at least have bad respiratory issues. I would guess the same is true for starlings.

Pigeons and their squabs can suck water. Most birds can't. Starlings are one of the few other birds that can also suck water. Usually if you dip a pigeon squab's beak in water it will suck it up and drink. I would guess that baby starlings would do the same. Keep the nostrils out of the water, if you try it.

Keith

Canned cat food was the main food source along with any left over berries or bugs that we had easy access to