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