How to keep Doves off bird feeder
Most of us don't like to see doves converging on our feeders as we like to reserve the food for smaller birds, although there's no harm in feeding doves as a distraction.
How to keep Doves off bird feeders can be achieved if distracting Doves on the ground, where you would make wild bird seed mixes available. Regular small compact bird seed feeders can continue to be hung, as its near impossible to access. Yet open platform feeders must be packed up as soon as possible.
With seeds making up 99% of a doves diet, we can use that handy bit of information in way to deter doves with bird feed they don't eat, or at least they wouldn't in the wild.
What with doves mostly feeding on seeds while also eating grain in the wild; then let's stop making bird seeds especially available to doves who we wish to keep off bird feeders.
Doves will eat from a bird feeder thus its important to never use any kind of bird feeder they can access. Doves, like pigeons, are clumsy yet very uncoordinated, thus are unlikely to feed off a hard to access bird feeder which would be suspended.
Utilize the regular bird seed feeders hung up on a pole or tree branch as you normally would, whilst never using open top feeders which are super easy to access for any size bird, regardless of its feeder abilities.
To keep doves well away from bird feeders you can proceed to distract them which would amount to feeding doves in the process. You can throw bird seeds over the lawn or on an elevated area that will keep doves safe.
Never a good idea to feed doves as it can only encourage them, thus its vital to pull out of feeding doves if it only leads to attracting more doves to your yard.
You can use an additional ground bird feeder intended for doves exclusively; which will be put on the ground in a lit up but visible area where it can be found by doves whenever they come to raid the bird feeders on what is likely a daily basis.
Distract Doves on ground
Number one way to keep doves off a bird feeder is to distract them elsewhere, such as throwing wild bird seeds on the ground.
Doves are unlikely to frequent any kind of bird feeder if the bird feeder food itself is situated out of feeders in an area of the yard where doves like to forage. With doves being an exclusive ground feeding bird, seeds on the lawn can really work.
How to feed small birds instead of doves would be to feed doves on the ground, whilst the bird feeders should be be left untouched in the meantime.
No guarantee this trick would work of course if the bird feeder is fully accessible to a less agile, yet clumsy doves if the perch placement isn't wide and accessible.
Similarly, there's no guarantee smaller birds won't raid the ground full of seeds intended for your doves, which are intended as a distraction for larger birds.
Feed Mourning Doves to Common Ground Doves just as you would pigeons to crows on the ground, with bird feeders being left alone if food is thrown elsewhere.
Best way you can feed doves is on the ground, thus the area of the lawn or a dirt patch can be useful if the bird food can be found, yet remains accessible.
Feed seed mixes off bird feeders
What most doves will eat when raiding your bird feeders is wild bird seeds, due to it making up their diet 99% of the year.
Popular bird seed mixes can be eaten like sunflower to safflower seeds, plus interior wild bird seed mixes which can contain grain which doves also like to eat.
Doves come to bird feeders because they're hungry thus desire the seed mixes that can be a close match to what is eaten in the wild.
What you can do with that piece of information is indeed feed doves seed mixes off bird feeders. If what the doves want to eat is offered well away from bird feeders hung up in the yard, then doves may just leave the original bird feeders well alone.
Of course that doesn't apply to open top platform bird feeders or a tray mounted to a pole feeder, as doves will simply raid them as you'd expect them to being open to the elements.
Bird seeds must be throw over an area of the lawn where doves are commonly seen to frequent daily - because then we can be sure the wild bird food is found as they forage on the ground as normal.
In the meantime, the bird feeders can be used exclusively for smaller common backyard birds who can access the bird feeder seed mixes - without doves causing a nuisance of themselves.
Hang smaller bird feeders
How to truly keep doves off bird feeders is to utilize long, small compact seed feeders as you normally would, hung up on a bird feeder pole or tree branch.
Doves are uncoordinated thus are unlikely to land on a small or shortened perch placement that was originally designed to attract smaller House Finches to Sparrows.
Fortunately for you the default positioning of a perch attached to any kind of seed feeder is out of bounds for doves.
What kind of bird feeders doves like are open top platform feeders because they're easy to land on; only it must be stabilized on a pole as it would otherwise deter doves if the platform continues to sway.
Great news that is because an unstable bird feeder is made inaccessible to doves, thus an hanging seed bird feeder of any kind must be utilized only.
Common small seed feeders relate to those that are long, made in clear plastic with two to six port wells made available on each.
With the corresponding perches mounted underneath the port wells being only one to two inches long - doves don't stand a chance of successfully perching on them to eat.
Avoid open to all dishes
Knowing doves feed on seeds most of the year, its vital you don't take that for granted when offering up other kinds of bird food instead.
Absolutely can you stop doves eating bird food if offering up dried mealworms to suet cakes, but that isn't going to keep doves off bird feeders in the first place.
What will stop doves raiding bird feeder food is if utilizing super hard to access hanging bird feeders - while avoiding use of open to all dishes.
Doves can access bird seeds on a flat surface and so to can they eat bird food in dishes or in tray - which would be mounted to a bird feeder pole. If continuing to use any open dish or tray, then you can expect trouble.
How you would keep Pigeons off bird feeders is how you would stop Doves; use bird feeders intended for small garden birds, whilst absolutely keeping bird food secured away in a suspended bird feeder.
Of all reasons to keep doves off open top platform bird feeders, you can avoid doves pooping on the platform and therefore, pooping all over the bird feed.
Conclusion
With doves being large yet uncoordinated as they are, is really shouldn't be difficult to keep them well off any kind of bird feeder, although what kind of bird feeders you use to deter doves is essential.
Doves diet is mostly made up of seeds thus wild bird seeds mustn't be made available until they can be locked away, whilst making seeds available to smaller birds only with doves or pigeons missing out all together.
Well, you don't have to stop feeding doves all together when in fact, feeding doves could be the answer to your problem.
What if you feed doves a mix of wild bird seeds at some distance away from the active bird feeders, as a sort of distraction.
Its unlikely doves will come to bird feeders if what they want to eat - namely a mix of wild bird seeds - is made available to them in a fully accessible part of the yard. Seeds can be thrown randomly over the lawn in which doves will find them in due course.
Do continue to use super small compact feeders to keep seeds out of bounds of doves, as these mostly hanging seed bird feeders are too difficult for doves to perch on.
In the meantime do pack away open top platform bird feeders in which doves find easy to perch on - with an option to use a ground bird feeder made available to doves.
Keep doves off the bird feeder pole by installing spikes on top to prevent bird droppings, whilst any mounted trays or dished must be removed.
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