Upkeep of a lawn can be a very time-consuming and expensive activity. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take much for backyard animals to damage your lawn forcing you to start over.
Some backyard critters remove insects such as grubs and earthworms from you your lawn and others simply eat at your fruits, flowers and create holes in your lawn.
If you’re wondering whether pigeons can damage your lawn this is the article for you. This article explores the question of ‘do pigeons eat grass’
Pigeons do not eat grass, only animals with strong durable teeth are able to eat grass. Grass needs to be chewed and pigeons don’t have teeth to chew with. Pigeons in your backyard likely pick at your grass to find the grubs, worms and insects in the grass.
Table of Contents
Do pigeons eat grass?
Pigeons can’t chew grass:
There are a number of animals that eat grass including cows, horses, sheep, buffalo and gazelles to name a few. Grass is quite a difficult plant to eat.
Blades of grass are generally very gritty, and abrasive. The plant is designed in this way to be difficult to eat. The gritty texture of grass will wear down the teeth of any animal that chews it, this is a defence mechanism.
If a bird, like a pigeon for example, does not have strong enough teeth, or does not have teeth at all, it won’t be able to eat grass.
Pigeons look for insects in your lawn:
If you find that there are holes in your lawn, and you suspect that pigeons are the reason behind this, you may be correct.
Although pigeons don’t eat grass they eat what’s beneath the grass: grubs and larvae.
Pigeons will peck at your grass and create small circular holes as they search for grubs and larvae. These birds may even create larger torn up areas of grass which form as a result of pigeons scratching into the grass until it’s bare soil.
This may be helpful as the pigeons remove grubs and larvae from your garden but it can make your garden look terrible.
Certain grubs can stay under your lawn for years, these insects eat at the roots of grasses and eventually cause the grass to die from the roots. This can cause chunks of lawns to completely disappear.
Larvae and grubs can also cause the plants in your garden to die off, so letting pigeons eat at them may not be the worst idea
How to protect your grass from pigeons
If you’re not a fan of pigeons doing pest control in your garden and would like to keep them away the best way to do so is to kill off the pests that pigeons see as food.
Pesticides
One way to get rid of these pests is to use a pesticide. Using a natural pesticide will prevent any other animals from being harmed by the product.
Tip: when applying pesticide it would be best to apply it during the afternoon, the product will be dry by the time birds try to feed the next morning.
Scare tactics:
You can also use scare tactics to keep birds away, these do not harm the birds but are efficient in keeping birds away.
Scare tactics include predator decoys (like owls or snakes, preferably ones that move and make noise), audio recordings of pigeons in distress (this alerts them that the area is not safe for pigeons) and pyrotechnics
Bird netting:
If you like pigeons in your garden but aren’t fond of them eating up your lawn, you can choose to use bird netting on your lawn.
Bird netting is simply a mesh netting that you can lay on your grass that prevents birds from resting on your grass and thus picking at your grass.
Conclusion
In conclusion, no, pigeons don’t eat grass because they are not designed to be able to eat grass.
Grass is very abrasive and wears teeth down easily. It requires that the animal eating it have teeth, and pigeons don’t.
Pigeons are most likely feeding on the grubs, larvae and other insects under your grass, they pick at the grass and create holes in it looking for these insects.
To stop this behaviour you’ll need to get rid of the insects by using pesticides, scaring the birds or using bird netting on your grass
If you enjoyed this article then you may also be interested in other pigeon related articles. Here are some articles that you may be interested in: Do pigeons eat bananas?, Do pigeons eat acorns?, Do pigeons eat corn?, Do pigeons eat fish?, Do pigeons eat other birds eggs?, Do pigeons eat popcorn?, Do pigeons eat mice?