Birds eating roof - HELP!

[marcalans]

I had a 40-yr. asphalt shingle roof installed eight years ago. I noticed crows have been picking at the shingles, especially on the ridges, and tearing them apart. Almost a third of the roof already requires replacement. Has anyone had this problem and, if so, how do you deal with it?

[E. Dodge]

Look it up on the web...I started to look myself, but then something dawned on me....I happen to have pigeons. Part of their diet, as well as the diet of numerous other birds {perhaps most all} is "grit"....like dirt, sand, etc. In part, this "grit" is combioned with the food they eat, in their crops, to help grind the food down into smaller usuable more digestable particles. I bet they're pecking, and eating, the ceramic granules. I ran across one article which described crows destroing clay roof tiles from their pecking.

I never heard of such a thing before your post.

I'd check out google with: crows destruction, or crows eating my roof, or preventing crows from damaging....etc.

[Hellrazor]

Crows can be fun to watch and a royal pain all in one. I have a pile of masons sand in the backyard, left over from a paver job, you should see how the birds raid that for grit.

[Jack the Contractor]

The grit answer is a good one, and possibly true. However, there may be another answer. That is food. Small seeds catch on the shingles and the wind blows them into cracks. Birds peck at these seeds and tear up the shingles. This has been a problem for years. We see it all the time. I am not sure what the answer is. A cat, some flags. I am not sure. If it were my house, the answer would be a shotgun. Just my thoughts.

[Jeff Smallwood]

Refrain from shooting the crows while they are in the process of eating your shingles, as that could increase the need for a reroof.

[T-Square]

Many Farm Supply Stores, have plastic owls that you can mount on an unseen part of the roof. That will keep some birds away. I have two Tom cats in the area, that love my roof, keeping birds and even the racoons off the roof, I had to watch them once when I heard them running around up there, like they owned the roof. But they did catch birds, and kept the crows off too! Half of one, six of a dozen!

Yeah! A bird feeder in the yard, and an old garbage can lid, filled with sand. Is for the Birds! But it works! ;)