Gardening and Horticulture - Help! Birds eating sunflower leaves!

My children and I planted a sunflower "house" and as soon as the sunflowers reached about 6-8" tall, birds began eating the leaves. I put a small fence and bird netting around and over them, but the birds have chewed through the top and have now eaten many of them down to a 4-5" stalk(no leaves)! Is there anything else we can try? Is there any hope for these chewed down stalks?

Birds aren't eating the leaves. You have rabbits and/or deer eating them.

Birds generally as a rule do not eat leaves. Look around in the darker shaded areas and see if you have earwigs. We here in this part of Oregon are having an abundance of earwigs and you would not believe the damage that they do. Some are having whole plants ate right down to the skeleton, my petunias are suffering badly. My petunias are in hanging baskets hanging from my rafters and the earwigs are in them thick.

To the two guys above me, please use facts and not assumptions before giving advice to somebody.

I have 100% (first hand) evidence that birds (small yellow/red finches) land on the thick branches of the mammoth sunflower and pick away at the leaves until they are gone.

There is a website that shows a guy with an extreme case, where the only thing that was left was the flower and the main branch.

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With that said, I am still researching ways to keep birds out of the garden especially now that harvest is on its way in a couple months.

1. Plastic Owls don't really work, and need to be moved around a lot to get any kind of effectiveness.

2. The best (practical) method I have yet to find is to tie shiny silver plastic strips on certain points on the flower. The wind blows the rap and the sun reflects the silvery light off of it.

// I have yet to find any chemical or substance that keeps birds away.

Hope they're listening. That was 6 years ago. And no one likes to be chastized. A gentle prod in the right direction is usually all it takes on these forums. Have a good day.

Here's a good read from this website: http://www.doityourself.com/stry/whenbirdsarepests