Baiting

Although poisons are the general term used when applied to pigeons or other birds it means baiting. To achieve an effective baiting program you need to get the pigeons used to the feeding. So a week of feeding the pigeons helps to ensure the whole flock will potentially take the bait. For most customers these visits have already eclipsed the budget allowed for shooting. But for the sake explaining the whole process you then the feed with the poison and spread it as usual at the normal feed time.

Then you cross your fingers and hope all of the pigeons eat enough of the poison to be effective. You hope nothing scares them mid-feed because if they fly away they are likely not to return to much later. Or worse still fly off half dopey. Crashing into things along the way. Pigeons like most animals that are part of a group have a pecking order. Which means the dominant birds are the ones that get the majority of the feed. Not all of the pigeons can or will feed at the one time.

Next someone goes around collecting the birds that have been baited, not the pigeons mind! They have to collect the non target birds. They have to revive them asap so that they don’t die of hypothermia, which happens faster if the bird is small. A percentage of these may not fully recover because the dosage is really meant for the larger birds. Baiting rarely affect the whole flock. And once birds have survived they become wary of the same thing.

But the real issue is, you’ve generally attracted a larger amount of birds due to the prefeeding. So you number don’t seem to go down much because they are augmented by the new birds that have been attracted to the feeding time.

Shooting

A dead bird remains a dead bird! Shooting doesn’t have a non-targeted species problem. Check the internet and you will find factually shooting remains the most humane way to get rid of pigeons. If shooting isn’t a suitable option then trapping should offer an alternate method.