Plastic Bird Spikes

How to Make Your Own Bird Spikes

When it comes to deterring birds from areas around your home or business, some people try to make their own bird spikes.  While you can certainly do this, you should first consider whether or not you will spend more money trying to make them yourself than if you were to just buy some.  If you do a little comparison shopping on the internet, you will find that you can get plastic bird spikes for as little as $4 for an 8 foot length, although some of them cost considerably more than this.

The best place to buy Bird Spikes is Here. Most people will just decide to buy them when they figure out that they will probably spend more money making them in the cost of materials than if they were to have just purchased a some bird spikes.  Having said that, for very small areas like window ledges or the tops of air conditioners, it is very simple to make your own spikes and use them instead of buying some.

If you still want to make some of them yourself, here is a simple way to do it.

You can make yourself some homemade bird spikes using strips of wood and some nails. Although you can use any scrap pieces of 2 X 4 sitting around, if you want them to be lightweight and easy to put in place, it is best to use a thinner piece of wood.  If you can find a 1 X 4, or even a 2 X 2 strip, that would work pretty well.  Cut your wood using a saw to the length needed to cover the area that you need to keep birds away from.

Once you have your wood, the next thing you need are nails.  Try to get the thinnest nails that you can find.  Since nails can be costly, and you will be using quite a few of them, find ones that aren't too expensive.  Make sure they are at least 2 inches long, so the birds will see them and not land on them.

To make the actual bird spikes, all you need to do is hammer in the nails in three strips.  The first strip is going to be right down the middle of the wood.  Space them about an inch or so apart.  The other two rows of nails are going to go on either side, and you want to nail them in at an angle.  You want the nails to be sticking out at a 45 degree angle.  If you are confused, look at the picture on the left of the bird spikes, and you should get a good idea of how it should look.  If you have access to a nail gun, the nailing process will be a lot faster, but most people don't have one of these.  You should get a good arm workout doing this job!

Once you have your strip, you need to set it in place.  You pretty much have two choices for fastening it to the area you want it:  Screw or nail it down, or glue it.  If you are putting it on a wooden railing, you can either screw or nail it down pretty easily to fasten it.  A couple screws on either end and in the middle should do the trick.  If you are putting it on concrete or metal, you will need to glue it down.  Any good industrial-strength glue that is made to bond to cement or metal should work.