Will herbicide sprayed seeds kill nestlings? (1 Viewer)

For 3 years a pair of mourning doves have nested in our garage. The last 2 years all went well. I leave the garage door less than half opened during the day and close it at night. The doves are no problem at all and the end result has been beautiful dove fleglings that would fly out of the garage when they were good and ready. THIS year though, the baby doves hatched alright, but within 3 days they were dead.
Our neighbor recently sprayed his yard with herbicides to kill weeds. Could herbicides sprayed on weed seeds kill the nestlings if the parent birds fed the sprayed seeds to the chicks? I mean, it may not be strong enough to affect adult birds, but isn't it possible that when fed to baby seed eating birds, especially just hatched, it could be the cause of death? I know with doves the mother feeds a milkish solution from her crop, but the herbicide from the seeds she ate would be in her system and in her crop too. This was sad. Any thoughts? Thanks!!

modern herbicides are very safe, esp those available off the shelf and are designed to degrade very quickly once the treated area has been covered.

dont know about US but in Euro land they've banned all the nasty ones.

unless your neighbour is using something very potent I doubt the seeds would carry enough residue (if any) to harm the birds.

Richard W said:

modern herbicides are very safe, esp those available off the shelf and are designed to degrade very quickly once the treated area has been covered.

dont know about US but in Euro land they've banned all the nasty ones.

unless your neighbour is using something very potent I doubt the seeds would carry enough residue (if any) to harm the birds.

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In the mid- to late- eighties I found broods of Linnets (in Herts. as it happens Richard - Rye Meads) dead in the nest with full crops of green weed seed (Shepherd's Purse and the like). They had been poisoned. Whilst modern total herbicides such as Roundup are definitely less poisonous than old varieties (such as Paraquat and Atrazine) many people still use old tins they have lying about. Many commonly-used herbicides (such as Amicide... 2,4D) are toxic at the moment of application but break down very quickly in the environment (hours or days). Unless there was bad weather or the death of a parent then my money is on the herbicide.

many people still use old tins they have lying about.

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true, remember finding a cabinet full of all sorts of horrors at one job I was at, also people who wouldn't normally have access to more potent herbicides sometimes get them through (farming) friends, that happens around here, I'm often asked for them.

could aslo be they were poisoned by something picked up elsewhere, might not have been something the neighbour used.

Both parent doves are alive. They actually hung around right outside the garage for most of the day after the chicks died. The weather was perfect too. Since modern herbicides "break down very quickly in the environment in hours or days", there is still plenty of time for parent seed eating birds to feed the poisened seeds to their chicks. I live in a neighborhood of small, typical, well groomed "weed sprayed" yards. My yard included, my husband uses herbicides. I will work on my husband to at least not do it during the nesting season, but there's not much I can do about the entire neighborhood. Thanks for the information!!