Didn't they used to use M-80's for that function?

I can make an abnormal agricultural sound...
in my pants!

/apologies to Mr. Letterman

if they succeed in shutting him down on this, they can look forward to hearing him fire a 12 gauge.

I submitted this with a worse headline.

so this is news to some people?

/country boy

For the love of god, just load it with pellets and aim so you don't have to keep firing the darn thing over and over already!

The liberal, bleeding heart, bird sanctuary city of Austin has sometimes used propane cannons to drive off birds.

Where's the story here? Nothing to see. Move along.

Approves wholeheartedly.

oh, tag is for the farmer?

look.

it's a propane cannon. not some crap he threw together. which means, someone's manufacturing them, which in turn means there's a demand for them. sounds like there was just some confusion concerning moving in next to a farm or unwittingly letting a farm move in on you. it's probably safe to assume it's the former.

so yes, dumbass, farming technology has evolved past the scarecrow.

A cannon? Not really necessary. What's a bird's audible frequency range? It's got to be incredibly high. Some nice tweeters, higher than 96khz, like a mega dog whistle, would probably piss them off.

Instead he's shooting for vibrations, lower than 100hz. A ghetto car's sound system would probably do the trick better. Might still piss off the neighbors, though.

this is just like the muck story. thank you captain obvious: farmers farm!! propane cannons are old hat, at least 30 years. (we had one before i was born).

isn't there enough space for yuppie housing development without encroaching on the few remaining farms?

Fark these yuppie pieces of shiat. If they don't like noise, I'd be more than happy to deafen them to death.

They use them to scare off deer too.

Honestly, they're the most annoying thing EVER. It's a huge bang, similar sound to a shotgun but MUCH louder by my estimation. They set it to go off at constant intervals of several minutes, and set it do it all through the daylight hours at least. You try to enjoy the countryside and might not notice the first bang much, like somebody's shooting in their backyard. Then after you've heard it like 5-10 times you really start to wonder what that annoying sound is and realize it's just going to keep going like that. OMFG I can't imagine how you'd put up living near that big of a nuisance. It's one thing to have to put up with loud music on the weekends, but holy crap setting up something that goes off all day, every day is something else entirely.

Well, at leas it works.

moothemagiccow: A cannon? Not really necessary. What's a bird's audible frequency range? It's got to be incredibly high. Some nice tweeters, higher than 96khz, like a mega dog whistle, would probably piss them off.

A whistle for mega dogs?
Might draw them in, along with every dog within earshot.
And hordes of illegal migrant workers before harvest.
Probably fark up the bats good, though.

/suspect low freq. shock wave better at freaking out birds.

I agree, just thinking out loud. The cannon is overdoing it, though.

"Scarecrow concept"? "Resorts"?

You dumb yuppie. Let's hear some of your other Bold New Ideas for Agriculture®.

Highroller48: Whatever. As mentioned, they've been using propane cannons to scare off birds for 50 years.

Are you responding to the newspaper that thinks this is somehow new, the yuppies who moved out to farm country and then were surprized that people farmed there, or the instant experts in this thread who think that generations of farmers and the industries that support them are too stupid to think of something that they thought of in 2 seconds? I always love the latter, the smug second guessers who just assume that the guys who do something for a living can't possibly know what they are doing.

Nice. It gets rid of the birds, and as a bonus, if he keeps it up long enough, he can get rid of his annoying neighbors too.

Oi, check this out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_scarer#Propane_gas_gun (new window)
birds adapt quickly to any sound that does not randomize its magnitude, pitch, or time interval. Propane cannons become ineffective after a short while.

Found the mega dog whistle I mentioned:
Link (new window)


but I'd be most interested to see how well this invention works (new window)

pyrion: Nice. It gets rid of the birds, and as a bonus, if he keeps it up long enough, he can get rid of his annoying neighbors too.

Sounds like he's the annoying neighbor here! ;-)

Not available for comment...

Reminds me of Davis, CA, where the last 13 acres of farms stand in the city limit. Surrounded by snotty students and Subaru drivers.

Residents would complain that the farmer would disc, and run other equipment early on the weekends.

Oh yea, this must be new tech, given the barely more than half a million hits it produced.

For example:
propanecannon.com (new window)

/Besides, scarecrows were never for crows anyway.

Wondering how they came about the "120 decibel" part.

Following the inverse square law of acoustics, a 120 decibel level (if measured 1 ft from the sound source) would be approx. 55 decibels at 500 yards (1500 ft). Usual conversation would be about that level or louder, typical traffic sound levels come in at around 85 decibels for example.

In contrast, if they're saying that it's 120 decibels 500 yards away, then the sound source (the cannon) would register about 180 decibels at the source!!!!

Anyone who knows anything about acoustics should know how ludicrous that is.

What's next, complaining about the smoke from smudge pots in orchards? Or the smell of cow pasture? They must be furious about having to drive their Prius on dirt and gravel!

Dumb-ass city folk who move to the countryside ought to have some sort of mandatory orientation class on farming. Real country living isn't just what you read about in that Country Living™ magazine.

/gets stuck behind farm equipment every trip into city.
//12-gauge "bird bombs" are awesome. Poor mans grenade launcher

NeuticleDumb-ass city folk who move to the countryside ought to have some sort of mandatory orientation class on farming.

...and wildlife aversion, sharing the road with farm/ranch equipment, why "all-weather" tires really aren't a good choice for winter driving, and for cryin' out loud if you're gonna creep down the mountain at 15 mph and there's 10 cars stacked up behind you pull the hell over and let them pass.

I've lived next to flight lines and busy railroads. I lived on a waterway that the Army used to transport landing craft (cool!). I've lived downtown amongst transients and drunken frat boys. Now I'm a hillbilly, and sometimes I come home to find a herd of elk soaking up the heat radiating off my driveway, but that's okay, as they were here long before I was.

Wherever I live, I accept the fact that I'm the one that must assimilate, 'cause everybody and everything else around me was there first.

/never had any problems, except w/the frat boys.
//"shut the fark up and get off my lawn!"

Not impressed.

When my father was a kid, he had a punt gun he used to keep the crows under control. Think 2" bore shotgun with about 5 pounds of shot in it mounted on something.

What? HUH? WHAT? SPEAK UP!

/DAMN CROWS

jenniferwillow: For the love of god, just load it with pellets and aim so you don't have to keep firing the darn thing over and over already!

Well said.
Very well said.

Am I the only one who wonders how they could've bought the property and not known about his cannon?

Real estate agent: "And you can see here *WHUMP* THAT THERE ARE MANY *WHUMP* MOD CONS INCLUDED *WHAM!*...

Yuppie: "What the hell is that noise?"

REA: "WHAT NOISE? *WHUMP* I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT!"

Yuppie: "YOUR ARGUMENTS HAVE SWAYED *WHAM* US WE'LL TAKE IT!"

REA: "WHAT? YOU FAKE *WHAM* IT?"

A guy down the road from me uses one of these too. He has a pick-your-own blueberry patch in a rural area but in a small concentration of homes. I have a few friends that live near him, and they tell me how every morning at 7am this thing starts going off. The guy just got fined for it and I hope his neighbors sue him too.

I have one of these. It was used to scare birds out of an orchard. Manufactured, not homemade.
ho-hum No big deal

Same as the people who complain when a rancher spreads manure. You live in the country people, next to a farm. You can't keep the good and leave the bad.

HE WAS THERE WAY BEFORE YOU SUBURBANITE

Why didn't he hire Milhouses dad?

I wonder if this has any effect on bees.

/doesn't really care to investigate
//just remembers somewhat recent article about disappearing bees

When not in the lab, I live in the country near a blueberry farm. Last couple years the guy who owns it has had these things going off when the berries come in. This year I never heard them and went over to ask him about it, as now my own gunfire will be more obvious. He said that not only did it not work against the birds, but it did work on his customers, who didn't want to come in to pick berries with the alarming noise every minute or so. He said it was the worst money he ever spent, and next year is putting up netting.

frencil: NeuticleDumb-ass city folk who move to the countryside ought to have some sort of mandatory orientation class on farming.

...and wildlife aversion, sharing the road with farm/ranch equipment, why "all-weather" tires really aren't a good choice for winter driving,"

Having lived in an area that averaged about 250" of snow annually, neither 4-wheel drive nor winter tires are necessary for the conditions.

We used to use one of these to scare coyotes, foxes, raccoons etc, away from our turkeys.

With out knowing the entire story of this guy, it does seem pretty dumbassical of these people to be suing him. This is the guy's livelihood that we're talking about.

I grew up in the country. We got used to hearing these things all the time. Is it selfish to want to be able to bring your crop into market? Not really. The selfish ones are the people who bought "recreational farms" so they could get a taste of "real country living", but don't like the what the downsides of what living in the country REALLY is like. Farking urbanite wanna-be twits.