swallow problem

mukki

the cat and dog have beds in the shed beside the house

anyway every summer 3 familys of swallows nest in the garrage, they spend the whole summer gathering flies and stuff for their young, then sometime in august, the cat eats their young as the attempt to fly

keeping them out is impossibal as its used too store stuff, so people will be walking in andout all day

need some way to just stop them nesting, any ideas

DMC

Back home I know that swallows regularly nest at the top of the eaves/gable of the house. One way of counteracting this is to put a couple of strips of a plastic bag right at the top of the gable. With a breeze and its gentle noise, they won't nest there.

Not the same scenario, but it works for me.

tallus

Why not try to keep the cat out of the shed during the time that the baby swallows start to fledge. Found this site it might be helpful: http://www.ednewbold.com/view5.htm

Sigma Force

They tend to nest in awkward place, and they are messy. If it was possible to construct some sort of makeshift shelf underneath where they nest, that way it will catch a lot of the poop and if a baby bird falls out they may be able to get back up. Nothing much other than keeping the cat in you can do or at least while the babies are fledging.
They are mucky divils but we love our swallows, made a right mess this year but they deserve the comfort after their long flight I always think, plus we have less midges in the summer.

Also you could try nest boxes mabey at the back of the building as high as you can put it that might encourage them to nest out there rather than in the shed.

colmranger

The cat must not be killing all the young every year as you say they keep returning every year, the birds returning would be the younger generation as they have short lives.