Are Magpies beneficial?

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minnehaha

minnehaha

Songster
7 Years
Mar 13, 2014
808
93
196
Spokane, WA
I have a lot of magpies and crows (usually not at the same time) that visit our property.

I am wondering if Magpies chase hawks and or owls away like the crows do?
 
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I do not find magpie's beneficial for two reasons:

1. Magpies are a wild bird which means that it is possible that they can give your hens lice. ( I think this is what happened to my hens when they got lice because the only wild birds that they came in contact with were magpies.)

2. The magpies around my house eat my chicken's eggs! This is REALLY annoying!

As for giving protection from hawks, I do not know...
 
Had not thought about lice, I've been lucky then because not only are Magpies and crows ever present, but wild turkeys are always flying over the fence and feeding with my chickens. The rooster chases them out, but they keep coming back, eventually my rooster gets tired and simply keeps himself between his hens and the turkeys.

The magpies do eat eggs here. Our chickens lay in the hen house, but the ducks sometimes lay outside the hen house. The auto door opens at first light, so they go out, if they have not laid their eggs yet, they will lay it outside. If I'm not quick, the magpies get them.

Still wondering if there are ANY benefits, because they aren't going anywhere.....
roll.png
 
Don't know magpies as we don't have them here but I'm automatically suspect of any omnivorous opportunistic species. Many like raccoons and crows are highly adaptable and pretty high on the logic scale for animals. Meaning if they ever realize a way to gain an advantage at my expense they will be more difficult to deter. I would error on the side of caution and try to prevent any interaction from the start before they learn of any advantages.

For instance if I had coons in the area I would not wait until I lost a bird to take action because then you have a coon that comes back for a meal. Instead I would start with deterrents to prevent coons from ever learning hens are tasty. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
 
Surprisingly as it is, we do not have any known raccoons in the area. We've never seen one in person, nor have we seen any on our 5 game cameras. None of our neighbors have seen one either,


I agree with you wholehearted that you never want to educate a predator.

I like the crows, but wish I knew more about those noisy obnoxious ever present Magpies!
 
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