Crows eating the chicken's food!

[barbara4rb]

Hi,
I hope you chicken experts can help me with this problem. In New Mexico, we have thousands (?) of crows that winter over along the Rio Grande river. The crows keep watch out and whenever we feed the chickens, they come in and wait until the coast is clear, then they come down and eat everything! My chickens are all free range. I tried moving their food/water into a carport area, and the crows wouldn't come in. Now, brave things, are in the carport, and even try knocking the layer pellet feeder over and eating that. If we throw any bread out, the crows come down and carry it off.

I'm wondering about putting a lumber "roof" about 2' off the ground in the carport and putting all the chicken food under it.... maybe the crows won't go under something like that.

Any ideas? Thanks!

 

[Badhbh]

Crows are smarter than most 3 year olds. If there is food, they will get it. The only way to keep them out is to feed your chickens inside an enclosure.

 

[okiechick57]

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Totally agree with Badhbh........... nothing much you can do.they are one of the smartest birds.....

 

[S n M Poultry]

wow, the crows around here usually eat the chickens.

 

[okiechick57]

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[S n M Poultry]

yep i had a young polish and a crow came down killed it and ate it right there in the chickens run. i shot it with my pellet gun so i got revenge. It was my fav. polish. Its name was Frank..LOL

 

[silkiechicken]

Good luck. Crows are really smart... except of course the one today who dropped a half eaten corn dog about 30 feet from where I was standing. Either it dropped it because it was dumb, or missed me and just didn't compensate for it's forward acceleration. It was kind of disgusting...

 

[Badhbh]

Airspeed velocity of an unladen crow and all that.
Crows don't usually take live food.. they're opportunistic feeders, but prefer not to have to kill their food, yanno? I'm surprised they'd take a live chicken. It's usually the hawks that they chase off that take the chickies. IMO, i'd encourage the crows to stick around, so you won't have hawk problems

I'm a crow lover tho.

 

[barbara4rb]

Ewwwoooo Well, force = mass times acceleration, so if that corn dog had been dropped from a good height, it's acc would be large enough to make a digusting splat.

I have some lattice sections in the carport. I'll make some sort of enclosed, temporary feeding pen out of them. Hope the chickens are smart enough to go in and eat. I'll tell them to ask the crows for help if they can't figure it out.

 

[hencackle]

...IMO, i'd encourage the crows to stick around, so you won't have hawk problems smile I'm a crow lover tho...

Me too! There are 5 crows that live nearby--DH & I call them the 5 sisters--and they have run the hawks off on several occasions. I'd rather have them steal a little chicken feed than lose another chicken to hawks. A young hawk got 2 of my chickens a few years ago and since the 5 sisters have moved in, I feel as if they watch over my yard.

My problem is that the wild rabbits are stealing chicken feed. They even go inside the coops and eat. Still haven't gotten any candy eggs from them yet! ​