I Hate Ravens

[dubber]

When I was a kid a woodpecker pecked a hole clear through my bedroom wall! Used to wake me at daylight with the noise. Tried many times to sneak outside and shoot him but he always flew away. Finally I waited inside with a .22 and shot him through the hole. Good thing statute of limitations was up 60 years ago!

 

[Bamabexchicks]

When I was a kid a woodpecker pecked a hole clear through my bedroom wall! Used to wake me at daylight with the noise. Tried many times to sneak outside and shoot him but he always flew away. Finally I waited inside with a .22 and shot him through the hole. Good thing statute of limitations was up 60 years ago!

Oh mercy!

 

[New2Chicks97]

When I was a kid a woodpecker pecked a hole clear through my bedroom wall! Used to wake me at daylight with the noise. Tried many times to sneak outside and shoot him but he always flew away. Finally I waited inside with a .22 and shot him through the hole. Good thing statute of limitations was up 60 years ago!

LOL

 

[New2Chicks97]

It must be pretty nerve wracking! The ones at my previous house would do that on the flagpole of the school next door and you could hear it a street away.

It is so loud! It sounds like someone is firing off a machine gun in our house. He was up there and at it at 6:00 AM this morning.

 

[Bamabexchicks]

It is so loud! It sounds like someone is firing off a machine gun in our house. He was up there and at it at 6:00 AM this morning.

Too bad you cant manufacture some kind of wire cages around the pipes and flashing to keep the bird away.

 

[Mcljess]

Sorry about your loss. Would a bird netting help? Do you live where gun firing is allowed? If so then a shot gun and some light buckshot. Sound like they are a vicious group. I didn’t know they were brave enough not to mention big enough to take a chicken.

We have some serious nuisance woodpeckers that my husband plans on taking care of when he gets a smaller gauge shot gun. They don’t bug the chickens but the dumb birds think our chimney is a great place to “drill” at all hours of the day. As it is a metal flue pipe it sounds like a machine gun going off in our house.

Yes we live quite rural and all our neighbors keep each other informed about the population changed in the ravens gang... if you catch my drift. I'm not the only one they kill chickens from and we keep fighting back. It's just that I'm not going to fire any guns when I'm at home with my kids (4 and 3) and by the time my husband gets home they're gone, because they're damndably smart.
I do want to put up netting, I just want it to LOOK GOOD lol and I haven't seeen anything yet that I'd like to copy. Vanity and procrastination are not good traits lmao

 

[Biddybot]

First, before I forget, if it's woodpecker breeding season in Washington State, your annoying drummer is probably just a male establishing his territory. Just their version of a pretty song. And yes, they do love to find the loudest, more reverberant surface possible to pound away on...impresses the ladies and competing males, don'tcha know. Try to be tolerant...it won't last forever. If it gets to be too much and if you have a high-pressure outdoor hose, a blast of water will shift the sucker without getting you in trouble with the law and so will a pocketful of small gravel fired from a slingshot. I just heard the first male woodpecker drum here yesterday. They like our telephone poles...nice and noisy.

As for the ravens killing chickens, I'm very sorry to hear this, but not entirely surprised. We've got them too...they breed locally and I've usually got a pair hanging around and later on, a whole family will hang out for a month or two until the youngsters drift away. The worst they've ever done is steal a few unattended goose eggs, but I do remember watching one land in the backyard years ago and start the old pretending to peck at the grass routine whilst sidling closer and closer to a smallish, partially grown chicklet that was on her own. Luckily, my good chief rooster at the time, Lou, a barred rock, didn't like the look of the raven's behaviour and took a run at him. The raven just lofted up into the air and came back down twenty feet or so further along with an air of hey, just minding my own business, buddy...what's your problem? Lou wasn't fooled and took another run at him and this time the raven took the hint and left. I should add that there were other mature, large roosters in the yard too--Lou's lieutenants, if you like--and even though they took no action, they were certainly aware of the raven and I think they might have jumped in if the raven had shown some fight. As it was, point made, and I never saw a raven on the ground in the yard near the chickens ever again. The guineas would scream at them whenever they saw them and this too probably helped keep them at bay.

Years ago, when I lived in Germany, I once watched a pair of that country's version of ravens pull the minding-my-own-business stunt while pecking about he outskirts of a rabbit warren. Eventually, they got close enough to a young, half-grown rabbit to suddenly attack and successfully maim it, then carried it away while it shrieked its last. Brutal, but impressive. I can well believe that a pair could kill a chicken too, if they really wanted to. Even crows can be brutal. My local crow family likes to hunt newly fledged starlings and I've watched them successfully stalk and kill several such fledglings over the years and it's always amazing to me how well-coordinated, patient, and deliberate such hunts can be. One fledgling they were after took refuge under my neighbour's van in their front yard and the crows withdrew some and waited for over an hour until the young starling finally lost its nerve and shot back out to try and escape. The crows finally got him by trapping him against the neighbour's house on the ground. I'm always on the side of the crows when it's a starling they're after. You might even call it one pest taking care of another.

 

[New2Chicks97]

Yes we live quite rural and all our neighbors keep each other informed about the population changed in the ravens gang... if you catch my drift. I'm not the only one they kill chickens from and we keep fighting back. It's just that I'm not going to fire any guns when I'm at home with my kids (4 and 3) and by the time my husband gets home they're gone, because they're damndably smart.
I do want to put up netting, I just want it to LOOK GOOD lol and I haven't seeen anything yet that I'd like to copy. Vanity and procrastination are not good traits lmao

I hear ya on the gun thing & I would either.

I guess you just have to find something that meets your needs for both looks and function. Unfortunately most functional things like bird netting aren’t the prettiest things to look at. Good luck!

 

[Willowspirit]

Just this morning my hubby was working on the coop and a raven flew by with a stick in her mouth. So now we are considering how to defend against ravens! We're good i think!

 

[SurferchickinSB]

I have a old horse barn I use as my Chicken barn. It's not the most secure, but it is definitely not free range. I tried free range out of ignorance of our area three years ago, and all was fine until the ravens got wise and took my favorite hen. (It's always the favorite hen isn't it?) Honestly I didn't know they would kill a live animal - naive.
They tried a couple more times and that was it, even with my large and protective Ameraucana Rooster the big ravens would 'bowling ball' into the flock, scatter them, then pounce on a particularly disoriented one while Hale my Roo would run everyone else back to shelter.
I only lost one hen, and rescued and doctored another. Then I kept them in an old 'paddock' behind/attached to their barn with plenty of hiding areas but no top net.
We .... protected our farm, and fed a couple ravens to our pig that year. No more raven problems.
Honestly it was a bit like Hatfield and Mcoy there for a while, they'd take one or try, we'd answer back, the flock would descend and badger us for a couple days and leave. It's been two years since any attacks.
Today I was working in my home office all day, I took a break at 3pm and was eating a bowl of stew and noticed a raven in our tall cedar. I keep my eye on them, they keep their eyes on us. When he landed near my barn I headed out side. I was too late, he'd obviously been hard at work. Hale was picked clean. Nothing but bones left and the feathers blowing in the wind. I don't even know why the raven came back there was nothing left to eat.
All the girls are safe, he did a good job, I'm really angry.

Wow, I didn’t know ravens would do that! There are lots of ravens that hang out around above my chickens. I thought they only attacked baby birds, mice and small creatures.