Author Topic: How to deter crows? (Read 6044 times)

Kmac1202 · « **on:** August 20, 2014, 11:27:35 am »

Hi, I have three hens, just got about four weeks ago. About two weeks ago we started getting crows in the garden eating the chicken feed. We have got CDs hanging from the trees put they seem to ignore they. Yesterday was the worst with about 20 crows. Can anyone suggest any ideas to deter them.

lord flynn · « **Reply #1 on:** August 20, 2014, 01:31:05 pm »

a dead crow hanging up-seriously, unless you can shoot them, its the only thing that works. They don't like going into something without a quick escape route either-so if you can put food inside something that might deter them. I had a broody turfed out and 10 eggs stolen from under her this year. A dead fledgling kept them at bay for a while. A couple of my bigger hens have been seen to chase them off too.

hughesy · « **Reply #2 on:** August 20, 2014, 02:12:50 pm »

Yes we've found the only deterrent is hanging a dead one on the fence. We've had a plague of jackdaws this year and a few hanging carcasses kept them away.

HesterF · « **Reply #3 on:** August 20, 2014, 03:32:41 pm »

We had them horrendously badly earlier in the season. We had somebody round to shoot them but they all just disappeared off up the hill and laughed at him until he left! He did get four lonesome ones so we hung those up and they took no notice. They've also ignored our big whizzy round scarers, a terror hawk and took out the face of the scarecrow. The only thing that worked was stringing fishing line over the run - enough to catch a wing or two as the came in. They couldn't see it and it freaked them out. To begin with they were getting tangled up in it too so we had to cut some free and then removed that line but we've got the balance about right now.

My daughter was fiddling around on the iPad yesterday and also happened to bring up some crow scarer thing of a CD you could play that they didn't like. Might be worth looking at too.

Oh, and if they start to go for eggs, a few rubber ones hanging around helps too - I just found one of our rubber ones behind one of the hen houses (with growers in so no egg has ever been laid in that house or run). They had obviously nicked it out of another house and flown off with it to try and drop it on the ground to break it.

Rosemary · « **Reply #4 on:** August 20, 2014, 04:11:53 pm »

Ineed new glasses - I read the title as "How to deter cows?"

Dave C · « **Reply #5 on:** August 20, 2014, 06:23:20 pm »

Yes get yourself an air rifle

Womble · « **Reply #6 on:** August 20, 2014, 10:01:52 pm »

So did I Rosemary.

I was so glad to discover my mistake, especially after people started recommending hanging dead ones on fences to keep the rest away

.

jaykay · « **Reply #7 on:** August 21, 2014, 07:54:58 am »

Lol on the 'deterring cows'

I'll second or third hanging dead ones up, it's the only thing I've found that works. Here it's jackdaws, they descend 50 at a time. I did make 'pretend' dead jackdaws from black bin liner, but that fooled them for about 10 minutes.

My neighbour's lad traps them, and since I have no decent air rifle, he will bring me the occasional one to hang up. So some mornings I get up and there are two dead jackdaws on my garden bench. Strange the things that count as gifts in the country

Steph Hen · « **Reply #8 on:** August 21, 2014, 10:37:47 am »

Quote from: Rosemary on August 20, 2014, 04:11:53 pm

Ineed new glasses - I read the title as "How to deter cows?"

I read:
How to dexter cows?

We did the dead crows hung up, they knocked them down and ate them. Fishing line over pens to make it hard, shoot the odd one when it's there to keep them on their toes. Put cage traps in the pen- seriously worked for a while.
I the future I will build a ladder trap into large pens so that I can hopefully keep on top of them.