The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: EP90 on November 27, 2013, 06:26:49 pm
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I’ve seen crows feeding on dead lambs, gruesome but that’s nature clearing up.
Are they just feeding off lambs that have died ‘naturally’, eg still born or are they opportunistically killing lambs? A neighbouring farmer has asked me to reduce the crow numbers before lambing season and I’m just trying to ‘justify it’ with myself.
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Crows are a royal pain in the bum so I wouldn't have to justify to yourself about popping a few off!
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They certainly do. We had one last year that got a bit cold overnight so was a little on the slow side but still moving around with its mother. That had its eyes taken out and part of its tongue removed. The bloody things were doing it as we were going across to it. Poor thing was getting knocked down by them, they took a bit and then it was getting up and running around. Didn't kill it outright but I had to. On the moors near us they have a lot of trouble with them damaging & killing the lambs as they are partially delivered & just born. A group of them isn't called a murder for nothing. They also have a lot of trouble with people letting the crows out of the traps before they are dispatched.
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Yes----I have seen them kill a lamb whilst the sibling is being born. I have seen them take the eye out of a ewe whist she was lambing. I have seen seagulls doing the same thing----biggest problem for us is carrion crows
I think foxes and badgers are a minor inconvenience compared with crows
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ditto - cast ewe blinded by crows before our neighbour got to her. I rescued a lamb who had crows hopping onto her about to tuck in. She had been paralysed in her rear legs; I will never know whether that was some coincidental freak accident in the field, or whether it was an unlucky peck in the right spot - I never looked close enough at the time.
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Ditto what everyone has said above. They are vile things. We have had them pecking lambs to death whilst they were still actually being born, mobbing wobbly lambs etc. etc. I hate them with a passion.
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My story about the wee lamb who had to learn to suck his milk from a saucer because a crow had eaten half of his tongue while he was being born... He was the lucky one, many more are maimed beyond help each year.
They're not endangered, they do attack living lambs and ewes.
If you feel okay about shooting some, then do so. If you don't feel okay about it, then don't do it; your neighbour will be able to find someone else and won't think less of you if you say you just don't want to shoot living creatures yourself. S/he will think less of you if you try to do it, but don't feel good about it, so don't actually kill as many as you should. ;)
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In spring we all take part on a sunday and blast all the new nests that have been built. We also have catching pens which have took the numbers dawn. Always hang the crows on the barb wire they dont like this. The onley way is to keep the numbers dawn.
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Crows are very clever hence the need to hang dead ones for the others to see. I had one come into the barn and steal the chickens eggs out from under the hens. We caught him on camera in the act otherwise would never have believed it. Local farmers hate them at lambing time.
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i'm always very aware of the crow threat- like others I hate the blessed things. so far we've been ok but we do attend all lambing and all newborns spend a couple of days in the shed until they are properly up and about and past the most vulnerable stage. last year a flock (murder) were clearly going berserk in a field adjacent to us where my neighbour had sheep. I went to investigate and they had pecked the eyes out of a ewe who was obviously not well and had been an easy target- foul foul creatures.
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Grisly stories indeed. I enjoy a bit of shooting but there is always a purpose to it as in I eat what I shoot or pest control. I guess crows are now at the top of the list.
Up to now I have only been involved with cades/orphan lambs that are stabled until fit enough to be out, so crows have not been a problem for me. I can now understand why my neighbour wants them thinning out, I’ll oblige.
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Yes they are horrible. We have had big problems with them over the years. Ewes with eyes taken out and lambs pecked whilst being born but that was nothing to what a pair of ravens did. Thankfully they are not as common as crows, but one pair set about a lambing ewe and ripped her backend so badly she had to be destroyed, they had pecked the lamb out of her and gone back in and pulled her guts out.
She was still alive when we got to her and the pair flew off into a nearby tree. My hubby was so angry he wanted to get the gun there and then and shoot them but it is said to bring very bad luck if you kill a raven, never mind two! so he didn't.
They were a local pair and used to follow me around the field in the morning flying overhead whilst i looked for lambing ewes or any that had lambed in the night.
Iwill never forget a man on Autumn Watch had a pet raven and he said they were very wronged by farmers because they omly took carrion. How wrong can one man be.
We lost a total of 12 lambs and 1 ewe that year to them and it became a race in the morning to get around the fields before sunrise when they started flying about.
All that was a few years ago and we haven't seen them since so maybe someone took matters into their own hands and shot them or maybe they moved on. Good riddence i say.
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seems like a fairly unanimous verdict on the crow(and ravens) then- now what about badgers !!!!!!!!!!!? ( only kidding) :innocent:
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Do bears poo in woods?!
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seems like a fairly unanimous verdict on the crow(and ravens) then- now what about badgers !!!!!!!!!!!? ( only kidding) :innocent:
I have seen a badger take lambs, if I have seen it then I assume it happens when I'm not there too?
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Badgers certainly take infirm lambs - the inside-out skin is indicative of badger.
As to whether they take newborns... :thinking:
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Yes badgers take lambs. Crows and ravens will peck out the eyes, tongue, umbilicus and anus of a first-born twin while the dam is off having the second one.
If you're shooting crows always go into the hide with two people, wait a few minutes then one person leaves. Fortunately crows can't count! Look around the field and you'll always see one crow on sentry duty, generally high up in a big tree. They take it in turns through the day - to both spot danger and that lambing or cast ewe already mentioned.
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I've seen me losing strong single lambs to the badger at anything up to three weeks old! The Kites will make a fair meal out of a lambing park not to mention the ravens, gulls and a thousand and one other protected verminous critters that quietly sink the record lambing!
All this I can deal with, it happens and all these creatures have their own young to feed, the annoying bit is being told by someone that has never been in a lambing park in their life that it doesn't happen like that!!! >:(
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Oh, Yes. Isn't it amazing how many animal experts there are sitting in Government and wildlife charity offices?