Any suggestions for how to deal with the ravens? Other than shooting them and their nest.
Ravens eatting my chicks and eggs!
can you put a roof on your pen? borrow someone's cat, or adopt one from a shelter... cats don't like wild birds but get along fine with chickens [well, not feral cats LOL]
& if i could find a nest, I would shoot them all! noone messes with my animals & gets a second chance...
Wow..I've never heard of ravens attacking chicks and eggs. I'd think you'd almost have to put a roof over your pen. Problem is, that ravens are really smart bird and now that they've developed a taste for your poultry they will try to get around whatever defenses you put up. Me? I'd shoot them.
My chickens are part of my fly control program and are free ranging. With that aside I have tried various things to keep them out of the coop, but nothing works other than locking the chickens up, which makes them very cranky! I wasn't sure it was the ravens until I saw a squawking chick being taken away.
I have 6 cats, 2 in the barn that I have managed to prevent my husband from letting into the house, 2 Anatolian Shepherds who harass and are harassed by the ravens
yep, shoot em... you could try eggs with tabasco sauce in them or fake ones, etc, but i dont' know how to make a fake chick... sounds like if they are after that srot of food even with cats and a wonderful guard dog, there are too many of them and they are not eating the things they are supposed to...
Crows and ravens both eat the eggs and nestlings of other birds. I love them, but they are so intelligent I am not sure how you could outsmart them, especially if they aren't bothered by the dogs. Could you keep the hens with chicks inside a covered pen---and let the rest free range? Are they going into the nest boxes to steal the eggs?
They are going into the nest box for eggs, and when I first suspected their dirty work I kept the chicks in an enclosed pen. I let them out when I thought they were big enough, about 7-8" tall, and lost all of my babies except one.
I have a hen setting now and I'm gonna move her to a more protected part of the barn.
Wow ... be careful about shooting at Ravens. They are a protected bird of prey / or Migratory Bird ... just like Bald Eagles. It is a Federal Crime to kill them. Crows can be shot anytime but not Ravens .... my neighbor was a Montana Game Warden for 10 years. He assured me ... you can go to jail for killing a Raven ... something like 6 months and $15 thousand dollars he said. I checked ... my neighbor Mike was NOT .... BS'ing me over a darn black bird. Do not kill Ravens ... you can go to jail for it.
I thought I remembered someone saying they were protected. I'll have to destroy the nest and try using an owl in their home tree.