A new one for me: crows dropping carcasses in the water trough

[Texarkana]

Title says it all. For the past week or so, I’ve been finding remains or entire small animals in one of my water troughs. They definitely aren’t climbing in and drowning because they are in various stages of partially eaten.

I’m 99% sure crows are doing it. There are no tracks around it and crows are the only wild animal I keep catching at it. It’s also happening during the daytime, so I doubt it’s any of the usual nocturnal suspects.

How do I stop this? There are plenty of other water sources around, not to mention many other troughs where this isn’t happening. I’ve moved the trough, I’ve bleached the trough, and it still continues.

My horses would appreciate less dead animals in the trough during this heat wave!

[Mosey_2003]

Put an owl or something by the trough?

That’s delightfully odd…

[Texarkana]

I’ve heard about crows leaving “gifts.”

Although I’m not sure if chunks of dead animals are meant to be a gift. They feel more like some sort of ominous warning!

[Mosey_2003]

Maybe it’s like cats and they think you can’t hunt for yourself?

Actually, if you could put up a little platform, try leaving shiny gifts for them. I think that’s how you teach them that’s what you’d like to get. And they like whole or cracked corn.

[Marla_000]

Set up a birdbath near the trough area
I feed my crows- chicken bones w/meat still on them. The crows
Either fly away with the bones/meat, taking it back to the nest of babies, or eat and dunk at the birdbath .
That birdbath sometimes has the remnants of their feast.

[Simkie]

Yeah, I’m with @Marla_000. Give them an alternate washing station near the trough they like. A feed pan works well! Maybe a handful of peanuts will help convince them to use it?

And get a camera out there, because how bizarre!

[Texarkana]

@Marla_000

Set up a birdbath near the trough area
I feed my crows- chicken bones w/meat still on them. The crows
Either fly away with the bones/meat, taking it back to the nest of babies, or eat and dunk at the birdbath .
That birdbath sometimes has the remnants of their feast.

That’s how this started. A little over a week ago I found cooked chicken bones in the trough. I assumed it was a raccoon at first, but I didn’t have any cooked chicken bones in my trash recently so it had to come from a neighboring farm. That seemed like a long way for a raccoon to carry something.

Then they started appearing in the day, when I KNEW the water had been clean that morning. That made a raccoon even less likely. Plus raccoons usually leave prints everywhere.

It has since escalated to parts of song birds, skinks, frogs, wild animal bones… and its every day, sometimes more than once a day!

[Marla_000]

My Crow feeding/watering station is about 300 ft. From any water trough.
It’s just a platform feeder on a post under a big oak tree
Now the crows rarely use the horse troughs UNLESS their
Birdbath, metal watering tubs
Are dry/empty.
Big black Vultures also use this feeding station.
I still have numerous feeders for the smaller birds.

[beowulf]

So, congratulations on your new residents.

I’d chuck a feed pan with some water next to/near where the trough is, or even a muck bucket turned upside down with a feed pan on it.

The only thing is, they like fresh water as much as anything else. You may have to indulge them in topping it off for them regularly.

There’s a pair of crows here that has nested here for the last couple years. They don’t give me gifts, but they keep the hawks away and that is a +1 for our chickens.

[trubandloki]

@beowulf

There’s a pair of crows here that has nested here for the last couple years. They don’t give me gifts, but they keep the hawks away and that is a +1 for our chickens.

I have crows and hawks.

How did you get your crows to keep the hawks away?

[Texarkana]

@trubandloki

@beowulf

There’s a pair of crows here that has nested here for the last couple years. They don’t give me gifts, but they keep the hawks away and that is a +1 for our chickens.

I have crows and hawks.

How did you get your crows to keep the hawks away?

Me too.

Crows, hawks, eagles, vultures, all sorts of things.

Nothing is deterred by anything else’s presence.

[beowulf]

Are yours actively nesting or rearing young?

Crows will mob birds of prey and chase them off. The hawks do occasionally come around, but the crows pester them until they leave.

Not my video, but shows the behavior:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppy2iiOt6YU&ab_channel=TheLivingWilderness

[AllTheCarrots]

I’ve also had to deal with this recently. It’s so much more foul than a regular dump-scrub-refill. I’m over it. Horses are over it. And I can just imagine the crows’ disappointment when their breakfast slips from their grasp and settles slowly to the unreachable bottom of the trough.

[trubandloki]

@beowulf

Are yours actively nesting or rearing young?

Crows will mob birds of prey and chase them off. The hawks do occasionally come around, but the crows pester them until they leave.

Yes. There is a nest every year.

Birds always pester the hawks when they are flying. I think that is given no matter where the hawks live. Smaller birds pester them.

[clanter]

@trubandloki

How did you get your crows to keep the hawks away?

the group of crows (there is a reason it is called a murder of crows) have decided they want to be around here will chase the hawks away, the hawks are looking for the bunnies but the crows will gang up on the hawks.

We have no problem with other birds hanging around the barns as the crows will intervene We use them and the Blue Jays for indicators for West Nile Virus

We encourage the crows to hang around as we have had a horse die from West Nile even though he had been vaccinated for many years, we now vaccinate for West Nile twice a year

But the crows and blue jays are highly susceptible to West Nile Virus . They are known to become infected and often die from the virus, making them indicators of WNV presence in an area

[Texarkana]

It’s not even lunch time. I just dumped and refilled the water this morning because there was a frog in it, which I tossed in the manure pile.

Checked just now and found hunks of frog(?) leg in there.

This is annoying.

[NaturallyHappy]

Probably a terrible idea, but could you put up a scare crow???

[SusanO]

Oh gross! I have a bunch of crows out here due to living in a rural area but they have never dropped guts in the water tubs. I see them more in the late winter and spring when I am spreading sunflower seeds for the songbirds. They show up and chase the other birds away. I like to use them as my scavengers - my cats will kill rats and voles that they do not want to eat. So, I put the hunting discards in the pasture where they will find and eat them.

If you put a cover on the water, then the horses cannot drink it. And I am not sure I want botulism in their drinking water. Maybe put out a shallow pan for the crows where the horses cannot get into it?

[beowulf]

Maybe they’ve brokered an agreement

Lots of different species mob, but watching birds mob is my favorite (sorry to the hawks/falcons!). Blackbirds, jays, and cowbirds are especially tenacious. Mobbing is a cooperative behavior that deters predation, so many species do it.

Funny enough, I was just scrolling through FB and saw this:

[LCDR]

How about attaching strips if anti-bird landing plastic spikes around the rim of the trough?