Dealing With Troublemaking Ravens

November 8,  2018

Question: We are a small family farm and raise chickens, ducks, turkeys and geese. I know that there is a provision in the Fish and Game regulations that allows landowners to destroy (shoot) crows that are damaging farm fields or other crops. However, we have a problem with ravens that have eaten many eggs and disturbed our birds on nests. We have had zero hatches this year. Most of our income usually comes from chick hatches and we can barely pay the bills this year. These ravens are literally going into our coops, barns and some of our birds have had injuries defending their nests. Are there any provisions for those of us who raise livestock and not crops? (Jessie)

Answer: We are very sorry to hear about the difficulties experienced at your farm. You are correct in that federal and state regulations allow the taking of crows by landowners, tenants or other authorized parties when crows are committing or about to commit depredations upon agricultural crops and livestock. Although the American crow is listed as a protected species under the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the federal government allows the taking of problem crows without a depredation permit (Code of Federal Regulations Title 50, section 21.43) as do state regulations (CCR Title 14, section 472). There is also a crow hunting season which runs from Dec. 1 through Apr. 4.

Ravens are another matter entirely, as they are a protected species under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and a Federal Migratory Bird Depredation Permit (https://www.fws.gov/forms/3-200-13.pdf ) is required to kill ravens that are causing damage to your farm.

A depredation permit should always be your last resort. It is intended to be a short-term fix, not a long-term solution. There could be opportunities to better protect and more safely house the chickens, ducks, turkeys and geese on your farm to keep out ravens and other potential predators. Secure, predator-proof housing is the best defense to protect the birds you raise.

Hazing is another legal option to keep the ravens away. You do not need a federal depredation permit to harass or scare ravens away, provided the birds are not killed or injured in the process and they are not sitting on active nests and disturbed to the point it causes the eggs not to hatch or their chicks to die or become injured. The federal depredation permit application will specifically ask you what nonlethal deterrents such as hazing or harassment you have tried and what long-term deterrent measures you intend to take to eliminate or reduce the need for killing ravens in the future. We wish you and your family farm better success in the future.

The long term solution? Ravens are supposed to be smart. If so, after you shoot a few with a shotgun, they will get the message and go elsewhere. Word of mouth is a powerful deterrent. They will figure where the border is and not to cross it

The long term solution? Ravens are supposed to be smart. If so, after you shoot a few with a shotgun, they will get the message and go elsewhere. Word of mouth is a powerful deterrent. They will figure where the border is and not to cross it

DAMHIKT, but that is not a long-term solution, because a new generation of Ravens will come along and take over any unoccupied productive territory. Basically every Fall you will get a bunch of adolescents roaming around, and if there is not a dominant pair already defending the territory, they will settle in.

We used to get along okay if there was a single pair defending the territory against other Ravens, and if we could teach them to stay out of the nest boxes. Silhouettes of dead Ravens hung outside the coop worked pretty well... until their own chicks got to the point where they were desperate for quick food, and then they would go in for those eggs. For a couple of years though we had a well-mannered pair that would keep all the other riffraff out.

Long-term solutions require finding ways to exclude the Ravens from the nesting and chick-rearing areas. Overhead netting works but can be a PITA (you shoulda seen the mess when a 80-mph wind gust picked up a coop and flung it into the netting, then rolled it across the yard). Ravens of course can get into anyplace a chicken can go (and Cooper's Hawks can go where a chicken can't), so free-ranging is pretty much not going to work.

Chick rearing can be done in small areas and we would enclose the whole operation, top and sides, with plastic fencing and netting (with electric wires 3" off the ground to keep the skunks and raccoons out, and another wire at 12" for foxes and bobcats...) We got 50' x 50' netting, drove T-posts and strung wire to hold the netting up. It worked, kept out Ravens and Cooper's Hawks and Owls and everything else. The netting wasn't too expensive and we had lots of T-posts already. We got multiple squares so we could rotate the yards.

A cheaper way that kinda-sorta worked against the Ravens and the Hawks, but not the Owls, was to string monofilament fishing line in a sort of cobwebby pattern over the entire chicken yard. This was a constant maintenance headache and a big mess though as the line would degrade in the sun and start falling apart every year or two.

Keeping those small fowl alive is no easy matter. Good luck.

I think a lot of people confuse or can't distinguish ravens from common crows. Crows are also a seasonal PITA and are really destructive. Ravens get the wrap.