How to deter crows

[notasausage]

We have a lot of big black birds that may be crows, jackdaws or rooks - I'm not sure what the difference is. Our chickens are in a big pen of about 400m sq. I have seen them at the food a few times, but today we saw one of these birds going into the hen house.

Anyone got novel suggestions of how to deter them shorts of putting mesh across the top of the pen - a massive task.

Also anyone ever had a chicken taken by a buzzard or equivalent as we have these in the area too!

We have buzzards and crows.

A buzzard will not take a chicken - they are not like a sparrow hawk or a falcon. Our buzzards mainly just eat carrion, worms and other stuff off the floor.

The solution we have for crows is keep a cockerel. He frightens them away good and proper.

I don't know whether this is true or not, but it was said that a dead crow hung in your garden will keep crows at bay - though how easy is it to find a dead crow in the first place?

It is true. My Dad used to be a farmer and he used to shoot crows to hang up to stop the otehrs eating crops. The thing id though - he found that shooting a crow while the whole flock was there was the best deterent.

They fly around calling the dead one for hours, then fly away and never come back.

We have Jackdaws living on our roof (Jackdaws have a grey "cap" on their head, and light grey eyes, so easy to distinguish from crows and rooks).

We don't feed our chickens ad lib. They get pellets in the morning, and then at lunch time. Basically we are present when the chickens are fed, so no other animals dare try to steal any. The Jackdaws come down when we go inside and have a look around for any scraps.

It sounds like they are, at least in part, being attracted by the food. Have you thought about using one of these

www.domesticfowltrust.co.uk/products/info_fs.html
Basically you attack it to the bottom of a plastic drum, fill the drum with feed, and the chickens pecks at the spring every time they want food, and the pick up what's there off the ground

or

www.backyardpoultry.com/forum_pics/feeder.jpg
The idea is that they stand on the footplate and that causes the lid to lift. Hens are heavier than crows / jackdaws / rodents, and so the hens can use it but the pests can't.

Obviously both would involve a bit of training, but it might be worth a try?

Alternatively, you could get one of those big fake owls - apparently they do work, but you have to keep moving the thing around, otherwise the pests get complacent.

What about strips of netting from one side to the other, an easier task than fully netting the whole area