What did this? Broken eggs found around stone driveway.

[Henriettamom919]

I agree with crow. Our crows yap at my free roaming girls every time I feed them, are highly intelligent and will do things purely out of spite.

I'm sorry, super frustrating! The upside is they bombard curious hawks.

 

[m1chelle1]

Thats a huge bummer! I hope you find a good solution! My chickens scare the crows in our area away with their loud "alert" calls, so they steer clear of us, which is nice.
(maybe we just have scardy cat crows that are easily intimidated, tho )

 

[cmom]

I had a very special hen and I do feed the crows because they will chase the hawks off. Before I put the netting up to cover my pens, the crows would get into the pens and get any eggs that was layed on the ground. Once in awhile I will find an egg outside of the coops on the ground. She would go to the spot where I feed the crows and eat with them. The crows weren't afraid of her.

 

[Willowspirit]

I was wondering if whatever took the egg could have used our stone driveway to crack the egg, like a seagull would do. Duck eggs are really hard to crack, even for a bird. Our stone driveway is sharp as we laid new stones down recently.
Any ideas?
Thank you!

Crows and ravens are known to use tools to get into food.

 

[cottontail farm]

We had this problem. Eventually I started keeping the ducks locked up in the coop until the eggs were laid. They generally laid by 9 so it wasn't a problem. until then we were feeding an entire family of crows every morning.
Those birds are SMART.

 

[cmom]

Hi!
We have seen the crows fly around the chicken yard and search for the eggs. Unfortunately, I do not have a game camera however, I have been looking into getting one or two. Do you recommend any brands?
Thank you!

I have several game cameras. I like the ones that have better nighttime pictures because here we have more predators roaming around at night. Most every night I see one on at least one of the cameras.
This was recently near some of the coops, a coyote. This camera takes nice pictures from a good distance. This camera is mounted on a tree. The only drawback is that it takes a small micro SD card. All of the cameras take great daytime pictures. Daytime pictures are in color and the nighttime pictures are black and white. After I bought a couple of cameras I did do some research on them because I wanted a camera that would cover more area. This camera does 120º, most cameras do 90º. The one I bought went up in price nearly $25. in price. So I'm looking.

This is a camera exactly like it.

This is another camera mounted in the same spot.

 

[CaramelKittey]

I have several game cameras. I like the ones that have better nighttime pictures because here we have more predators roaming around at night. Most every night I see one on at least one of the cameras.
This was recently near some of the coops, a coyote. This camera takes nice pictures from a good distance. This camera is mounted on a tree. The only drawback is that it takes a small micro SD card. All of the cameras take great daytime pictures. Daytime pictures are in color and the nighttime pictures are black and white. After I bought a couple of cameras I did do some research on them because I wanted a camera that would cover more area. This camera does 120º, most cameras do 90º. The one I bought went up in price nearly $25. in price. So I'm looking.View attachment 1786477
This is a camera exactly like it.
View attachment 1786482 This is another camera mounted in the same spot.
View attachment 1786486

Hi!

Thank you for your help! I liked the ones with a wider range better too. We live in the woods and get lots of coyotes, foxes, raccoons, opossums, and many other creepy little stalkers. I will definitely check out the game cameras and put them up.
Thank you!

I also had a couple of questions about the cameras.
Do you have to plug the camera into you computer with an HDMI cord or does it automatically send data to you phone?

Are they solar charged, or battery charged?

Thank you so much for all your help! Hopefully my annoying questions aren’t bothering you!

Thank you!

 

[DellaMyDarling]

Long before I had animals here, we were suffering at the hands of crows.
I almost think they're Ravens, not crows, based on size...but irrelevant.

They're nasty buggers. They'd stalk me heading out to the compost pile then dive bomb.
They steal my orchard fruit and garden veggies.
They'll rip out garden seeds and plants just for fun.

I was determined to shoot them. Posted up several times, but they clearly learned the sounds of guns on someone else's land before taking over mine. Couldn't manage to do them in. One crow always stood as sentinel, watching and listening. Stupid smart birds.

Had a 2.5' tall plastic penguin. One day the kids put it in the garden just messing around. Crows scattered and never returned. Not even kidding. We rarely see any, they tend to stick in tall trees bordering the property now.
Find yourself something of that sort, buy a few to place around the property. I'm guessing a plastic owl on the duck run would prevent egg theft.

 

[CaramelKittey]

Long before I had animals here, we were suffering at the hands of crows.
I almost think they're Ravens, not crows, based on size...but irrelevant.

They're nasty buggers. They'd stalk me heading out to the compost pile then dive bomb.
They steal my orchard fruit and garden veggies.
They'll rip out garden seeds and plants just for fun.

I was determined to shoot them. Posted up several times, but they clearly learned the sounds of guns on someone else's land before taking over mine. Couldn't manage to do them in. One crow always stood as sentinel, watching and listening. Stupid smart birds.

Had a 2.5' tall plastic penguin. One day the kids put it in the garden just messing around. Crows scattered and never returned. Not even kidding. We rarely see any, they tend to stick in tall trees bordering the property now.
Find yourself something of that sort, buy a few to place around the property. I'm guessing a plastic owl on the duck run would prevent egg theft.

Hi!

We have a plastic owl that makes noises when it sees motion however, it is not in the best spot. We will definitely move it to a better location! Thank you for your help! We are so tired of those smart and nasty birds!

 

[cmom]

Hi!

Thank you for your help! I liked the ones with a wider range better too. We live in the woods and get lots of coyotes, foxes, raccoons, opossums, and many other creepy little stalkers. I will definitely check out the game cameras and put them up.
Thank you!

I also had a couple of questions about the cameras.
Do you have to plug the camera into you computer with an HDMI cord or does it automatically send data to you phone?

Are they solar charged, or battery charged?

Thank you so much for all your help! Hopefully my annoying questions aren’t bothering you!

Thank you!

My cameras run on batteries. I use rechargeable batteries. There are WiFi cameras but they are quite expensive. I tried to keep it around or under $100. a camera. There are a lot of videos explaining different cameras on YouTube. I looked at several because I am more interested in nighttime pictures/videos. That is when I see the most predators. I have a routine and every morning I take a walk around the property and switch out the memory cards and then take the cards into the house and look at them on my computer. My computer is an older computer but it does have a slot to read the SD cards. Actually, my cameras that take the micro SD cards (tiny SD cards) are my better cameras (take the best nighttime pictures). I do have a portable viewer, that also runs on batteries, that I can take out and view the cards while I'm changing out the memory cards. Most of the cameras now have built-in viewers, but they are small viewers. Because we have several acres, the WiFi doesn't work as well. Of course the closer you are to the router the batter the signal. I have some cameras that are too far out to get a signal.