Shot Wing’s mate
I am blown away by all the wonderful comments! THANK YOU so much for all the kind words and ideas for future blog posts. It’s always nice to get a little pat on the back now and then. Again, thanks so much.
Why the raven picture you ask? Well, we owe that raven big time, he and his mate Shot Wing used to guard our pastured poultry flock from hawks. We called the pasture the No Fly Zone. Really they were guarding their young that they always raise in our watershed, but we benefited from their diligent parenting. When we sold pastured eggs we never sold floor eggs, it was just a thing we had, by floor eggs I mean eggs we found (in deep bedding you never know how old that egg is) on the floor of the greenhouse we wintered the hens in, and that transferred to pasturing season too. No worries there, because the ravens took care of that too. We always had a hen or three in 900 that just couldn’t seem to figure out to lay in the nest boxes, or to give them the benefit of the doubt, you’ve seen the lines at the privies at a concert, ladies you know what I mean… . Maybe when the egg was imminent the preferred nest box was busy. I have no idea, but I know the ravens would swoop in on a daily basis and grab the floor eggs. Or I should say raven, because Shot Wing was usually on the nest, so her mate would swoop in and grab an egg and head for the timber where the nest is. And it was funny, as dumb as I think chickens are, they knew that big shadow the raven cast was not a danger to them. Our broilers weren’t quite so lucky, when it was time to take the pasture pens to the field the ravens showed up, knowing that little meaty morsels would soon be in those metal and wire boxes. Part of the yearly inspection included making sure there were no gaps that a raven beak would fit into for pulling a chick wing or leg through. Wicked birds they can be. Stop gap measures literally were needed.
Many years have went by, and we’ve stopped doing pastured poultry, but our long-lived raven pair is here and two sets of their offspring have nests as well on different parts of the farm. Usually in the fall when the babes are getting ready to leave the nests and care of their parents for good they have a confab here in the home pasture. Carrying on, games in flight, a group of raucous ravens and then they’re gone. But unless it’s hunting season (carrion everywhere) the ravens are here every morning at chore time, and when the young hatch they come twice a day. I give them two eggs. If I forget, or don’t notice the silent sentinel, they make a noise to remind me. When my daughter’s horse was still alive they developed a hankering for Equine Senior, Raven Senior? Getting a photo of them in flight with the egg in their beak is hard, they hate the camera. Two-legged with box near face is bad. Bring eggs only no box.
To that end, I raise a few extra pullets each year to supply the ravens with their daily eggs. We haven’t sold eggs since 2008 but the ravens are still here and we enjoy them. They aren’t a bother, they don’t take more than they are due, and we are still grateful for all that hawk hazing they did.
