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05-25-2009 | 03:34 PM

#5

blkpowder

Typical Buck

Joined: Jan 2009

Posts: 735

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From: Westmoreland County PA.

RE: WRONG ON OWLS

AMERICAN CROWS

Food Habits
Crows are omnivorous, eating almost anything, and they readily adapt food habits to changing seasons and available food supply. They belong to a select group of birds that appear equally adept at live hunting, pirating, and scavenging. Studies show that crows consume over 600 different food items.

Crows cause a variety of damage problems.Crows may damage seedling corn plants by pulling the sprouts and consuming the kernels. Crows at times damage ripening corn during the milk and dough stages of development. Such damage, however, is more commonly caused by blackbirds; for further information, see Blackbirds. Crows consume peanuts when they are windrowed in fields to dry, but other birds, especially grackles, cause the greatest portion of this damage. Crows may also damage other crops, including ripening grain sorghum, commercial sunflowers, pecans, various fruits, and watermelons. In rare situations, crows may attack very young calves, pigs, goats, and lambs, particularly during or shortly after birth. This problem, is most likely to happen where livestock births occur in unprotected open fields near large concentrations of crows.

Another complaint about crows is that they consume the eggs and sometimes the young of waterfowl, pheasants, and other birds during the nesting season. Overall, such crow depredation probably has little effect on the numbers of these birds. However, it can be a problem of concern locally, particularly where breeding waterfowl are concentrated and where there is too little habitat cover to conceal nests. For example, nests are more easily found by crows, as well as by other predators, when located in a narrow fence row or at the edge of a prairie pothole that has little surrounding cover.
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