Ravens - any traps that work?

Dachie · May 7, 2023

Jockers84 said:
Are there any traps on the market that could be used to move these on? I know there’s licence to shoot them but just wondered about other methods. A larger ladder trap maybe? They’ve never been a problem before but can’t let a lamb hit the ground outside and they’re on the scene taking tongues and worse.

Disclaimer - this is a hypothetical question and asking for a friend 🫣

I need to know this as well. I have never had a raven problem before but this year for 5 days was hell lost over 20 lambs and had to shoot 3 ewes due to them ripping there lamb beds out as they lambed and dozens of ewes with peck damage to there faces and half a dozen eyes taken out.

There was around 50 appeared over night in the middle of lambing one weekend pulled my hair out all weekend trying to get rid of them. Phoned natural Scotland on the Monday to get a licence to shoot them and ask them why the f**k they are protected to be put through to a message of they will get back to me in a couple days but if it was to apply for a licence they would process it in 4 weeks.
In 4 weeks I would have no lambs left and very few ewes. So I phoned SGRIPID and NFUS no one could get me anywhere. Finally found Nature Scot CEO office number online and got her secretary and had a licence to shoot by the end of the day. The licence was to shoot only 5.
Did not do me much good shoot one in one field and they moved to the next field. I think it was red kites that finally got them to move on so need to be prepared next year.

copse · May 7, 2023

davidroberts30 said:
243miles away before they find their way back

223 miles away here.

neilo · May 7, 2023

Dachie said:
I need to know this as well. I have never had a raven problem before but this year for 5 days was hell lost over 20 lambs and had to shoot 3 ewes due to them ripping there lamb beds out as they lambed and dozens of ewes with peck damage to there faces and half a dozen eyes taken out.

There was around 50 appeared over night in the middle of lambing one weekend pulled my hair out all weekend trying to get rid of them. Phoned natural Scotland on the Monday to get a licence to shoot them and ask them why the f**k they are protected to be put through to a message of they will get back to me in a couple days but if it was to apply for a licence they would process it in 4 weeks.
In 4 weeks I would have no lambs left and very few ewes. So I phoned SGRIPID and NFUS no one could get me anywhere. Finally found Nature Scot CEO office number online and got her secretary and had a licence to shoot by the end of the day. The licence was to shoot only 5.
Did not do me much good shoot one in one field and they moved to the next field. I think it was red kites that finally got them to move on so need to be prepared next year.

Being a simple farmer, are you able to count in order to know when you've shot your 5?

Kidds · May 7, 2023

neilo said:
Being a simple farmer, are you able to count in order to know when you've shot your 5?

I think you would have to be pretty good to get 5. They are very clever and won't just wait around to be shot.

Dachie · May 8, 2023

neilo said:
Being a simple farmer, are you able to count in order to know when you've shot your 5?

Well that's the problem you see with holding the rifle both my hands are being used so can't even count on my fingers. I do think licences need to be applied for tho just so they know how big an issue they are and I think it is all the extra woodland that's been planted is the cause of more and more appearing and then hunting in large packs now......or unkindness as the official word for a group of them is

Kidds said:
I think you would have to be pretty good to get 5. They are very clever and won't just wait around to be shot.

Yeah they are very smart birds and and you are not aloud to bait them in either but say a sheep was to be killed in a gully with a good angle to shoot them from they will come back a for a few goes day after day if you remove the previous bird you shot.......... I would think anyway.

copse · May 8, 2023

Dachie said:
Well that's the problem you see with holding the rifle both my hands are being used so can't even count on my fingers. I do think licences need to be applied for tho just so they know how big an issue they are and I think it is all the extra woodland that's been planted is the cause of more and more appearing and then hunting in large packs now......or unkindness as the official word for a group of them is

Yeah they are very smart birds and and you are not aloud to bait them in either but say a sheep was to be killed in a gully with a good angle to shoot them from they will come back a for a few goes day after day if you remove the previous bird you shot.......... I would think anyway.

My sheep have a habit of dropping dead about 150 metres from the bedroom window.

som farmer · May 8, 2023

the problem with all 'predator' birds is simple, the public just don't understand the damage/cost of what they can do. You have a section of the public, that think all animals shouldn't be controlled, and they are extremely vocal.
They will emphasis the increase in numbers of eg, ravens, as being fantastic, since they became protected, without giving a thought about why they were 'controlled', point out that reason, and they would flatly deny it, and call you a liar, and provide 'statistics' manipulated to prove their point.

It isn't just ravens, Sea Eagles, won't take lambs, lynx won't kill sheep, wolves won't attack people, etc etc etc. And they will never admit the truth, only excuses.

If ever the public were given the real truth, instead of a 'rose tinted view', l don't think there would be to much of a problem.

One of the worst/best successful increases in wild populations, is the otter, an incredible animal to watch, a proof that our rivers are becoming cleaner, and an expert killer of trout salmon etc. Fishermen have been quietly encouraging salmon, sea trout back into our rivers, for decades, with the release of parr, in the old breeding grounds, a long job, but succeeding. Otters will decimate that programme, throw in the waterboards polluting sewage, and that's a success story wiped out.

On the river/fish problem, what really pee's me off, is that modern intensive ag, will be blamed.

suffolksmallholder · May 8, 2023

This raven visited for a while a year ago. We think it was probably a pet.
Its beak was very sharp and allowing it to sit on a shoulder was not good for ears!

SS

hendrebc · May 9, 2023

If you have a breeding pair of ravens on your place and aren't having too much trouble whatever you do DONT do anything to them.

A breeding pair will keep other ravens away. We had a breeding and they just disappeared one year. Probably old age over the winter. Then we had a flock of young homeless arsehole ravens turn up. Must have been 50 of them
What you really really really don't want is a big flock of those young homeless ravens setting up on your place at laming time. You won't get rid of them while ypu have food available and you will have to be with your sheep at all hours when it it light or you won't have anything much that isn't pecked at. I had to bring mine indoors one year when a flock of ravens turned up.... death toll was way too high.
Very clever birds. I saw from the other side of the farm a ewe with twins that were sat under a tree with the mother grazing a few yards away. Ravens were in the tree watching. Then one went at each lamb dragging them away from each other as the ewe ran back and forth between them butting the ravens off the lamb. While she was butting one raven the other lamb was being dragged further away so the ewe was having to run further and further evey time to butt the ravens off her lambs. I was 3 fields and 4 gateways away and drove there as fast as I could leaving the gates open to go quicker. I wasn't long but by the time I got there there were 2 lambs with missing tongues and ripped arseholes 15 or so yards from each other and a ewe with scratches bleeding all over her head.
Don't underestimate them and how destructive a big mob of the f**kers can be. Luckily not seen it since we had red kites move in.

serf · May 9, 2023

suffolksmallholder said:
This raven visited for a while a year ago. We think it was probably a pet.
Its beak was very sharp and allowing it to sit on a shoulder was not good for ears!
SS

Did you take it back to the Tower....

Guleesh · May 9, 2023

hendrebc said:
If you have a breeding pair of ravens on your place and aren't having too much trouble whatever you do DONT do anything to them.

A breeding pair will keep other ravens away. We had a breeding and they just disappeared one year. Probably old age over the winter. Then we had a flock of young homeless arsehole ravens turn up. Must have been 50 of them
What you really really really don't want is a big flock of those young homeless ravens setting up on your place at laming time. You won't get rid of them while ypu have food available and you will have to be with your sheep at all hours when it it light or you won't have anything much that isn't pecked at. I had to bring mine indoors one year when a flock of ravens turned up.... death toll was way too high.
Very clever birds. I saw from the other side of the farm a ewe with twins that were sat under a tree with the mother grazing a few yards away. Ravens were in the tree watching. Then one went at each lamb dragging them away from each other as the ewe ran back and forth between them butting the ravens off the lamb. While she was butting one raven the other lamb was being dragged further away so the ewe was having to run further and further evey time to butt the ravens off her lambs. I was 3 fields and 4 gateways away and drove there as fast as I could leaving the gates open to go quicker. I wasn't long but by the time I got there there were 2 lambs with missing tongues and ripped arseholes 15 or so yards from each other and a ewe with scratches bleeding all over her head.
Don't underestimate them and how destructive a big mob of the f**kers can be. Luckily not seen it since we had red kites move in.

I think you're right. What I presume is a breeding pair are visiting our lambing field at first light every morning atm. We're generally up and observing them, rather than going for afterbirth like the hoodies and blackback gulls do, they go round testing any lambs that aren't sticking right next to their mothers. thankfully no damage done so far, and hopefully the lack of reward for them will discourage them from keeping on trying. The folk I know that have had real problems with ravens have all been with those big flocks of 50 or so.

tinsheet · May 9, 2023

Ladder trap, set up a month or so before their due to turn up, leave wide open,
Bait with bread, but only do this at night. Then gradually close the trap once their taking.
Catch them re home.
Never tried it but an old boy assured me this was the best method.
Trap was the size of a small silage trailer mind.

hendrebc · May 9, 2023

Guleesh said:
I think you're right. What I presume is a breeding pair are visiting our lambing field at first light every morning atm. We're generally up and observing them, rather than going for afterbirth like the hoodies and blackback gulls do, they go round testing any lambs that aren't sticking right next to their mothers. thankfully no damage done so far, and hopefully the lack of reward for them will discourage them from keeping on trying. The folk I know that have had real problems with ravens have all been with those big flocks of 50 or so.

I never want to see that again. I can still hear the noise they made when you'd hear them flying overhead towards the lambing fields at first light while i sorted out problems in the shed. Stuff of bloody nightmares.

Jockers84 · May 9, 2023

All the naturalist that have caused them to make a reappearance should be forced to deal with the clear up after they’ve taken the tongue out a young lamb and it’s mothers ends up down with mastitis a month later. Whatever naturally eats them needs reintroduced to settle it down, like the old nursery rhyme about the old woman that swallowed a fly

Jockers84 · May 9, 2023

tinsheet said:
Ladder trap, set up a month or so before their due to turn up, leave wide open,
Bait with bread, but only do this at night. Then gradually close the trap once their taking.
Catch them re home.
Never tried it but an old boy assured me this was the best method.
Trap was the size of a small silage trailer mind.

This is what I’m thinking, I can’t make up my mind for the width of the windows in the ladder.

tinsheet · May 10, 2023

Jockers84 said:
This is what I’m thinking, I can’t make up my mind for the width of the windows in the ladder.

Make them adjustable, set wide, narrow them down over a few days while their entering till they can't get out.

BAF · May 10, 2023

Anyone got any plans for how to build a ladder trap?

Wilksy · May 10, 2023

BAF said:
Anyone got any plans for how to build a ladder trap?

Basc website have a downloadable plan for a ladder trap, I’ve made one for my mate, easy enough to follow, but sounds like you need to enlarge the holes in the ladder

Wilksy · May 10, 2023

Wilksy said:
Basc website have a downloadable plan for a ladder trap, I’ve made one for my mate, easy enough to follow, but sounds like you need to enlarge the holes in the ladder

Sorry I don’t know how to post a link, and to add I beefed the timber up to 2” x2”

Wilksy · May 10, 2023

Built it on an old greenhouse base

Ravens - any traps that work?

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