Crows are a major pest to britains farmers throughout the UK as they are annoying to both livestock and arable, they are major pests to livestock farmers as the peck ill sheeps eyes out and eat the carcas and peck at animals skin, and they are major pests to arable farmers because they peck the crops and when they have just been laid as seeds.
Crows are a member of the corvid family and every one of them is remarked as pests. Some of the corvid family are crows, rooks, jack daws and magpies. Magpies are easy to tell from the other three as the have a long tail at the back and black and white markings. Jack daws are easy to tell from crows and rooks as they are a lot smallerand have a rally square head. Crows and rooks look really alike, the only few ways to tell are, rooks are a tiny bit bigger, have a squarer head, beat their wings alot quicker but the most easy way to tell is that you can see a yellow like colour bald patch near the eyes and on the top part of their beak.
You can kill crows with any sort of gun, Air rifle for fairly close range still shots, Rifle for further range still shot and shot gun for medium range still and air shot, but they are much better for air shots.
If you are shooting with an air rifle their are 3 basic ways of shooting crows, 1 of them is to make a high close to a tree where you know that close like to go and take a packed lunch and just wait for crows to land, take your time and don't rush the shot as it will probably be the only chance you will get at it, one you are certain of the shot, pop it off.
The second way, probably the most common way is to build a hide either where the crows like to land and search for food or where crows like to fly over and see your bait. We find the best bait is a dead rabbit, and a crow will be attracted to that like a magnet! You might have to rush this shot a bit more as the crows will be moving about while they are tearing at the bait, but if you are close range it doesn't really matter. You can also use crow decoys instead of bait, decoys are a plastic or rubber model of a bird and it will attract the crows to them. decoys cost £3.40 from Deben but you can get the about £2 from smaller firms.
The third way, i think it works best, is to do abit of the 2 baits in idea 2. If you get a dead rabbit and put decoys around it and make it look like 1 or 2 are pecking at the carcas and the crows will fly in like a baby and candy.
Other good times to shoot crows if you work, live, or know someone that lives on a farm is when muck spreading, mowing, ploughing, seed sowing and feeding your livestock corn etc. |
