Crow Damage...

Was it crows?  Or was it the eagles Jim saw flying around recently?  Was it both?

Either way, I spent part of the afternoon taping up bird damage to the ag bags.  The balage (hay that was baled before it was dry) inside needs to remain completely sealed to the air in order to ferment and not mold.  Even the tiniest holes can cause damage...

You might have to enlarge the picture (just click on it) to see, but all around the top edge of this bale, there are small holes that have been pecked through to the balage. There are a lot of layers of plastic around the bales, so you know it takes persistence to make these holes. We're pretty sure it's the pesky crows!

This was one of the medium sized holes...only about 1/4" in diameter, but the birds had begun to pull the balage out, and there will probably be some mold inside when we open this bale up for feeding.  That part will have to go in the gutter.  Thankfully most of the holes were tiny, and only a couple were larger...

THIS...it's hard to see, (here again, enlarge it to see it more clearly) but I see muddy paw prints and claw marks on the side of this bale.  A raccoon perhaps?

This bale was damaged at perfect head height for a crow as it sat on the ground...

Through the eyes of the ag bag tape...

My helpers may be old in dog years, but they still like to go out in the fields with me.  As soon as I head out behind the barn they're right beside me!  Phoebe had been out with us earlier, but decided that lounging in the barn was too hard to resist...

Just another adventure on a beautiful December day!  Several days straight without any rain!  Unheard of here lately!

Crows, Crows, Go Away...

Crows.

I've written about them before...how they are such a nuisance to farmers. They scavenge just about anything, sometimes harmlessly, but sometimes they cause damage to growing crops or in this case to already preserved feed.  Here's a post written almost exactly two years ago about how they can damage a silage ag bag.

We don't put out silage ag bags any more, but we regularly have round bales of hay wrapped in plastic which are stored along the edge of the fields.  Jim then brings them into the barn as we need them.

Over the past couple of years, we've had problems with numerous animals damaging the bags.  We've had cats using them as scratching posts, and this year the damage has been from crows!

We've seen large flocks of them in the fields around us over the past few weeks, and last week we discovered that they'd been having a feast on some bales that we had stored along the edge of a field on some rental property.

This bale is laying on it's side now, but you can see all the tape that is covering up crow damage.  If you can imagine the bale rotated 90% counter clockwise, this would have been the top of the bale.  The birds sat on top and pecked away through the plastic until they reached the hay underneath. Once air gets inside the bag, spoiling begins quickly.  You can see near the middle of the picture, a hole that was either made after I initially taped the bale up, or one that I missed.  I think probably the birds came back because there was another hole pecked right through a piece of tape. Grrr...

They also sat on the ground around the bags and pecked away at "crow level"...anywhere from 8" - 12" from the ground.

This is one of the bales right after Jim opened it up...

You can see a bit of mold in the center right side of the picture.  Thankfully, Jim caught the damage pretty early, and the mold seems to be only on the first few outside layers.  A few days later and the bale could have been pretty seriously damaged, and into the gutters it would go, wasted.

I'm thinking back a few years to when flocks of crows were hanging around the local shopping mall, creating dirty messes on shoppers' cars and on the roof of the building.  In a letter to the editor in the newspaper, someone suggested that "the crows be sent out into the country into the farm fields where they could live in peace".

Hmmmmm....I'm glad that wasn't even a realistic option!

Keeping the Crows at Bay...

Crows...

They may be very intelligent birds...but they are an extreme nuisance on the farm!  They eat almost anything, but two thirds of their diet comes from vegetables and plants...primarily corn.

Hmmm...do you see the problem?

After the corn harvest, it's common to see huge flocks of crows converging on the cornfields, pecking away at corn that's been left in the field.  When manure has been spread, guess who comes to scavenge?  And what is the attraction of an ag bag like this?  How do the crows know that they're filled with corn silage?  They really must be intelligent.

So...we are left with the dilemma of trying to figure out how to keep the crows away from the bag.  If they poke holes in the bag...and they will...the silage will spoil. The bag must remain air tight until it's transferred to the silo. And if they get a taste of that corn silage, they will be back for more!

To try to keep the crows away, Jim put up several owls on posts around the ag bag.  The owls are hollow inside, and sit on top of metal or wooden posts. When the wind blows, they move a bit, which makes them look more life like...

We also put a couple of old hoses on top of the bag, and fastened them down with ag bag tape.  Don't they look a little bit like snakes?

So far this year, we've been lucky.  Although we've spotted them nearby, they haven't yet done any damage.  I checked out the bag when I took these pictures this morning, and it still looks untouched.

The bag will probably be transferred to the silo soon, and this particular battle will be over.  You can bet though...the crows will be hanging around when the transfer happens, looking for any silage that's spilled.

Anything for a free meal!

Nasty Birds...

I remember a few years ago...a local shopping mall was having issues with crows hanging out on the roof...making a mess of things.  The "powers that be" were trying to decide what to do about the dirty birds.  Someone suggested that they try to relocate the birds to some farms in the area, where they wouldn't be a nuisance.  Hmmmmm...

#1.  Did you ever hear of a bird being told where to go, or where to stay?

#2.  Do you know of any farmer who really wants a huge flock of crows hanging out on his farm?  Or even a small flock, for that matter?

They are a nuisance...not only are they dirty birds, but they can cause a lot of damage.

Most of our balage ag bags are close to the buildings, and appear to be fine, but we have a couple of groups of bales along the edge of a field that seem to have attracted some unwelcome visitors!

Take a look at these...they look fine from a distance, but if you look closely, you can see a black hole on the bottom right side of the bale closest to the camera...

We've been finding holes like this all over these round bales.  Some of them are at beak level (if the crow was sitting on the ground) and a lot are on the top edges of the bales, as if the birds were sitting on top and leaning down over the side.

This hay was baled wet, and needs to be completely air tight in order to be properly cured and preserved.  When air gets inside the plastic, the hay starts to get moldy, and can eventually be ruined.  Not only does it not taste good, it can be dangerous for the cows to eat.

Most of the holes are rather small, but here's a larger one on the top of the bale.  That plastic is really thick, so the crows had to be really determined to get at whatever they thought was inside.  They most likely were hoping to find some grain.  Too bad for them...

So...armed with my "tools", I headed out to try to repair the damage...

There were sixteen bales in this group, and I used almost all of the ag bag tape to cover the holes tightly, hopefully sealing them in time to prevent further damage.

The first bale that we found with holes in, has been opened up and doesn't appear to be moldy, so we are hoping that we caught them in time!

There's always something to keep us on our toes!