How to Get Rid of Black Crows

Crows are beautiful, intelligent birds. They are also highly social and sometimes become pests. Here is how to convince them to go elsewhere.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Visual bird scarers
• Noise makers
• Persistence

1. Crows are frightened by loud noises and by predators. The best way to get rid of bird pests is to use several approaches to scaring them away.

2. 
   Terror Eyes, by Bird-X

   Set up visual scare devices where the crows will see them. These include scare balloons that have big eyes on them, owl balloons, scarecrows in the form of humans, and kites with hawk silhouettes on them. Move these around occasionally, so the crows don't get used to them.

3. 
   Simple crow control in a garden

   To keep crows out of gardens, surround the garden with a wire about 1 to 2 feet from the ground. Then tie 10-inch strips of rags, strips of aluminum foil, or even aluminum pie pans to the wire every foot or so around the garden. For fruit trees, tie pie pans on strings from the branches.

4. Add noise. There are several ways to do this. For orchards, farms, and other large areas, propane cannon, which use propane gas to make a loud noise that sounds like a shotgun blast, are a good choice. Ultrasonic bird scarers emit a high-pitched noise that crows don't like. Sonic bird scarers make bird distress cries and the calls of predators like hawks.

5. Put a dog in your yard. Many dogs like to chase birds, and crows don't like them.

6. Be persistent. It takes a while to get a large group of birds to decide to move. Be prepared to start over at the first sign that they are coming back.

Tips & Warnings

• Be sure that any sonic bird scarer you buy has a crow predator and crow distress cries.
• If you live in town, be sure to check with the local authorities before starting any crow removal program that involves loud noise.
• Crows have an important place in the ecosystem; it's always better to convince them to move than to kill them.

Resources

• Bird-X

[barbpdx]

on 8/9/2009 CAN YOU PLEASE SAY WHAT KINDS OF NOISES THE CROWBEGONE CD MAKES AND HOW LOUDLY YOU HAD TO PLAY IT? I AM CONCERNED ABOUT MY NEIGHBORS...

[diana49]

on 8/3/2009 Hi. I had a serious crow problem and before I spent hundreds of dollars on super duper sonic stuff I tried a CD from crowbegone.com. It worked perfectly! They also give a money back guarantee. http://www.crowbegone.com

[naomigiroux]

on 2/27/2009 Thanks for the tips. I was wondering how to get these guys to leave. They keep emptying my feeders. 5*