Egg Thief, Too Cocky For Its Own Good

[dinosaw]

We have been having problems with partially eaten eggs in the nest boxes recently, including one which the game had been sitting on, which sadly contained a chick. Obvious culprit was the magpies which have recently arrived and it has meant that we have had to shut the birds up for the first half of the day and the game for the whole day. Anyway, yesterday afternoon we had just let the birds out and were doing some bits and bobs when Mrs Dinosaw shouted excitedly to me, bloody magpie had decided to raid the Thuringians run with us in attendance. Shut the door behind it, went down and got the air rifle and that is one half of the duo gone, will be interesting to see if it's mate tries to pull the same stunt.

 

[chrismahon]

We used to have a lot of problems with Magpies Dinosaw, but never lost eggs because of the rubber matting in front of the nest boxes perhaps? One had the cheek to bully the bantams off their afternoon grain treat- it used to wait on the wall when it saw me going into the feed store. The last time it saw me I came out with an air rifle and made a perfect 30 metre shot! Essentially a good air rifle with scope became a necessity, particularly with daytime rats.

We have Magpies here, but they never go into the chicken enclosure, they just raid the sparrow nests and keep those pest numbers down.

 

[dinosaw]

I tried to give the Magpie to the cat, not interested, neither were the Red Kites, must taste horrible. Funny thing is she doesn't go for birds at all. She has brought back three rabbits though over the past fortnight which she stuffed herself silly with. Imagine how many rabbits they would have made by next year had they bred!!

 

[Minorcafan]

I tried to give the Magpie to the cat, not interested, neither were the Red Kites, must taste horrible. Funny thing is she doesn't go for birds at all. She has brought back three rabbits though over the past fortnight which she stuffed herself silly with. Imagine how many rabbits they would have made by next year had they bred!!

Must be a large cat that you have. :mrgreen: Our cat is scared of rabbits but is great at killing mice.

 

[RichmondHens]

Magpies are a real pain. The best deterrent to stop them raiding the hen houses is to hang a dead one on a pole about 3 feet from the pophole, that tends to put the rest of the family (of magpies!) off. The hens don't seem to mind and enjoy any maggots that drop from the corpse!
And to encourage other magpies down to be shot you can use a Larsen trap (which I'm sure you know) or just a dead magpie in a puppy cage or similar on the lawn. They are so territorial they just have to have a look at the "newcomer" that is sitting in their territory.

 

[dinosaw]

Must be a large cat that you have. Our cat is scared of rabbits but is great at killing mice.

She is not that big really, takes her a day and a half and quite a few sittings to eat them, though I notice she still hassles us for food in between.

Magpies are a real pain. The best deterrent to stop them raiding the hen houses is to hang a dead one on a pole about 3 feet from the pophole, that tends to put the rest of the family (of magpies!) off. The hens don't seem to mind and enjoy any maggots that drop from the corpse!

You know we wondered whether that would work, decided nah probably not and didn't bother. Useful to know it does work after all. Luckily no more problems or sightings. First time we've seen them in three years here, maybe because there is a big colony of crows in the field next door.

 

[Marigold]

If you do Facebook, Tim's recently posted a lovely bit of video on the Poultrykeeper page, showing a magpie actually getting in to one of his nestboxes and flying off with an egg.

 

[RichmondHens]

Quite a few years ago I invested in a set of different sized fake eggs to use to encourage broodiness. The bantam sized ones were all stolen by magpies within a couple of days. Bet they weren't so happy when they tried to eat them!

 

[dinosaw]

Taking the cat's example to heart, Mrs Dinosaw managed to catch a rabbit herself tonight, with her bare hands!. No disrespect to my wife's speed and agility but as you can imagine this particular bunny wasn't in the greatest nick, suffering from Myxamotosis. Possibly why we haven't been seeing quite as many of them around here of late as we're used to.

 

[LadyA]

I used to have a tom cat that was a fantastic rabbit hunter. And he would eat the whole thing in one sitting. Unfortunately, when he was about five, he had to have a colonectomy, and after that, although he still hunted as much as ever, and still ate them, he wasn't actually able for them! 03 I would regularly find regurgitated rabbit decorating the garden. And one memorable time, he puked up everything, as it had gone down, on the outside of the kitchen windowsill! Ooh, that was gross in the extreme!

 

[bigyetiman]

Well it could have been worse he could have done it in front of a table full of dinner guests. A cat of ours once brought in a maggot riddled starling corpse and promptly dropped it on the carpet and walked off, luckily our guests thought it was hilarious

 

[LadyA]

The same cat brought me home a dead guinea pig one time! That was a bit mortifying! I never found out where he had got it from!

 

[rick]

A few years ago when walking our oversized whippet lurcher across the meadow a cat jumped out of the undergrowth a few yards ahead and made a run for it followed by the dog. As they were approaching the turning in the path out onto the open field he was closing the gap fast and then I lost sight of them. At exactly the predictable moment, still out of sight, there was a squealing and general ruckus in the field and I started running to the field imagining having to go knocking on nearby doors and asking 'Erm, is this your cat?' However, when I got to the field there was no sign of the cat but halfway across there was a quarter size football net and the dog was suspended in it like a fly in a web with legs at all angles. The cat had obviously passed through the holes and was probably enjoying the scene from nearby.

 

[dinosaw]

I think I must have seen that cat nearby, it was running down the street shouting GOAAAAAAAAAAL!!!