Feeding Fig is one of the most challenging things I've ever tried to do in my life. It's a fulltime parental obsession, because I try and balance her diet, introduce new things, and encourage Fig to finish her food, and eat things she may not immediately like right off the bat, just as I do with my son. She has cultivated a very omnivorous palate and she does try to get positive feedback by eating stuff which she may decide to toss aside without my praises. People keep saying to me, Crows can eat garbage! But this is not true.
In Japan people have large traps in their kitchen sinks to catch trimmings and waste; disposals are very rare. The Crows target these piles of food, and they pick through them very very meticulously to find the tiniest scraps of skin, fish, meat, tofu, vegetables, especially with seeds, and many things that are anything but garbage. They do not simply gorge on garbage. And while you may see what you interpret as gorging, that is likely a rushed "swallow" which will be taken somewhere more private for sorting. Crows usually gorge, fly off, regurgitate, sort, and then once tasty morsels are "eaten", those are taken to water where they are washed, then, finally eaten. So, no, Crows do not eat garbage, they very meticulously extract edible food from it.
And people keep asking me, but isn't a Crow messy? Well, not really. Fig goes to the bathroom in the same place, and she even knows how to stash away extra food in Tupperware. Below you can see she has neatly stashed her extra omelette back into an egg shell (below).
What's interesting about this picture to me is that Fig had several types of food available to her as she usually does every day. On this day she had this egg and tofu omelette, brown rice cereal flakes, white bread, dry cat food, a small bit of cooked fish, meal worms, two kinds of fruit, peanuts, and slice of steamed egg plant. But Fig chose to cram only the egg back into the eggshell. She often will cache her favorite food, and eat the less tasty fare first, same as kids who might eat all their broccoli and save their meat for last, or kids who save Halloween candy for months on end. So really, humans are the messy ones. We leave a trail of waste wherever we go.
The one thing that does drive me a bit crazy is the caching. Fig will wet food, and mush it into paste, then she'll use the paste to cram gaps, cracks, patterns, textures, overhangs, holes, folds, and any unseen place full of food. She is very very good at finding places that are difficult to see, difficult to even imagine might be there to begin with. If she hid your Easter eggs, you would never find them. When I clean her living space, I'm like a jail warden trying to find that one piece of old contraband chicken liver she has stuffed into the cap of her toothpaste, or the spring of her bed. It's a total shakedown.
In fact, Fig has special perches to accommodate her need to cache food. The perches are rolled in fleece fabric, to protect her foot pads from lots of jumping around. The fabric is rolled around the perch, then zip tied at intervals. Fig caches food under her perches, in the "pockets" between zip ties. This prevents her caching food in hard to clean places, as I simply remove the fabric and launder it once a week. I can also collect old food, and stash healthy treats when she's not looking, and keep her healthier. If I wrap the fabric in such a way that no pockets form, Fig will tear holes in the fabric to cache food. Providing the cache pockets prevents her from destroying her perch covers.
Fig likes tomatoes and oranges, and when she eats those she shakes her head back and forth wildly to clean her beak. So, walls can quickly look like a murder scene. Cutting foods in ways that facilitate easy consumption without flailing is an art.
Feeding a Crow is harder than people might think. The act of feeding is a powerful bonding tool, so I try and feed Fig by hand as much as I can. She is okay with by hand, I mean, she will come and get it, but she is not really a from hand sort, unless the portion is tiny. She wants take out. That's just instinct. She can't relax and eat with others breathing down her neck, eyeballing her grub. I try and offer both take out, and eat from my hand, or from a cup while perched on my hand. Both activities build trust, and bond. It's important that Fig feel like we are eating "together", and that I am helping her find food, otherwise she quickly picks up that I am manipulating her for my own affection needs. When I give her food in a cup, I usually offer to help her down to the cup from her perch, and she always graciously accepts a lift down, because I don't steal a kiss or a pet. If I did, she'd opt out. Crows require a lot of respect compared to more affection hungry parrots in my experience. It's not that they are not, cannot be affectionate, it's more that affection has its own time blocks, and they are totally separate from the eating time block. Totally. However, by making eating time, feeding time, affection, bond, trust, connection can magically enter into the scenario.
Compare these:
Mealworms in a cup. Crow jumps down to eat on its own.
Mealworms in a cup. You help the Crow jump down gently.
Mealworms in a cup. Crow comes to perch on you while eating from the cup you are holding.
Mealworms one by one. Crow comes once, and leaves with one worm in beak. Eats on perch. Repeat.
Mealworms tossed as a catch game.
Mealworms handed on a flat hand.
Looking at these, the first is cold, and no benefit, the bird eats like this when you are not there.
The second is good because it builds trust, respect, and food association.
All the others are less than good because they employ control, or intrusion. There is a better way.
I recommend using a bowl or deep plate with oatmeal or bran in it. Hide mealworms in the cereal. Stand near the Crow, with one arm conveniently up horizontal. Pick through the cereal, looking for the worms. Let the Crow come near the bowl or plate and allow it to naturally forage with you. Stand a bit further back, and let the bird decide if it will perch on you to forage in the dish. The dynamic in this scenario is the best for teaching true trust, and food/handler association. Foraging together forms a genuine bond, and teamwork dynamic, employing an activity which is completely natural to the bird. For the human, feeding an animal in this way is like being at the dinner table with family. Everyone is eating, but the togetherness, and conversation are as memorable as the food. Animals need togetherness, and conversation over their meals too.
In Japan people have large traps in their kitchen sinks to catch trimmings and waste; disposals are very rare. The Crows target these piles of food, and they pick through them very very meticulously to find the tiniest scraps of skin, fish, meat, tofu, vegetables, especially with seeds, and many things that are anything but garbage. They do not simply gorge on garbage. And while you may see what you interpret as gorging, that is likely a rushed "swallow" which will be taken somewhere more private for sorting. Crows usually gorge, fly off, regurgitate, sort, and then once tasty morsels are "eaten", those are taken to water where they are washed, then, finally eaten. So, no, Crows do not eat garbage, they very meticulously extract edible food from it.
And people keep asking me, but isn't a Crow messy? Well, not really. Fig goes to the bathroom in the same place, and she even knows how to stash away extra food in Tupperware. Below you can see she has neatly stashed her extra omelette back into an egg shell (below).
What's interesting about this picture to me is that Fig had several types of food available to her as she usually does every day. On this day she had this egg and tofu omelette, brown rice cereal flakes, white bread, dry cat food, a small bit of cooked fish, meal worms, two kinds of fruit, peanuts, and slice of steamed egg plant. But Fig chose to cram only the egg back into the eggshell. She often will cache her favorite food, and eat the less tasty fare first, same as kids who might eat all their broccoli and save their meat for last, or kids who save Halloween candy for months on end. So really, humans are the messy ones. We leave a trail of waste wherever we go.
The one thing that does drive me a bit crazy is the caching. Fig will wet food, and mush it into paste, then she'll use the paste to cram gaps, cracks, patterns, textures, overhangs, holes, folds, and any unseen place full of food. She is very very good at finding places that are difficult to see, difficult to even imagine might be there to begin with. If she hid your Easter eggs, you would never find them. When I clean her living space, I'm like a jail warden trying to find that one piece of old contraband chicken liver she has stuffed into the cap of her toothpaste, or the spring of her bed. It's a total shakedown.
In fact, Fig has special perches to accommodate her need to cache food. The perches are rolled in fleece fabric, to protect her foot pads from lots of jumping around. The fabric is rolled around the perch, then zip tied at intervals. Fig caches food under her perches, in the "pockets" between zip ties. This prevents her caching food in hard to clean places, as I simply remove the fabric and launder it once a week. I can also collect old food, and stash healthy treats when she's not looking, and keep her healthier. If I wrap the fabric in such a way that no pockets form, Fig will tear holes in the fabric to cache food. Providing the cache pockets prevents her from destroying her perch covers.
Fig likes tomatoes and oranges, and when she eats those she shakes her head back and forth wildly to clean her beak. So, walls can quickly look like a murder scene. Cutting foods in ways that facilitate easy consumption without flailing is an art.
Feeding a Crow is harder than people might think. The act of feeding is a powerful bonding tool, so I try and feed Fig by hand as much as I can. She is okay with by hand, I mean, she will come and get it, but she is not really a from hand sort, unless the portion is tiny. She wants take out. That's just instinct. She can't relax and eat with others breathing down her neck, eyeballing her grub. I try and offer both take out, and eat from my hand, or from a cup while perched on my hand. Both activities build trust, and bond. It's important that Fig feel like we are eating "together", and that I am helping her find food, otherwise she quickly picks up that I am manipulating her for my own affection needs. When I give her food in a cup, I usually offer to help her down to the cup from her perch, and she always graciously accepts a lift down, because I don't steal a kiss or a pet. If I did, she'd opt out. Crows require a lot of respect compared to more affection hungry parrots in my experience. It's not that they are not, cannot be affectionate, it's more that affection has its own time blocks, and they are totally separate from the eating time block. Totally. However, by making eating time, feeding time, affection, bond, trust, connection can magically enter into the scenario.
Compare these:
Mealworms in a cup. Crow jumps down to eat on its own.
Mealworms in a cup. You help the Crow jump down gently.
Mealworms in a cup. Crow comes to perch on you while eating from the cup you are holding.
Mealworms one by one. Crow comes once, and leaves with one worm in beak. Eats on perch. Repeat.
Mealworms tossed as a catch game.
Mealworms handed on a flat hand.
Looking at these, the first is cold, and no benefit, the bird eats like this when you are not there.
The second is good because it builds trust, respect, and food association.
All the others are less than good because they employ control, or intrusion. There is a better way.
I recommend using a bowl or deep plate with oatmeal or bran in it. Hide mealworms in the cereal. Stand near the Crow, with one arm conveniently up horizontal. Pick through the cereal, looking for the worms. Let the Crow come near the bowl or plate and allow it to naturally forage with you. Stand a bit further back, and let the bird decide if it will perch on you to forage in the dish. The dynamic in this scenario is the best for teaching true trust, and food/handler association. Foraging together forms a genuine bond, and teamwork dynamic, employing an activity which is completely natural to the bird. For the human, feeding an animal in this way is like being at the dinner table with family. Everyone is eating, but the togetherness, and conversation are as memorable as the food. Animals need togetherness, and conversation over their meals too.
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