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March 31, 2013 1:57 PM   Subscribe

 
"Pet crow?" I demand to know that crow's name! Crows deserve nice names. And would a little shower cap be asking too much?
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:04 PM on March 31, 2013 [1 favorite]


He didn't even use a cleaning product afterwards -_-

DO U EVEN LIFT CROW?!?!
posted by Foci for Analysis at 2:07 PM on March 31, 2013


I need one. If crows can be litterbox trained.
posted by DU at 2:08 PM on March 31, 2013 [1 favorite]


Crows are too smart for our own good.
posted by Lemurrhea at 2:13 PM on March 31, 2013 [1 favorite]


"Pet crow" is all well and good, but I hope those people sleep with dive masks on.
posted by eugenen at 2:13 PM on March 31, 2013 [1 favorite]


You're all assuming that's a pet crow and not just a crow that's got its own house.
posted by BinaryApe at 2:13 PM on March 31, 2013 [69 favorites]


Much better than a cat vid.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 2:14 PM on March 31, 2013 [1 favorite]


Hmm, given that it's a huge crow and there's a seat in the bath, it could be a Japanese crow. They're smart. When pest control people starting destroying their big showy nests, Japanese crows started building big decoy nests to keep the pest control people occupied, and smaller nests elsewhere.

Maybe things have escalated since.
posted by BinaryApe at 2:19 PM on March 31, 2013 [45 favorites]


Much better than a cat vid.

You take that back!

Although, if the crow had gone "poom," I might agree with you.
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:20 PM on March 31, 2013 [7 favorites]


Japanese crows started building big decoy nests to keep the pest control people occupied, and smaller nests elsewhere.

Ok, now I'm impressed.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 2:23 PM on March 31, 2013 [6 favorites]


Much better than a cat vid.

I agree. Crows are badass. They sit up in the boughs and laugh their asses off at us fools down below.
posted by blucevalo at 2:23 PM on March 31, 2013


I guess I read the title wrong and was wondering why the bird was there and how the cow would get into a tub that small.

Cow bathing would be cute, too, ya know.
posted by leftcoastbob at 2:25 PM on March 31, 2013 [1 favorite]


ugh corvids are so freaking cool. Once I had a crow follow me and play with me (repeatedly taking a piece of mulch from my hand with its beak and then flying ahead to meet me) over the course of a few miles' walk. It was some straight up St. Francis shit that I wouldn't have believed if it hadn't happened to me.
posted by threeants at 2:35 PM on March 31, 2013 [12 favorites]


Just what everyone needs. A crow flying around the house and crapping all over everything.
posted by jquinby at 2:36 PM on March 31, 2013


Who has a crow for a pet? Who wakes up one day and thinks, you know what my a life is missing? A huge excessively loud bird that craps wherever it pleases.
posted by Brocktoon at 2:52 PM on March 31, 2013 [6 favorites]


If you want to know what the future holds, the black crow knows.
posted by davebush at 2:53 PM on March 31, 2013 [2 favorites]


Crows can use tools so I am forced to conclude this video shows a crow that has built himself a house.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 2:55 PM on March 31, 2013 [4 favorites]


Living with a crow would be less like living with a pet bird and much more like living with a roommate that eats bugs.
posted by Mizu at 2:59 PM on March 31, 2013 [16 favorites]


Just what everyone needs. A crow flying around the house and crapping all over everything.

It's telling you to get out. Things will get worse. Just go.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 3:06 PM on March 31, 2013 [3 favorites]


My thoughts, in order:

1. WAIT, WHAT? WHO KEEPS A CROW IN THE HOUSE? ALL BIRDS ARE DIRTY, AND THAT'S A BIG FUCKING BIRD.
2. Oh, well, this one enjoys cleaning off, at least.
3. OHHHH HO HO, IT'S TRYING TO TRICK ME WITH "look at me, I'm so domestic" PROPAGANDA. NOT SO FAST, SALMONELLA BREATH.
4. Jesus fuck, that thing is huuuuge.

[NOT ORNITHOLOG-IST]
posted by psoas at 3:09 PM on March 31, 2013 [2 favorites]


Living with a crow would be less like living with a pet bird and much more like living with a roommate that eats bugs.

I have an African grey parrot. It's already like having a roommate that eats bugs rather than a pet. I think the main difference would be that the crow might be able to unlock the front door for me when I'm trying to bring groceries in
posted by titus n. owl at 3:09 PM on March 31, 2013 [6 favorites]


titus, I think the crow could do the grocery run.
posted by Malor at 3:15 PM on March 31, 2013 [2 favorites]


Can the crow be trained to leave the toilet seat down? If so, it's already a step up from some roommates I've had.
posted by arcticseal at 3:16 PM on March 31, 2013 [1 favorite]


When I was a kid (in the era before the Voting Rights Act) there was a neighborhood pet crow with the repulsive name of "Jim Crow". Yes, it was a racist town but I was too young to know how awful it was. But the crow was very smart and would come play with us kids or just hang out.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 3:19 PM on March 31, 2013


You can befriend crows and other corvids - they love peanuts, so if you attract their attention and feed them regularly, they'll adopt you. All the fun: none of the sofa poo.
posted by Devonian at 3:21 PM on March 31, 2013 [2 favorites]


Crow FAQ
posted by aniola at 3:23 PM on March 31, 2013


You can befriend crows and other corvids - they love peanuts, so if you attract their attention and feed them regularly, they'll adopt you. All the fun: none of the sofa poo.

Sigh...this is what I've been trying to do every time a bunch of them are hanging out in the trees in my yard. I try to feed them whole grain bits of bread but they just fly off. I guess I will have to try peanuts.
posted by MaryDellamorte at 3:24 PM on March 31, 2013


titus n. owl: "I have an African grey parrot. It's already like having a roommate that eats bugs rather than a pet. I think the main difference would be that the crow might be able to unlock the front door for me when I'm trying to bring groceries in"

Owls and parrots living together! Mass hysteria!
posted by dismas at 3:26 PM on March 31, 2013


I think the main difference would be that the crow might be able to unlock the front door for me when I'm trying to bring groceries in

More like unlock its own cage and then tear everything apart.
posted by Pyry at 3:28 PM on March 31, 2013 [3 favorites]


I love this so much
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 3:29 PM on March 31, 2013


I've heard the legend that the last 2 animals on earth will be the crow and the coyote. Now I kind of believe it. Oh, and cockroaches, too.
posted by primdehuit at 3:38 PM on March 31, 2013 [1 favorite]


There are a lot of different types of people in this world. I don't understand these particular people or their life choices.
posted by pkingdesign at 3:50 PM on March 31, 2013


But what's with the bagpipe music (after the crow jumps out of the bath)?
posted by ShooBoo at 3:51 PM on March 31, 2013


Back in the 1980's we rescued three Starling chicks which were being hunted by cats after they fledged too early to fly strongly. Oriiginally they were being hunted by one cat, but when we started guarding the chicks he drifted off and came back with backup. By that time we had the chicks in our screen house though.

It's legal to keep Starlings in the US because they are an introduced, not native species. Starlings look like smallish crows from a distance; up close they have a bit of silver mottled into their feathers instead of being solid black, and adults have yellow instead of black beaks.

Two of the chicks didn't make it. We named the survivor Catfood.

Starlings are to crows about as crows are to ravens, a bit smaller but still very smart and vocally talented. Catfood was too old to human imprint and never became hand-sitting tame but he became a friendly pet who would take treats and had a lively interaction with ourselves and our other birds. He lived in a large cage with plenty of leaping room, and learned to sing human songs even interjecting a bit of cassette tape recorder hiss into his performance.

Birds that eat soft food instead of seeds do poop a lot and Catfood lived outside where this didn't matter. However their poops are also very liquid and easy to clean up if you catch them quickly. Indoor birds need to have a home cage, and you need to be aware of where the bird is when it's out for safety as well as cleanup reasons. All birds seem to be magnetically attracted to ceiling fans and open doors.
posted by localroger at 3:52 PM on March 31, 2013 [3 favorites]


Starlings aren't in the crow family at all.
posted by Pyry at 3:59 PM on March 31, 2013


Pyry: More like unlock its own cage and then tear everything apart.

That woman has 6 cats, a dog, and a crow in 5 by 6 by 5 foot cage. I can't imagine this is the first time she's had to deal with a mess though it's probably unique because she's blaming it on the crow. Also, given a crow's intelligence and its propensity for flight, it seems kind of awful to keep it in a small apartment for any amount of time, much less a cage. According to this site a crow's territory typically spans 5.1 to 40.5 km^2 which means about two to sixteen miles squared along with being migratory animals. And the American Society for Crows and Ravens (who knew!) has this to say about keeping them as pets:

Crows begin to fly sufficiently to be released at eight weeks or so. They should be released! ASCAR emphatically objects to crows or ravens (who can fly) being caged. Caged corvids become demented. They may appear tame and affectionate, but this is only the demeanor of a prisoner.

Without difficult-to-obtain permits, it is illegal to hold a crow or raven. We are against buying, selling or going out to intentionally obtain baby crows. With the understanding we do not promote criminal activity, ASCAR recognizes that many people successfully raise and benefit from foundling crows. They care for them at their own risk. They should never be permanently caged.

posted by dubusadus at 4:09 PM on March 31, 2013 [9 favorites]


More like unlock its own cage and then tear everything apart.

That appalling woman's horrid sing-song narration of the situation only reveals her ignorance of that poor bird's situation. Doesn't its trashing her house, especially her work area, give her a clue?

Caged crows/ravens eventually suffer from dementia. As large, migratory birds, they need to range free, even if they're adopted at the imprinting stage or raised in captivity. Moreover, they're far too intelligent to endure captivity without, say, adopting a subservient demeanor or wrecking their surroundings. There are good reasons why it is illegal to keep a crow or raven as pet without a federal permit under the US Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
posted by Doktor Zed at 4:09 PM on March 31, 2013 [14 favorites]


Jinx, dubusadus.
posted by Doktor Zed at 4:10 PM on March 31, 2013


Chinese fire jinx, no jinx backs! Now we both get Cokes and I get a lesson about ethnocentrism.
posted by dubusadus at 4:13 PM on March 31, 2013 [6 favorites]


It would be super cool to have a crow as a pet but I already have a Border Collie. That just wouldn't be a good idea. They'd gang up on me and declare themselves as dependents to the IRS or something.
posted by workerant at 4:14 PM on March 31, 2013 [2 favorites]


What a pity it isn't Sheryl Crow.

I can't believe I just wrote that. I'm actually ashamed of myself. No, really.
posted by Decani at 4:15 PM on March 31, 2013 [2 favorites]


Starlings aren't in the crow family at all.

Which is why you can legally keep them. But yes, while they are similar to corvids both in body type and behavior they are old world birds and thus fairly distantly related.
posted by localroger at 4:21 PM on March 31, 2013


That bird didn't look look all that dirty before the bath, nor any cleaner afterwards.

But I don't care, that was so cool.
posted by cccorlew at 4:28 PM on March 31, 2013


Learn Sheryl Crow's 2 minute bath secret!
posted by Brocktoon at 4:34 PM on March 31, 2013 [1 favorite]


Can somebody please explain this bathtub to me? What is that?
posted by phunniemee at 4:42 PM on March 31, 2013 [1 favorite]


All I could think about on that raven video that Pryr posted was that at any point after the 1:32 mark, that bird coulda gone bezerk and made the woman's day much worse.

Or... not bezerk. That bird coulda gone "raven."
posted by andreaazure at 4:51 PM on March 31, 2013


My pet crow is smarter than your fifth-grader. And he can kick your cockatiel's ass.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 5:03 PM on March 31, 2013


Caged crows/ravens eventually suffer from dementia. As large, migratory birds, they need to range free, even if they're adopted at the imprinting stage or raised in captivity. Moreover, they're far too intelligent to endure captivity without, say, adopting a subservient demeanor or wrecking their surroundings. There are good reasons why it is illegal to keep a crow or raven as pet without a federal permit under the US Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

Yeah, that's kind of the point of the video. While it's nice to imagine that you'd have a well-behaved crow which only does cute things like take baths, realistically you're talking about keeping a large, destructive, easily bored bird with complicated psychological needs. As a minor point, the bird in that video is an allegedly-legal hybrid (not that that makes it a remotely good idea to get one).
posted by Pyry at 5:05 PM on March 31, 2013


If that crow built this house, who's running the camera?

Wait.

Oh shit, they're enslaving people now!
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 5:07 PM on March 31, 2013



Can somebody please explain this bathtub to me? What is that?


That is a bathtub in Japan, a so-called "unit-bath" which is a relatively inexpensive way to make a bathing room in Japan. In Japan, we 'bathe' outside of the tub, and soak in the tub, so that 4 members of a family (for instance) can use the same bath water in one night.

You wash your body in the area outside of the bathtub first, and then soak in the water afterwards.
posted by gen at 5:08 PM on March 31, 2013 [2 favorites]




I enjoyed this deleted scene from The Longest Journey.
posted by Peevish at 6:49 PM on March 31, 2013


A pet crow. Heh, right. I was going write something about a house being torn to shreds but then the video of the raven illustrated what I was going to write perfectly.

Corvids are not pets. Some people have to find out the hard way and by that time the bird can't be released into the wild because they've become habituated to humans and haven't learned to fend for themselves. The bird then gets to spend the rest of its miserable life locked in a cage at a rescue facility.
posted by photoslob at 7:46 PM on March 31, 2013


Captive-bred crows aren't for everyone, even if they are not native animals and thus might be legal to keep without a permit, depending on your area. They are highly intelligent and at minimum they need an entire room to themselves, according to what I remember from my wildlife rehabilitation manual. Captive-bred African pied crows and ravens can be adopted legally online, not that I'm recommending that as an option for the general public.

I disagree with the notion that a life in a rescue facility is necessarily miserable or unhappy, but all the same, do you really want a pet who might be smarter than you? Not to mention how notoriously obnoxious crows can be when they're upset.
posted by quiet earth at 7:57 PM on March 31, 2013


Pet crows. Everybody's raven about them.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 8:00 PM on March 31, 2013 [2 favorites]


With such an accurate description I find no reason to actually watch the video.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 8:17 PM on March 31, 2013


And I shall be dirty... Nevermore!
posted by Splunge at 8:23 PM on March 31, 2013 [2 favorites]


As someone who has had the opportinuty to spend quite a bit of time around non-hostile corvids, let me reiterate my point that they are better referred to as "hoppy-squawkies", though, In this instance, "hoppy-shakies" would be an acceptable substitute.
posted by quin at 8:36 PM on March 31, 2013 [1 favorite]


Back in the 1980's we rescued three Starling chicks which were being hunted by cats after they fledged too early to fly strongly.

My dad found a sickly baby starling back in the early '70s when he and the family were renovating an old store to use for the family business. He brought it home and nursed it back to health. Mom was less than thrilled.

The thing got to where it would follow him like a puppy, if I recall the story correctly (this all happened before I was born). Dad said he'd take it to the store and let it just hang out. Every now and then, when Dad was taking care of a customer, the bird would come looking for him, just fly up to the front of the store, spot him, and land on the showcase where he was working. The showcases had glass tops, of course, so the customer would get the double-whammy of a bird (1) flying at them out of nowhere in a jewelry store and (2) navigating a highly-stressful landing on glass that in my imagination was not unlike Li'l Kirk jacking his stepdad's car and trying not to fall off the cliff to his death in the Star Trek reboot.
posted by middleclasstool at 8:39 PM on March 31, 2013 [2 favorites]


I love hearing and watching flying birds walk, or in the case of this crow, scurry across the floor to get to a highly desired objective. Even the most intelligent, graceful-flying bird looks like a derpity derp pigeon when traversing foot over foot on the ground....*pum pum pum pum pum pum ka pum pum*
Robins can actually run, sparrows hoppity hop, but get a crow (or a monk parakeet that you found in the alley) walking around and you see this extremely uneconomical motion that leaves them with feet crossing in front, tails bobbing and weaving and the head so desperately trying to maintain its dignity.
I always laugh at my parakeet (what that I found in the alley) flying and walking after he's gotten himself soaked in the shower, ravishing shower poofs, or taking the odd bath. His flight is never quiet, given the squawks and wing flapping, but with soaked feathers, I have to wonder if he's nearly at his limit of flight weight, he sounds like a 747 taking off on a too short runway when he flies down the hallway. Whish whish whish goes to wooooosh woooosh woooosh. I laugh at him, and he laughs back, and then indignantly walks away like a sopping wet pigeon with poor prioperception abilities.
posted by Cold Lurkey at 9:10 PM on March 31, 2013 [1 favorite]


This video shows why you shouldn't keep corvids as pets: that crow walked out of the bathroom without drying himself and now he's left wet footprints and drips everywhere.
posted by subbes at 10:44 PM on March 31, 2013


Ahem....ALSO THEY ARE DINOSAURS!

This has been a public service announcement by the Therapod Awareness Foundation.
posted by gamera at 11:31 PM on March 31, 2013 [2 favorites]


When we looked at our current house, three huge crows flew down to hang out with me when I was walking by the pecan trees. Far be it from me to ignore Odin's messengers, so we bought the house. Now I have five, two babies this year. I love them, and the seem to like me, they'll hang out and talk to me when I'm working in the garden. We make sure to leave half the pecans for them and the other critters.
posted by dejah420 at 4:55 AM on April 1, 2013 [3 favorites]



When I was a teen and baby crow fell out of it's nest in our yard. We tried our best to figure out how to return it but had no success. This led to several weeks of keeping the crow indoors in a cage and hand feeding it the most putrid smelling mixture of cat food and apple cooked in the microwave. The bird rescue people gave us the recipe.

The baby became "Petey' and when he grew up his wing feather didn't develop right so he could really fly. (The mother probably knew their was something wrong with him and shoved him out).
Petey moved out to the sundeck and lived on this tall perch that my Dad built. High enough so our cats couldn't get him. At our meal times he would jump down to the window sill of the kitchen window and hang out while we ate. Sometimes if the window was open and Mom was in the kitchen he'd hop in and jump all over the place. He liked Mom the best.

The most interesting thing was how our other animals reacted. We had two big dogs and three cats. Petey became part of the house and even if he was down on the floor the cats (all bird killers) would leave him alone.

When winter came we decided to try to find him a better spot. Ended up a farm with a petting zoo took him in and for several years Petey hung out with all the other animals.

Around the same era my friend across the street rescued a baby crow. Boy were the parent s mad. They stuck around would screech every time they came out onto the deck. They took care of him until he could fly. One day during flying lessons he took off and joined up with the other crows. He never left though. That family was around the neighborhood for years and the crow would regularly fly down to their deck if they were outside.

Crows are awesome.
posted by Jalliah at 9:24 AM on April 1, 2013 [3 favorites]


no NSFW warning?

this video is hot BTW...
posted by ArgentCorvid at 10:48 AM on April 1, 2013


And he can kick your cockatiel's ass.

oh yea? well my cockatiel's gonna... gonna... peek at you endearingly and make little cheeping sounds. so there.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 1:33 PM on April 1, 2013 [3 favorites]


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