Before you head off to the fields for your crow nest, read what a day was like for this former crow owner:
8:00am: The baby is squawling to let me know he is hungry. I want a few more minutes of sleep and try to ignore him, but his tone is getting louder and more insistant. AAH AAH AAAH..... If I don't get up, he'll come out of the playpen and who knows what mischief he'll get into.
8:15am: Uh Oh. I slept for a little bit more and now I don't hear any sounds from the baby's room. That is not a good sign. I truck out to find him and discover that he is indeed out of the playpen and is sitting innocently by the front door. Further investigation shows that my TV Remote Controller is behind him, and it no longer has a Record Button. That's the third button missing off the Controller, and it means that Daddy will be giving me a stern lecture later about the 60 dollars that went into getting the Remote Control. Oh well, at least that's the worst of the damage for the morning. I say this before I head into the kitchen to get the babys food and notice the huge puddle all over the floor. The baby was playing in the dog's water dish. He loves baths and will happily splash in and out of the water for twenty minutes or so, till he's drenched and the floor tile is loosening. Sigh.
After giving him a couple of bites of food and rubbing his head, he's sleepy and quiet. That lasts for about five minutes, until our three dogs start prancing around the living room and then he's out of the playpen and following them around. He snatches away the smallest dogs' squeek toy and runs around the room with it away from the snarling, growling dog. Finally, the dog gives up and lays in a sunny spot by the window. The baby is now contrite, brings the squeek toy back to the dog, and attempts to play with him. Our dog is no fool. Although he nuzzles the baby at first and shares the sun with him for a few minutes, he knows that sooner or later the baby is going to pull his tail. The dog stalks off to the bedroom for some undisturbed rest. Poor baby is bored again and starts flipping the squeek toy over his head and catching it. This only amuses him for a few minutes and then he is off to examine the power strip for the TV set. He knows that if he plinks on the red button, the TV goes off (just like the computers do!!!) and he knows he'll have Mom and Dad paying attention to him. When the yelling is over, he sees a letter laying on top of the glass top coffee table. While mom is on the phone, he jumps up and down several times next to the table until he finally snags the corner of the letter. Then it's another screetching race around the room while mom tries to get the phone bill from him before he tears it to bits. Sometimes she's too slow and all she can do is pick up all the holey little portions of paper from the floor.
Off to the playpen again!! The playpen is filled with toys for the baby-the best Fisher-Price rattles and beepers and wiggly things money can buy-but Baby has a short attention span with toys. The toys are supplemented with spoons and pill bottles and nickles and plastic bugs and pencils. Baby supplements more things to the pile all the time. In a short while though, he has escaped again and is sitting in his favorite living room chair making a hole in the fabric as well as a dirty mess on the seat. Mom doesn't like that so he's shooed off and plays a game of hide and seek with her under the dining room table. After a while I give up because he has more energy than I do, and I'm off to the kitchen for a cup of coffee. Baby follows me into the kitchen and lets me pick him up for a return to his playpen for a short snooze.
Later, I discover that he'd managed to sneak up onto Dad's chair and get into all the goodies that Dad keeps around his computer. I am able to deduce this because there is a black magic marker pen with it's cap off and the tip ripped out in the living room, staining the carpet, and stashed behind another chair is a loose cd with large scrapes all over the shiny metallic surface. At least the damaged cd takes my mind off the edge of the carpet that the baby has managed to shred in the room corner. I give up and go for a snack. Baby wants some of the snack too and h's out of the playpen crying AAH AAH AAH's until I give him some of it. When he's done with the snack, he's off to stalk the cat. The cat tries to get away by jumping on a chair, but leaves her tail dangling down. Of course the baby pulls it. In the ensuing pandemonium all the dogs come running to help. The best way to break it up is to throw something black. Baby especially doesn't like Dad's black mousepad, and races away in alarm. He let's me know about the dangerous mousepad with loud AWAWAWAWAWAW's so I'll come and save him, which of course I always do. Then he's off to the windowsill to drop pennies in the window slots and to bite off the sill plaster.
10:00am: He's finally tired enough to take another snooze so I can get some work done. The house is now a bloody mess with little bits of shredded paper, toys, poop, water and whatnot all over the place. He can cause more disruption in an hour than two toddlers and runs me ragged trying to keep up with him. He'll only sleep for about an hour. Then he'll be back out of the playpen fresh as a daisy, and start the whole show all over again. My only duty in life now is to keep him out of trouble till he finally falls asleep for the evening. He's a handful, but when he bends his head down for me to rub, and murmers his sweet, soft little "brkabrkabrka"-the crow requivalent of "I love you mommy"- it's all worth it for me.
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Well, even though life with a crow sounds cute, I wouldn't recommend anyone getting one unless you are willing to sacrifice a lot of time, energy and sanitization. Crows poop alot worse than parrots, especially as babies. You can get a parrot "diaper" for them, but I doubt it will stay on for more than a minute and it's horrible to wrestle it on them anyway. Also, you can't stick a crow in a cage. Crows cannot stand being alone-really-and will let you know that they don't like being in the cage. Crows make large parrots sound quiet by comparison. At least a parrot will eventually shut up. A crow won't. Unless you are half deaf or have a good set of earplugs, you will not be able to stand it (Maybe now is the time for me to also mention that crows "talk" in their sleep with loud obnoxious sounds?). Ours had a large (4'x 4'x 4') cage but it was only used it as a perch at night, or for him to hide in when we had company he didn't recognize. He spent the rest of the time walking through all the rooms of the house and hopping up on all of the furniture pooping all the way. They don't use the term "dirty bird" for nothing. Luckily, bird poop is mostly lime, and vacuums up easily after it dries, but your friends will not approve.
You also have to watch a crow every minute. They are like a small smart child and can get into everything . They understand a lot of verbal commands but saying "No" to a crow makes them even more fascinated with doing whatever you didn't want them to. They are also sneaky and devious, with long memories. For example; the crow was told "No" when he tried to sneak a floppy disk out of the computer hard drive. He knew what "no" meant. He understood our verbal commands better than our dogs. He walked away. Ten minutes later, when our attention was turned away, he RAN to grab the disk and screetched at us all the while he was runring away with it. This would happen again and again. If you tried to hide things from him, block them off, lock them up, whatever, he would figure out how to get to it. You can't even child proof the electrical outlets because they can get just about of the covers off!
If you want a outdoor pet crow rather than going through the problems of household mess/destruction with an indoor crow, you need to know that he will eventually fly away or worse yet be easily killed by a person/animal because of the tameness. I don't agree with taking babies from their nests either, but I also don't agree with the "Wildlife Experts" killing an otherwise healthy crow who is not able to fly. If you are still willing to raise a crow, I'd suggest that you put out word to your friends to be on the lookout for injured crows. Maybe even check with farmers who are about to exterminate a group of them and see if you can rescue one that would otherwise normally be killed.
