# Fresh water



## QtrBel (May 31, 2012)

Birds dropping by for a drink. The only bird I remember that washes food is a crow though. Raccoons will. The rabbit could well.have jumped in and could not get out. We always have a ladder or branch in so animals that fall in can get out.


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## D Dee (May 6, 2021)

We have a Raven family living very near. I guess they don't want to get their feet muddy using the small pond. Thanks for your input.


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## waresbear (Jun 18, 2011)

When I saw that, I thought ravens, minus the jack rabbit, all that yuck has been in our trough. Nesting ravens, guilty party.


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## horselovinguy (Oct 1, 2013)

Hawks like to wash their food sometimes before the eat it...
So do Eagles as we often find those things in our trough too...and we have hunting birds who sit on the fence in that area eating their meal.
Crows do too but they are more skittish and fly off easily.
🐴 ...


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## QtrBel (May 31, 2012)

Interesting. We have hawks, eagles, osprey. None that have washed their dinner that I am aware of. Thankful for that. Moe, Larry, Curly and Joe, Joe2 and Shemp, our resident crows I assume use the neighbors pond but come drink in our big tank.


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## AragoASB (Jul 12, 2020)

Ravens eat snakes and animals and game that size. 

They are very intelligent and also have senses of humor. For example- I was at a campground way out in the west. Ravens had stolen someone's roll of toilet paper. They were flying in a high swirling mob in the wind, swooping on each other like fighter planes. One would drop the roll. It would fall streaming down and another would flip upside down in the air, catch it and be chased. Other ravens grabbed the torn loose streamers. Finally there was nothing left but the cardboard tube, which was not considered much of a prize apparently and they flew off. 

Another thing ravens do is they fly along roads looking for road kill. Probably they come to your water trough to wash off the dirt.


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## horselovinguy (Oct 1, 2013)

I was watching the hawk today as he ate his morsel of field mouse...
Maybe he wasn't and doesn't "wash" but does drop some pieces... in the water trough. Ick.
What I thought was "washing" might be him going to get a fresh drink of water _after_ eating...  
That is absolutely a possibility.
🐴....


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## ButtermilkBuckskin (May 8, 2021)

Maybe something like this will help? https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/nrcs142p2_041023.pdf


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## AragoASB (Jul 12, 2020)

" 
" About one year ago I found a dead full grown Jack rabbit in our horse trough which is nearly 3 ft tall.
Recently I found pieces of a large snake, bird foot, frog foot and various entrails sitting on the bottom of the trough. "

A ramp would have helped the jack rabbit but these latest bits were already dead.


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## waresbear (Jun 18, 2011)

What I hate most about those ravens, they crap in the trough, usually after its filled. I gave them their own trough very close to the horses, nope, didn't bother with it. Put the two troughs side by side, they foul both, equally.


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## AragoASB (Jul 12, 2020)

At the training barn where my horse lived for 8 or 9 months, the mare and the gelding turnouts which are large fields, the water tough is dumped and changed every day. The horses spend the night in stalls where the water is also changed every day. I had never realized what connoisseurs horse of water horses are. Fresh clean water and they drink more than they would of of than old , stale spit water. Whether water has animal parts or poop or not they still prefer fresh water. Wouldn't you?


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## waresbear (Jun 18, 2011)

AragoASB said:


> At the training barn where my horse lived for 8 or 9 months, the mare and the gelding turnouts which are large fields, the water tough is dumped and changed every day. The horses spend the night in stalls where the water is also changed every day. I had never realized what connoisseurs horse of water horses are. Fresh clean water and they drink more than they would of of than old , stale spit water. Whether water has animal parts or poop or not they still prefer fresh water. Wouldn't you?


When you are on a drilled well, in fact a second drilled well that cost more than most people's houses (had to ditch 1200', powerful expensive pump) you try not to waste fresh water on insignificant things. During nesting season, which is now, a nest in the tree directly behind the paddocks, I only fill the trough 1/2 way or less. I can't wait for fledgling time, about June. This year, I am not rescuing any bayrays (baby ravens) from my Cattle Dogs. Their job is to keep ravens away, when I to tell them to back off on one that's an easy target, they think I've gone mad! For such a smart, vindictive bird, their babies are not! When they leave the nest, they don't just fly away well. They fly to smaller trees, to the ground, to the fence, I can't tell you how many I have saved through the years. And the parents, while I am carrying their kids to safety, are flying above me, dropping sticks & pinecones on my head!


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## AragoASB (Jul 12, 2020)

I did a 3 year study on the nesting of crows in Texas on 1000 acres. Crow females, (they mate for life) call to their mates to feed them while they are on the nest. I found I could climb into 75% of nest trees and weigh and tag the babies- how many hatched, how many fledged and was able to tag them by colored tags put on their legs to keep track of them. By crawling through the underbrush in camoflage dressed as a bush I was able to deciphered 18 of the calls of crows. I learned that crow hens lay an egg every other day while they are sitting. In good years all the babies fledged. In poor years only 1 or 2 fledged. Once I learned this I helped myself to these smaller surplus babies and raised them by hand. They were never caged. I had as many of 7 a year. These surplus babies were tha craziets and silliest birds I have ever known. They would remove the clothes pins of neighbors and fly home with their underwear. They enjoyed taking junk mail from the mailbox and fly off into the woods. I would ride across country on horseback. They would perch on the mare;s neck and rump, flying down to catch grasshoppers. Since I was the Aububob Society president I took a tame crow to a meeting and taught the membership to make crow calls and there meaning, to their great amusement. As it turns out, crows have a local language. Crows in one part of the county cannot understand the dialect of other local crows- just like the languages of people.

Crows are simpletons compared to Ravens. Now I am blessed to live in raven country. Young Ravens Rival Adult Chimps in a Big Test of General Intelligence

Anyway, it occurs to me in this case of the OPs animal parts it might be a raccoon washing animal parts in the horse trough. Although ravens would be washing dirt off in other places. I have learned that many species of animals and birds are connoisseurs of water. For this reason I always rinse and fill the biuckets in my horse stalls.


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## Part-Boarder (Aug 17, 2019)

I would think the “leftovers” are from birds of prey holding their catch, coming in for a drink and dropping the food by accident and then not being able to retrieve it.


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## AragoASB (Jul 12, 2020)

Bless you wearsbear for rescuing the baby ravens. It is not because baby ravens are stupid. It is because all altricial birds birdshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altriciality when learning to fly can only flap downwards. It is because their wings are not strong yet. They flutter downwards then hop to a bush or rock, then hop or flap to a higher branch, then hop higher in a tree and try again. And the parents are smart enough to bomb you with pinecones.

The ravens think of you as a predator that gets their babies. One thing to try would be make a scarecrow of old clothes you wear and a hat. They know it's not really you but it might give them the willies enough to stay off the trough.


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## waresbear (Jun 18, 2011)

Of all the years of living with these birds, and yes we used to feed them canned trout, only one fledgling flew from the nest to another tall tree and so on. First time they nested in our front yard, tallest tree, the parents came & got us to rescue their baby from our dog. Unfortunately it broke its back. My husband on oxygen (pre lung transplant), put a ladder to a smaller adjacent tree, climbed up there with a laundry basket and injured baby bird & secured and left it there. Some natives told him the ravens were sent as an omen as to whether he would be going on another journey or carrying on with new life. Because one lived, he figured he had a 50 50 chance. Following year, he was in hospital waiting for new lungs, in pretty bad shape, we Skyped and I showed him 4 bayrays wandering the property. Our old dog at the time, didn't bother with them. I had to be aware of everywhere I went, those birds were there and hissing & biting. Following years, they nested further down out of sight but could still here the bayrays screaming for food. This year, right behind the paddocks. It's time they move on, no other birds come around, they dominate. I put up a bird feeder with seeds, they don't like seeds, so they destroyed it. I was bleaching the trough they fouled and rinsing feed buckets. Had to go inside for something, came back, they crapped in every bucket, in the empty trough and on the scrub brush I was using. Definitely in retaliation for the Cattle Dogs putting the pressure on them. Ranchers here, shoot any raven they see. Apparently they eat the eyeballs out of calves being born before they hit the ground, then take the afterbirth.


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## AragoASB (Jul 12, 2020)

I'm glad your husband had a transplant- that is great. 

I am a rancher's wife and I know about livestock losses. I have watched calving cows, I watch with binoculars. Normally, cattle mothers almost instantly turn to smell their baby and lick them and clean off the membranes. When the calf is born dead they wander off. It seems to be the movement of the new born that excites the mother to care for them. They also eat their own placenta so the mom has a protein meal and will not have to go off and graze for a while. Ranchers do say that ravens and crows peck eyes of calves but I have never seen it. I do know that when a cow or horse dies the first thing the scavengers go for is the eyes


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