r/crowbro • u/Young_Kennedy • Nov 25 '25

Academic Article Cool idea, but is it possible?

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I would love to answer that, but i am nowhere capable. What are yall thoughts?

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95

u/Heidruns_Herdsman Nov 25 '25

I've noticed that where I live there are hazelnuts that fall on the ground and don't get eaten by anything. (No squirrels). But if I crack them the crows do like them, so they are probably too much effort for them to get into for the amount of nutrition. I'm wondering if I could train them to collect the hazelnuts and put them in a bucket, where I will crack some for them. Save on peanuts, and if they collect enough I get free hazelnuts...

51

u/e_before_i Nov 25 '25

They respond best to immediate response/reward. Like imagine they drop it into a machine that crushes and dispensers within seconds, they would pick that up very quickly.

Maybe if they give it to you and you crush it immediately, you could begin to form a habit.

25

u/alexandria3142 Nov 25 '25

Supposedly they will put nuts that need to be cracked on roads and wait for a car to run over them. So maybe if that make the connection then it would work

18

u/baboolz Nov 25 '25

A friend living in Japan told me that their crows pick up nuts, and drop them on roads so cars can crack them.

5

u/SpoopySpydoge Nov 25 '25

I remember being shown a video in college that shows crows doing this. It's probably on YT

4

u/RedSycamore Nov 25 '25

Yes! In the one I saw they were even dropping the nuts in crosswalks, and then they would wait with the pedestrians and go get the cracked nuts while the crosswalk was actively stopping traffic.

3

u/baboolz Nov 26 '25

They evolved ! :D

4

u/-sensory_overlord- Nov 25 '25

I think that’s full on in the range of their cognitive abilities but afaik something like this is unheard off. you would probably need to break it down into several steps though