Crows, members of the corvid family, highly value peanuts as a food source. Their opportunistic feeding habits and natural preference for energy-dense items make the high-fat nut appealing. Peanuts are readily accepted when offered by humans and quickly become a favored part of their diet.
Yes, Crows Eat Peanuts
Crows are exceptionally adept at handling and consuming peanuts, demonstrating a preference for the in-shell variety. They use their strong, versatile beaks to manipulate the nut, often wedging it into a crack or crevice to stabilize it before cracking the shell open. Once broken, the crow easily extracts the nutrient-rich kernel inside.
In urban environments, crows sometimes use non-natural tools to access the food. Some crows have been documented placing hard nuts, including peanuts, in the path of slow-moving traffic to crush the shells. After a car passes, the crow waits for a break in traffic to safely retrieve the open kernel. This behavior highlights the high value the birds place on the food and their capacity for solving feeding problems.
Nutritional Benefits and Health Risks
Peanuts offer nutritional advantages for crows due to their high content of fats and proteins. These macronutrients provide a rapid calorie boost, beneficial for maintaining body temperature during colder periods. This energy source supports the crow’s active lifestyle, fueling foraging, flying, and social behaviors. Peanuts also contain various vitamins and minerals.
However, offering peanuts to crows is not without health hazards. Salted peanuts are detrimental, as the elevated sodium levels can lead to dehydration and toxicosis in birds. The greater concern involves the risk of contamination from aflatoxins, poisonous compounds produced by the molds Aspergillus flavus and A. parasiticus. These molds thrive on peanuts that have been stored improperly in warm, damp conditions.
Aflatoxins are potent liver toxins that can be lethal to birds, even in small doses, by impairing development, immune function, and liver health. For this reason, any peanuts provided to crows must be raw, unsalted, and certified as aflatoxin-free from a supplier specializing in wildlife feed. Feeding small, fresh batches helps mitigate the risk of mold growth after the peanuts have been placed outside.
Peanut Caching and Intelligence
The high-value nature of peanuts makes them particularly suitable for the corvid behavior known as caching, or storing food for future use. Crows, ravens, and other corvids demonstrate impressive spatial memory by burying or hiding individual peanuts and accurately recalling their precise locations much later. This behavior is considered evidence of their advanced cognitive abilities, suggesting they can plan for future needs.
The practice of caching requires not only a strong memory but also an understanding of future states, a capacity once believed to be limited to primates. Studies involving corvids often use peanuts to test these cognitive skills because they are an easily transportable and highly desired item. Furthermore, the act of reliably providing peanuts can foster a unique relationship between crows and human feeders. Crows have been observed using these high-value items as a form of “gifting,” sometimes leaving an object for a human who consistently provides the snack, demonstrating a learned association and social intelligence.