Feb 6th, 2020 : Raven Maniac

[xoxoxoBruce]

Mike Keen, a chef/pub landlord is raising Ravens for the Tower of London so the Kingdom won’t implode... or Brexit.

The keen animal lover has owned an adult pet raven for the past 14 months named Grippe and during that time he started to contact fellow raven keepers. He said: 'The community is very tight knit and not very large. 'I started talking to Chris Skaife, Tower of London's Ravenmaster, on Instagram, and he's probably the most important raven keeper in the community. 'I showed him pictures of Grippe, and he came to meet her and said that she is the tamest raven he has ever met.' Grippe sits on pub landlord Mike's shoulder most of the day, and is free to fly around the pub's beer garden. Chris has ambitions of being able to properly trace the bloodline of the ravens which live at the Tower of London and create a breeding programme.

Last weekend Mike picked up three chicks from the Tower's aviary, and brought them back to his Suffolk pub to raise them with more space. The chicks were the first to be born at the Tower in 30 years, Mike says before this: 'Usually replacement ravens were wild or rescue birds.'
He said: 'The babies are massive, my Grippe is about 1.3kg but at four weeks old these chicks are already almost as big. 'They're going to be huge, they can't even move properly because their wings can't support their weight. 'They're in my bedroom at the moment because they do not fly until 10 weeks old, they can't even properly move. 'At the moment they're being fed raw liver, scrambled eggs and raw chicken about 5 times a day.

Is that rain or are they shaking off cooties?

'Once these ravens are old enough hopefully they'll live in the beer garden and pick up scraps, hopefully not people's Sunday roast while they're eating.'
Mike admits there is a lot of pressure to keep these ravens safe, so he will keep the congress in a secured aviary, fitted with alarms and CCTV.

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