A 49-year-old pub landlord is helping to raise the first-ever generation of ‘tame’ Tower of London ravens in an effort to stop them from flying off.
Watch the man who is raising the first-ever generation of ‘tame’ Tower of London ravens
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Legend says that the ‘Tower and the Kingdom will fall’ if less than six ravens are left at the historic landmark.
There are normally six ravens and a spare at the Tower. All those ravens have their wings clipped to stop them from flying.
However, Mike Keen, from Ipswich, is raising the first-ever generation of ‘tame’ Tower of London ravens and hoping that they will not fly off.
Mike said: “It is a big responsibility keeping these birds safe so they’re living in my bedroom for now. 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.”
Mike has an adult pet raven named Grippe for the past 14 months and when he contacted Chris Skaife, Tower of London’s Ravenmaster, he came to meet her and said that she’s the tamest raven he had ever met.
Mike is currently raising three chicks that he picked from the Tower’s aviary.
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 five times a day.”
Chris hopes to create a breeding programme by tracing the bloodline of the ravens who live at the Tower of London.
Mike said: “We wanted people in the future to properly trace the bloodline and generations. That’s why we wanted to create a proper Tower family.”
Currently, seven ravens live at the Tower of London, if any of them dies, it will be replaced with Mike’s ravens.
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