Great Horned Owl

[morganponies2]

Got home from work this morning to find a large Great Horned Owl inside the chicken run!!! We have bird netting that we keep over our runs, but the owl must have found an overlapping section and got in. Once inside, he couldn't find his way back out! Thankfully all the chickens ( Lavender Orpingtons and my sweet Silkie Kids) were all locked up in the coop!!! They were sitting on their perches looking out the windows at the owl........jeeez guys!!! At least duck!!!!!

 

[Impress]

I bet they were thinking, "Wow, is that a new chicken friend? It's BIG! Let's go play with it!"

 

[Mattemma]

Glad no losses.Any pictures?

 

[Dutch552]

Lucky! I've had a great horned owl carry off an adult housecat from the front yard before like it was nothing, they are huge birds.

 

[mrpekinduck]

Thats good you're really lucky!

 

[Gresh]

LOL, at least he didn't hurt your babies! I'd probably have given him a good whop and then set him free, on account that it's illegal to eradicate birds of prey. Darn environmentalists!!!

 

[sourland]

In my experience GHO are very persistent. He/she will very likely return. Once when I left the bobs open to one of my pigeon lofts a GHO gained entrance and killed several birds. I netted and released it. The next evening there it was trying to get back into the loft. For all I know, it may still be trying to gain entrance. The bobs are no longer left unsecured.

 

[goldeneggtees]

Really?

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[Moonkit]

Quote:

Yes. Aside from wanting to make easy meals of your unprotected chicks, they do serve an important purpose in keeping down the population of disease carrying rodents. The good they do is considered to outway the bad of the "occasional" loss of an unprotected chicken.

 

[ReikiStar]

Quote:

Yes. Aside from wanting to make easy meals of your unprotected chicks, they do serve an important purpose in keeping down the population of disease carrying rodents. The good they do is considered to outway the bad of the "occasional" loss of an unprotected chicken.

Thank you Moonkit & Howling. I was thinking, "Hmmm...its one of God's creatures, why would you want to kill it for trying to feed itself and last time I checked, Environmentalists were God's children too". Hypocritical much?