MYSTERY!! EGG!!! Could it be........?

[keatonskeets]

Yes, this does sound outrageous. But is it possible for a bird of prey to nest in your coop? My coop, including a small 4' tall loft, is about 12 ft tall, and is triangular. This morning, I opened the shutter door to the loft for the day, only to find this egg when putting them up at night. It is very large, about 1"1/2 long, and solid white. The only hens that I have are barred rocks, 1 silkie, and the pearl-gray guinea hens. It's way too white for a BR, and it's much too large to be from a silkie.

( and I'm not even considering a guinea )
I'm actually starting to lean towards a barn owl. They are around this area, and so far they've met the specifications:

*1"1/2 egg
*solid white
*oblong
*can lay in structures
*does not construct a nest
*usually lays first eggs in early April ---(April's tomorrow)

I'll get some comparison pics of the eggs uploaded tomorrow afternoon, as well as pics of the loft and coop.
In the situation that it is a fertile barn owl egg,..... should I incubate it ?

KEEPIN' 'EM CROSSED!!!

 

[Mahonri]

Keep us updated.

 

[duckyfromoz]

Wow..that would be interesting...especially if you can get it to hatch...

 

[muddyhorse]

we always say silkies will hatch anything

 

[muddyhorse]

we always say silkies will hatch anything

 

[StupidBird]

Oh my! Yes, that does need repeating. Will a silkie hatch the egg? Should the silkie hatch the egg? Oh, yes, I'll keep checking back to see what happens here.

 

[Brody's Broodello]

The silkie will hatch it, it will hatch out and eat the silkie!

 

[fowltemptress]

When I was in second grade, my mother went out and got me some bantam eggs to hatch from a farmer. It would be my first time hatching chickens . . . we'd only had ducks and geese before that. When they did start hatching, they turned out not to be bantams, but owls. I'm not sure how that farmer wound up giving us owl eggs instead of bantam eggs, but the general theory was that an owl just happened to like the chicken coop and the farmer stumbled across the nest and thought his girls had made a secret cache. It was an awful experience after the first excited shock wore off. The bird of prey woman we called to come get the owls was ticked at us. I'm assuming she figured Mom was lying about how the eggs were gotten by accident, and she made no secret of her disgust with us and made sure we knew the owls would never be able to be released into the wild and lead a normal life because of us. We made sure to stick to duck and goose eggs for a long time after that. I wish I knew if she managed to raise the baby owls or not, and what breed they were. Mom never contacted the farmer after she'd gone to purchase the eggs, so we never got his input in the whole situation.

So yeah, the whole point of that . . . One, maybe birds of prey will lay in your coop. I don't really know, but my experience certainly suggests so. Two, no, do NOT incubate it.

 

[keatonskeets]

Well today I found ANOTHER on the loft... The loft door wasn't even OPEN!?! If this really is an owl egg, she would have had to enter through to coop door, and fly up into the loft, ingoring all of the tasty chickies.....

I AM STUMPED!

Here are pics.....

















BARRED ROCK, SILKIE, MYSTERY

BARRED ROCK, MYSTERY, SILKIE

SHOTS OF THE BOTTOMS

 

[mstricer]

Owls will nest during the day it is possible it is nesting in there. How would you feed it? Yuck baby frozen mice in the microwave LOL