Great-horned Owl fun in 2017

[animals1981]

golden eagle actually landed on the ground and displaced a coyote from its dinner.

 

[animals1981]

patrica you also keep CO? i have them as well they are the best. But scary if a stranger comes on our property i worry about.

 

[animals1981]

owls are night predators if chickens are locked up they will just eat the predators that the chickens attract. Good bird to have around. I use their statues to scare animals. It only works if i keep moving the fake owl around though.

 

[centrarchid]

No. The owls may eat the bigger stuff on occasion but smaller fare like rabbits and voles likely far more important. In the past when owl messed with chickens on front porch, a red fox as also certain to come through about 30 minutes later to get chickens knocked off the roost.

 

[animals1981]

I hear an owl hooting all morning and late afternoon. Not sure I hear the owl at night. After reading the other thread, I guess I need to be concerned and extra protective of my chickens and ducks, huh?

I hope you don't have any losses this year.

depends on the owl the great horned owl is the only serious predator so are snowy owls but i doubt they would be around where u live. barred owls are more concerned with rats and rodents.

THe other owls are really small.

 

[animals1981]

oh i forgot to mention great horned owls decimate hawk populations, falcon populations also osprey. They just ruthless. They often get hawks at night but can clear the area of them.

 

[centrarchid]

The Great-horned Owls do not always come out on top. This is second year where the local pair is to failed in fledging chicks. Normally I would start hearing chicks in April and it continues through November. The chicks worked my pens very hard but they were after rodents more than the chickens. Owl coming in on my grape arbor is going after rabbits is a patch of native rose.

 

[Thorn Fulford]

Lost 5 of 15 chicks to one this morning

 

[centrarchid]

Sorry for your loss.


I just had some Great-horned Owl fun a little before midnight. For much of day the younger birds were given some free-range time. During that time a made some upgrades so they could not roost on top of dog kennels in the barn. This done using deer netting, the bane of Great-horned Owls. It worked. I left chickens roosting on other side of barn realizing a risk was being taken. Mice have come into barn since onset of fall weather which draws in raptors into barn itself.

When I checked outside around 2328 the female dog was focussed on barn yet in the house. I shined spotlight on barn and chickens immediately started cackling like they do for owls and dog ran in that direction and around fence to cut escape options. Then I saw a GHO fly out of barn. Chickens that were out almost all on ground, holding tails up and were fluffed, classic response to GHO. It took 30 minutes to police up birds loosed earlier in the day. Number of heads and bodies matched and were attached so all good there. Chickens were bailing from roost even in pens the GHO had no chance of getting into.

More netting will be added for entertainment of the owl. It appears to be hunting mice pretty hard.

Based on dogs it just came back!

 

[centrarchid]

Tonight I will setup two game cameras to see what the owl is doing inside the barn. Part of this will be to determine where it is getting at mice. That may be facilitated so owl does not disturb chickens. Then I will look into ways owl can be denied access to barn. My gut feeling that will be a pain in the butt.