Great Horned Owl

[1876 Farm]

We found a great horned owl stuck in the netting of our chicken coop this last weekend. Luckily only the tip of his wing was stuck, but nonetheless, he was stuck fast. We 1st removed the netting above before freeing his wing, but he didn't go anywhere, his wing looked stiff from holding it out. We carefully removed him using a laundry basket and the bottom of one of our dog kennels. We placed him under a tree and after a while he stood up and walked into a secure area between our milk barn and silo. By morning there was no sight of him.

It's been a long road to finding out what was killing our chickens.. we have now installed a chicken butler, added a second electric wire to the top of our 6 foot fence and re-installed netting above.. no small feat since our chicken yard is 25'x50'. So now we sit and wait to see if that has done the trick.

 

[NovaAman]

I am so glad that the owls we have here are unable to get into my coop in any way! I love owls... Would hate to have one get one of my chickens... I wouldn't like them very fast...



AND yes, I know the OP posted this last year...

 

[cmom]

I came across this old thread. Lately my coops have been visited late at night or early in the morning by a great horned owl. I lost 5 birds last week to this predator. I put up my game camera and that is how I solved what was killing my birds. I now have strung fishing line over the pens. Since I put up the fishing lines I haven't seen the owl.

 

[1876 Farm]

CMOM - Stretching fishing line over the chicken yard was the 1st thing we also did... and that is how the owl got caught. Luckily it was only the tip of his wing that got caught and lucky he was near the corner of the pen. We were able to rig up something to carefully pull his wing tip through the fence and clip the string. He was pretty stiff from being there a while so we covered him with a laundry basket, slid in a plastic sheet and moved him to the middle of the yard.

 

[cmom]

This isn't a very good picture.