Owl! Big Owl!

[sourland]

I think that it is difficult to gauge size from that picture. The white throat patch is typical of a GHO, and if it had a 4' wingspan, it is indeed a GHO. It will continue to try for your birds. They are tenacious and patient killers.

 

[LIBERTYNY]

Their are various web sites that will tell you what owls your states have as well as some clips of the sounds each make. This should help you identfy the owl.

 

[hennypenny99]

He/She was back last night again! I have put a game camera on top of the camper to try and take a picture but it must know there is something different up there because now it hasn't landed there again. I really have no clue what type of owl it is but it does have white under it's neck and it is about a foot tall with a wingspan of about 4 feet or so. I am in SE Oklahoma.

I got into chickens last spring. My father in law and husband built me a nice secure coop and I had a small flock of about 8 or so chickens and 2 turkeys. On weekends and afternoons when I got home I would let them Free Range and they would always go to their coop at night to sleep. Eventually I stopped shutting them up at all and they could come and go as they pleased but always came back to the coop to sleep at night. Here is a pic before it was completely finished. There is a fence around it now.



Fall came and I got the incubation bug. I had discovered a love for Silkies so I started incubating some silkie eggs. They hatched out and when they got around a month old or so I moved them to a temporary run and bought 8 guineas from a local breeder and raised them with the silkies.


When I turned them out they weren't too happy. Here they are begging to be let back in. Unfortunately by this time my chickens in the coop had stopped sleeping in there and were roosing out here on top of my temporary teenager pen.


I had started with 8 guineas but one had a deformed leg and was picked off quickly by a predator of some sort which left me with the 7 pictured above. One was ran over on the highway and I had 6 left. 5 Males and 1 Female. So about a month ago I bought 6 more females so I have a dozen happy guineas now. They all free range and sleep in a pine tree right next to my bedroom window. Their teenage pen was located just underneath the pine tree they now roost in.




The silkies don't use the coop either, they sleep under my car and even crawl up inside the front fender to roost! I have to de-chicken my car if I go anywhere after dark and even found an egg in there once! I only have 2 standard hens left and they sleep on top of a rabbit hutch under the pine tree the guineas sleep in.

I know this is MY FAULT and I should have made the chickens use the coop. I am going to start keeping my silkies in the coop at night. The only reason I haven't is because I have one game hen who actually uses the coop and she is setting eggs in there right now. I can't catch the guineas I was just hoping I could do something to scare away the owl.

Anyways this morning at 6 AM I hear the guineas start screaming like I have never heard before. I look outside the window and the owl is not on the camper? We get dressed and go outside to investigate and sitting on the limb the guineas are roosting on not 3 feet from them is the owl. It flew away when it saw us but it's getting braver. We got back to bed and not 10 minutes later hear something slap the wall of the house. We get back up and don't see anything. When I left for work my silkie who had two babies was still under my car which is unusual because she is usually up early. I was standing outside waiting on my kids to get in the car when she comes out and she only has one baby left. I think the owl swooped down and got one of her babies this morning. She hatched out some of her own and I gave her 3 to adopt. She lost her first two that she hatched quickly and she has one left now, the little red one I gave her.



This is all because of poor planning on my part and I guess I had a false sence of security because I haven't had alot of trouble with predators up until now. I still have all my adult chickens and every single guinea but if I can't keep the owl away they won't last.

 

[RCRIR]

When you see/hear these owls, is there a faint skunk odor in the air? I can usually smell the owls before I hear them. GHO's love skunk meat.

 

[KimKimWilliamso]

I have many GHO's in my area. During the cold winter months there would literally be 4 or 5 at a time in the barn and the tree's surrounding my area. They varied in size greatly, some HUGE and seemingly knee high or higher, then others quite tiny, and narrow. Research told me the larger ones are females, the smaller ones are males. I ws hoping for babies, but never did get them. Since it has warmed, they no longer live in my trees, bu they do hunt in them. They now go somewhere else to sleep. When they are here, they will allow me, my kids, my dogs and anthing else to get close. They are fearless, as they are at the top of the food chain.

They eat the grouse and pheasants that live on our land, and I often find wings void of a body under a tree branch with some owl poo. Where our coop is located, there is an overhang from the garage, and some trees that prevent the wing span of the owls to get into our run so we didnt bother covering it. Plus, we will have them in the coop at night and the owls only really hunt at dusk, and through the night, and just before sunrise. Ive watched them sleep right through a grouse feeding fest below them during daylight hours.

I love them, but hope they dont get my chickens!

 

[hennypenny99]

I think they are really neat too. Before I even had chickens there was an owl that visited the yard every evening. Later there was another one in the graveyard across the road and they would "talk" back and forth. I think I will put up a spotlight and see if that will discourage him or possibly her because it is pretty big.

 

[hennypenny99]

I haven't smelled anything that I can remember. I wish my camera would do better pics from my bedroom window. It's strange because it looks perfect on the LDC screen of the camera but with I am about to take the pic it gets all black like that and if I use the flash it just reflects off my window and looks bright white.

When you see/hear these owls, is there a faint skunk odor in the air? I can usually smell the owls before I hear them. GHO's love skunk meat.

 

[centrarchid]

GHO's are a pain to deal with. Penning your birds up at night is the most worry free option but other options possible. GHO's will walk to get to victims but I have yet to have one fly up and catch victim from below so can be defeated by modifying where fowl roost which is not practical if they are in a tree.

If you have stomach for it, sit out in chair very quitely about time owl flies in to see how it operates. I think you will find your fowl will raise a ruckus as soon as owl flies into tree. The owl will walk over to fowl and somehow motivate them to eventually bail out of tree and likely fly to ground. It is there that owl makes actual attack. If victim is large (>3 lbs), the owl will do eating right there, if small it may attempt to drag or fly off with carcass. If victim is very small (< 1.5 lbs) the owl may simply grab victim while in tree and fly off to dispatch it elsewhere if talons have not already done so. To stop owl, simply let it know you are looking at it from below. If it persist with driving a bird from tree, then stand by fallen bird and owl will not come after it while you are there.

We used to have juvenile game fowl roosting in catalpa trees during summer and owls would come in occasionally to take birds. To stop, we chained a coonhound to base of tree with doghouse. Dog would get up when chickens made a ruckus spoiling owl's efforts. I use this now with free-ranging dog that loves to watch owl when it stirs birds up. It will knock a chicken down and dog will walk over next to chicken and look up at owl, apparently hoping owl will come down. So long as dog is in place, I do not loose juvenile chickens (standard size) to GHO when dog is about. Dog needs to be large enough owl want go after is so chihahuas not good for this.

Something else I have learned is that if owl stirs up fowl, you are likely to have somebody else like a fox come in later, possibly for purpose of stealing owls booty or catching what owl knocked out of tree but otherwise did not take. Owl is effectively creating a predator call.

 

[countrygirl36]

if it had a white neck its most likely some kind of barn owl,i think a barn owl would be too small to grab a chicken or guinea hen but you should defiately be worried just in case

 

[countrygirl36]

if it had a white neck its most likely some kind of barn owl,i think a barn owl would be too small to grab a chicken or guinea hen but you should defiately be worried just in case