Owl Repellant?

[chunky_ficken]

Last night an owl dropped from the sky while my wife was out tending to the flock. He tried to take a 12 week old Welsummer Rooster, but my wife's screams scared him off. Our flock free ranges, and this is the first predator attack we have had (knock on wood).

My questions are: what measures can be taken to keep the birds safe from these evening assaults? Would a scarecrow deter an owl? Does the Nite Gaurd product work? Will they take full grown chickens?

Right now, I can't financially swing covering their whole yard area. They have covered coops and pens, but this attack came at a time before they went to roost.

Thanks for any input.

 

[rhodiegal]

I'm sorry I don't know what would work with an owl. But when we had Old English Game chickens, they used to perch in the trees at night with our Guineas. There was a Great Horned owl that would attack our Guineas almost every single night. Oddly, he never touched the chickens - they were still on their branch in the trees. The Old English are smaller than the larger breed chickens - but not nearly as super stong as the Guinees where. Eventually, after the attacks became fairly routine, the chickens moved to different locations - some went under our front porch for the night - one perched in the window above our front door! The Guineas still stayed in the trees and continued to be attacked and scattered.

Honestly, it was so upseting getting woken up in the middle of the night with birds flying into the house and making noise that we eventually gave all the tree perching chickens and Guineas away to someone who could keep them coop (we did not have room).

 

[kcfuerst]

Any bird, including owls, will become disoriented and will not dive if you tie up heavy, plain, monofilament fishing line overhead. For some reason, they cannot navigate through it. Commercial fishing boats use this method to keep all manner of birds from their vessels. I have heard it first hand from a Navy Officer friend of mine who has used this method himself aboard ships over his lifetime. If you have trees surrounding your run, tie a network of line to them over the run. I have also heard that hanging CDs around will scare them off.

 

[Buck Creek Chickens]

I use turkeys, since i've gotten them the owls perch in the trees and hoot, I've had owl attacks for 4+ years a family used my chickens for training there babies

 

[CoyoteMagic]

I've been told to hang a few CD/DVD's around so that they twist and spin. The light reflecting off them disorents owls, hawks, etc.

 

[Garlydog]

I have successfully used the CD strategy to repel all manner of bee eating birds from my beehives. I bet they would work for owls too.