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- #11
WOW! THe more I hear and read, especially from cgmccary (who seems very knowledgeable on GHO's!) the more convinced I am that you all have absolutely solved my mystery. I, too, VERY often hear owls hooting at dusk and early night, but for some reason I just never really thought about them as enemies of my geese, mostly because geese are soooo big! I was dying to know what was getting my pet geese (mine really are pets that stay in my fence most of the time even though they could fly. I also hatched them all myself and played with them endlessly when they were babies, so this has been pretty upsetting. Its also strange that I never lost a single one in 3 years and now I've lost 3 in less than a week. I guess an owl is smart enough that once it learns where a free meal can be had it keeps going back. Hey....if they opened a good restaurant with free food near my house I'd do the same thing. THe big question now is what I can do to protect my remaining birds. Probably nothing short of trying to get them in the barn at night, which isn't practical every night. I will confess....at risk of undoubtedly upsetting some of you....that I might consider the 3-S approach recommended on here by some (shoot, shovel, shut-up) but since owls are nocturnal that probably wouldn't be possible even if I did decide to go that route (relax, I just said I'd consider it). I've heard that if string fishing line all around my field (maybe from trees or barn tops to the ground) that a bird of pray only has to hit it once or twice before they decide its too dangerous to hunt and fly in that area. Anyone know if that's true? Even so, a 2.5 acre area would probably be too large to put enough lines up to do much good. I'm all ears, my friends. Meanwhile, thanks for your help...I am confident you've solved my mystery.