i am losing my ducks at an alarming rate. we have so many owls and they eating our chickens and ducks. They have nested here are breeding . Are all owls protected in pennsylvania and is their anything we can do to get the owls to move on. It seems hopeless unlike the chickens that we close in at night the ducks want to stay in the water. It is terrible . by the way the owls that we have nesting here are the barred owls.

-- paul miller (millerclan@alltel.net), June 13, 2001

Answers

Try feeding the ducks in an enclosed area (all feedings). That way you have them in a pen as they are eating. Just close the door (they won't have a say in it, it'll be either eat in the pen or do without). Do this & they will eventually go to the pen for the food (hunger can be a powerful influence on what you normally don't want to do, even if it's for your own good).

As for finding out about the owls being protected or not... Fish & Game will know for sure (they deal with hunting, traping, etc...), or your ag extention agent, animal control may also know. And one of these may even relocate some of these owls to another place that really needs them more (over run with rats & mice).

good luck

animalfarms

-- animalfarms (jwlewis@indy.net), June 14, 2001.

Sounds like it's time for the 3 S's ~ shoot, shovel, shut up.

-- ~Rogo (rogo2020@yahoo.com), June 14, 2001.

Paul, Animalfarms gave you good advice. Lure them in with feed and shut them in at night. It may be owls now, but if you did shoot them (which I think is a bad idea, anyway), it's just going to be raccoons the next time, mink or weasels the time after that, coyotes the next time out, etc. You can't get rid of all of them, and you'll enjoy having control of your birds, too. Good luck. I know it's frustrating to lose birds that way.

Jennifer L.

-- Jennifer L. (Northern NYS) (jlance@imcnet.net), June 14, 2001.

Paul; Jennifer and AnimalFarms have got it right. Go to The Poultry Connection and click on The General Waterfowl Forum for more in depth discussions on protecting ducks. We all close ours up at night in a predator proof enclosures. Mine are made of: Duck house is plywood with 2X 6" flooring: DuckPens are welded wire(openings no bigger than 1"X 1/2") and 2X2's. Both of these have wafer board, felt and with wavy galvanized roofing on top). Why waste all those good eggs? Also, if you go to Quackers Home Page, you'll find lots of recipes for those eggs and lots of neat info re ducks. I hope this helps and I hope you let us know how things go. Little Quacker

-- Little Quacker (carouselxing@juno.com), June 14, 2001.

Owls are part of the bird classification known as "raptors". All raptors (also includes hawks, eagles, etc) are protected by federal law. Get caught shooting one??? Hefty fines and jail time. I've seen it happen. So the short answer is, you cannot legally harm the owls. Harassment is illegal too, so considering anything you might think of to convince them to move on might not be so fondly looked at by whoever happens to be watching.

I would say your best bet is to get the ducks in at night. That way they are protected from foxes, coyotes, and snapping turtles as well as the owls.

-- Chris (ranger9730@yahoo.com), June 15, 2001.

It's animalfarms again. If you can't bribe them into a pen, you might try this. I once saw this on a poultry forum. This lady couldn't get her chickens into her coop (was trying to teach them to come back to the coop at night so she could let them loose during the day, however, there was also a preditor problem involved). She manages to get all but two or three back to the coop. These few birds just wouldn't be caught but would eat feed provides. Traps, tricks, & anything else she tried wouldn't work. She gave it one more try saying to herself that if it didn't work this time she was going to get a gun & have some chicken for dinner. She bought the cheepest bottle of vodka she could find (vodka has no smell if soaked into something), soaks some chicken feed in it over night, & sets it out like their normal feeding. Not long after they ate it the birds started walking around drunk & soon fell over passed out. She then simply picked them up & put them with the others. They woke up later just fine. As I under stand it she didn't want to shoot them unless she had to as these were some of her best laying hens.

So if you are haveing any difficulty catching your ducks, this might help.

animalfarms

-- animalfarms (jwlewis@indy.net), June 16, 2001.

Owls are protected! About the only way to get owls to move on (besides the illegal way) is to remove the easy prey so they actually have to hunt something. If you can't get the ducks in one way or another, you soon won't have to worry about any ducks! Good luck!

-- Michael W. Smith in North-West Pennsylvania (kirklbb@penn.com), June 17, 2001.

sure owls are protected-if you get caught...

-- nobody (nothing@nowhere.no), June 18, 2001.