Great Horned Owl predatation

I had never heard this before. I sold some Ibex to a person who has a place in Frio County. He called me yesterday and I asked how his Ibex were doing. He told me he had lost all his kids to a Owl. He said his pens were tight and the only sign of any loss of the kids were some feathers they found. He looked around and in an old deer blind they found a Owl nest with 3 young Owls and scattered around were the Ibex Kid skulls and bones. I know Ibex are very small at birth but I did not believe an Owl could carry on off. Strange.

I can believe it. Lost several peacock and a big barn cat to our local horned owl. 2 of the peacock were mature with full tails and were carried almost 100 yards to the top of a tree and eaten there. The big Tom cat was half eaten on top of the barn.

Wingspan is over 4ft on a big great horned owl.

I have heard of it with WT fawns in breeding pens, so I can believe it with ibex.

Had one try to grab the wife's Yorkie from the back yard, the Jack Russell rolled it and ended that idea.

they can clean a neighbor hood of cats

It is amazing what they can do.

A Great Horned Owl’s wingspan can grow up to 5 feet. Their wingload is very disproportionate to their body size. Thus, their generated lift allows them to carry prey many times their body weight. Matched only by the RedTail Hawk in predation, the Great Horned Owl is known as the nocturnal counterpart to the Red Tail.

I live in an older neighborhood with lots of oaks. Gave up on cats after the last one disappeared. She was a good, big tabby that didn't stray. Neighbors friend that lived down the street aways found what was left inside their fenced backyard. Always figured it was an owl or maybe bobcat.

Never thought they'd eat a deer or goat.

If they can keep the cat population down with only the smart and quick ones surviving we need more.

My Wife's large tabby got carried off on Halloween by a great horned owl that nested in the neighbors yard. No chit. It was also a full moon. Spooky, spooky.

We had one at my grandfathers ranch in Hamilton when I was a kid....that thing was huge! I know people that raised sheep and goats hated them.....

Friends Chihuahua got taken by a Red tailed hawk, he couldn't get away with it but dropped the dead dog in the 4' tall pool they had.

Years ago the owl we had in an old barn kept our place free of little varmints.

This guy and his wife hang at our place from October through March.



May be this gal and her husband heck IDK. I do know he/she killed the squirrel that was in that nest, ate it, and took it over.

Had one take a squirrel off of an old hanging bucket feeder while bow hunting. Just amazing aerial dexterity and maneuvering
.

Magnificent looking predator if you do not have small animals.

Great pic.....

Thanks! He wasn’t scared at all so I got pretty close, which helped a lot.

It was just sizing you up for a meal for the young'uns. Wanted you in closer so would not have to drag you to far Nice pic.

Lol he had that look in his eye for sure.

If there is no closed season on coyotes, I don't understand why there so much protection on Hawks and other birds of prey. They definitely seem as abundant as coyotes. We have one that has been cleaning up on our local song birds, adults and nests. I would enjoy the chance to legally prey on him.

1)People don’t raise song birds for a living or hunt them - it’s a pocketbook thing.
2)Songbirds still proliferate fine with no precipitous overall population effects from natural predation. Raptors are way down on the list of things that affect yearly bird populations - even quail.

Yeah, I read that Hawks have a 10% rate of success in catching prey. I do know this hawk has a 100% catch rate with the young red birds who have hatched twice on the honeysuckle growing on our fence. Just like a fox hitting a hen house, he has learned exactly where to find new chicks days after they hatch. That 10% catch rates sounds much like the claim that coyotes only kill the old and diseased deer.

It seems the complacency the neighborhood birds and squirrels achieve with humans makes them very easy prey for predators.

While living in NH in rural area we lost my wife’s toy poodle who I let out with my lab each morning. Poodle disappeared and the lab had a strange appearance that morning when I let him in alone. Had seen and heard a great horned owl several times and attributed our loss to this huge bird of prey Regret I was not more cautious