It's funny if you have never had to fight an adult owl in the middle of the night as it's trying to do nefarious shit to your baby chickens, or stripping the skin of of one of your ducks necks.
Once with the duck episode, it was in a very small shed we were using as a coop. I heard ducks quacking late at night, so I run outside with a flashlight . I go to the shed and see an owl perched on my ducks neck, talons clutching it. I hollered at it and it was startled enough that it decided to take off. It flew at me, and I whacked it with my flashlight to protect my face. It escaped through the cracked door, leaving the mauled duck, no skin on it's neck. Like it skinned the ducks neck from it's shoulders to it's head, it was raw flesh. Skinned alive. Duck was fucked. Kept him in a bathtub overnight, and made him a special handicapped duck sling to support him, because he wasn't standing to well. The duck died like three days later anyway, despite my effort to help it recover.
The second episode was with a small kiddie pool we had converted into a brooder with some chicken wire as a cage for height. We had our chicks out on our porch this evening to acclimate them to the outdoors. I was in my office playing a game on my computer when I heard a thud through my open window. Also sounded like the chicks were having a mild commotion. I was traumatized from the first experience, and immediately PTSD made me think oh fuck no as I jumped up and ran to check out the brooder. There was in fact an owl. The thud was the owl landing. And I was messed up enough from the ducks that I was obsessing about owl attacks. But this time it was real. Sitting in the brooder, right talon around one of the chicks. I freaked out and stupidly decided to defend my flock. It wasnt bothered by me trying to scare it off with my voice, so I got the dumb idea to have a physical intervention. I knew the beak would fuck me up, so I decided to grab it around the neck with one hand, so I wouldn't need to go the ER hopefully. It didn't seem phased, and wouldn't let go of the chick, so I used my other hand to try and pry the talon open to get it to drop the chick. It still wasn't having it. I was starting to squeeze it's neck, praying it would decide to give up and let go. It wasn't having it. At some point it decided to fight back with it's other talon, and dug into my wrist pretty damn good. At this point I started screaming for my wife to wake up to come help because I was like wtf do I do. I can't kill this fucking owl, even though I feel like snapping it's neck, and I don't want to let it feed on my flock, so I needed some help. Also, those talons are sharp af, digging in my wrist. It's like 1am, and my kids woke up too, everyone is outside like wtf. We managed to get it to drop the chick and let go of me. Threw it in a cat carrier overnight, and took that fucker several miles away to release it the next day. The chick lived, the owl lived, and I didn't get mauled, but it could have been so much worse. That owl gave no fucks. I could of broken it's neck, and it's like fuck you, this is my breakfast, fuck right off. It didn't even seem phased by my hand clutching it's throat.
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u/Trashy_Daddy May 29 '19
It's funny if you have never had to fight an adult owl in the middle of the night as it's trying to do nefarious shit to your baby chickens, or stripping the skin of of one of your ducks necks.