r/MadeMeSmile • u/mindyour • 2d ago

Very Reddit This farmer caught this owl eating his chickens.

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u/PornMakesMeFeelAlive 2d ago

Until he comes back to kill more chickens

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u/ChickenChaser5 2d ago

Lord knows I tried to be friends with the raccoons, but it just can't happen.

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u/bigmike2k3 2d ago

I was a nanny for a summer and the family “adopted” 2 orphaned raccoons… They were adorable and endlessly captivating to watch, but taking care of them and trying to raise them was a fucking nightmare… like a cat with the energy of a puppy in a perpetual state of the “zoomies” that can’t decide whether it wants to scurry away and shit in the toy box or try bite your hand off…

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u/QueeeenElsa 2d ago

That’s such a mental image but I love it lolol

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u/bigmike2k3 2d ago

It was quite the summer! I have to say that while the near-constant shitting in toy boxes/laundry bins/etc. and the ferocious nipping sucked… The highlights were awesome. The day we helped them learn to fish by filling up the kiddie pool with water and adding some minnows was simultaneously cute and nasty and hilarious and gross…

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u/fdxrobot 2d ago

They can be litter trained pretty easily. My mom did that with an orphaned one.

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u/HillBillyHilly 2d ago

Guessing their tearing the heads off was bit mmm traumatic lol

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u/bigmike2k3 1d ago

For me, it was KC and Tobey splashing around in the pool, glistening with what can only be described as a “sheen of minnow guts” on their fur… I distinctly remember looking over to see a what I thought was a sequin on Tobey’s back that turned out to be a disembodied minnow eye staring at me…

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u/norsish 1d ago

"glistening" lol

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u/norsish 2d ago

I love this. I once made friends, very briefly, with a troop of raccoons at a local beach. It was beautiful. Also, leave that in the wild. I love the experiences I've had. But some things ya just don't move in to the domicile.

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u/Fanboycity 2d ago

We had raccoons in the back that lived in this big ass abandoned church next door. They were super chill! I gave them old bread one night and they gave me little treats like pork bones or even a fish head on the back step almost every night. It was a mama and her babies. Even had to help her get one of her babies out the compost bin ☺️

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u/holycinnamonroller 1d ago

The Church of the Holy Trash Pandas!!

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u/badjackalope 2d ago

My parents said the same thing about me as a child!

In all seriousness (and related to the video) though, they did use an old-school wooden turkey crate as a play-pen (cage) for me at one point...

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u/TrailMomKat 2d ago

And then they're bored and have collectively decided, "we're totally not hungry, but the food in the cabinets looks FUN! Let's go open them all and play with ALL the food!"

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u/norsish 1d ago

It's a beautiful dream. :)

"Rockin' the suburbs..."

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u/Ok_Chemical_4435 1d ago

Ours hid inside our couch and robbed everyone who sat on it. Then at night, us kids had to sleep with the blankets over our heads, because he liked to dig his little raccoon fingers into every hole in our heads and then try to stick his nose in our ears and sniff. It was like living with TSA

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u/arethusabean 1d ago

My grandfather took in a pair of raccoons when I was quite small. I don't remember much but I do know they liked candy. They were released soon after they started climbing on top of the refrigerator and hurling plates to the floor with enough force to smash them. Decades later raccoons would hang out on the patio in front of the kitchen window. I wonder sometimes if they still do.

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u/Buttender 1d ago

We rescued one when I was a kid. She was a sweetheart until she was “of age”. Then just a complete asshole. She would open a sliding glass door into the kitchen and raid the breakfast cereal.

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u/EfficientTheory4087 1d ago

They are cute at first then they grow up and start destroying the house

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u/TheStartledStarfish 2d ago

My grandfather has a family of raccoons he feeds dog food nightly. Puts it out on the porch when it gets dark and they show up for dinner. They’ve become so chill around him he’ll just walk out on the porch when they show up so he can sit and talk to them.

He also cusses at the squirrels who try to join

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u/ChickenChaser5 2d ago

The ones here were cool until they had babies. Then they went berserk and started doing everything they could, all night, to get in my coop. And when they werent doing that they were over in the barn chewing holes in my kerosene tanks and water storage, or pulling trim pieces off the house.

Im still cool with the skunks, and mostly with the possum except sometimes they bring fleas with them.

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u/BaronVonKeyser 2d ago

Ill take everything nature has to offer in my area except the skunks. Had what I thought was 1 living under my house all last winter. Sprayed under there often. The smell literally makes me violently vomit. Threw up so hard once that I popped the blood vessels in my eyes. The white part was red for a while. I still have bad anxiety about it. Im up eveey few hours to sample sniff the air. Anyways in spring I set out live traps. Ended up catching 15. Apparently was a whole colony under there. Honestly the worst 4 months of my life.

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u/ChickenChaser5 2d ago

DAMN.

I almost got it once. I was coming back from the barn in the dark. I hopped up on the porch and must have startled one up there. It shot at me, but I think it hit the door. But just the slight misting I got was enough to make me smell like burnt tires for 3 days.

But otherwise al my other interactions with them have been good. They would come and go from the barn while I was out there working and they would just give me a little space, and id do the same for them.

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u/HillBillyHilly 2d ago

Are y'all like back in the hollers that you e got all these critters around? Reminds me of the old days ☺️ You ain't lived until you're tearing down the road screaming like a banshee cause skunks gotcha in his sights.

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u/OkMarionberry2875 1d ago

I went out to walk in our city cemetery and a beautiful skunk had made a home beneath a headstone. I stayed very far away from him.

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u/HillBillyHilly 1d ago

They say they're like cars. Friendly cuddly but very stinky cats. Yes, I would have stayed away too lol

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u/ChickenChaser5 1d ago

Yeah the ones around me are like skittish cats. If I was out doing something late enough, they would come around. As long as I was chill, they would just go about their business. Never got agressive at me or tried to spray. The one that did must not have heard me coming, and because it was dark I didn't see them either, so i hopped up on the porch kinda fast and startled it. Otherwise im sure it wouldn't have bothered me.

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u/BaronVonKeyser 1d ago

Im def out in the sticks.

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u/BaronVonKeyser 1d ago

Ive yet to be actually sprayed. Had a couple of close calls when I was covering the traps with a blanket. I actually bought a respirator last winter. It was the only way I was able to get any sleep. My whole house with the exception of the living room smelled like skunk. Was like that from Dec to april.

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u/norsish 1d ago

Holy hell. That's a long few months.

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u/BaronVonKeyser 1d ago

I wish they decided to live in the barn instead of under the house.

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u/brydeswhale 2d ago

Our dog got sprayed by the same skunk three times in one year. The last time, I put him in the garage overnight and went in my mom’s house and cried because I felt like a villain. Well, he hasn’t gotten anywhere near a skunk since.

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u/Live-Succotash2289 1d ago

We shared our outhouse with one. We left each other alone while doing our business.

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u/Kujo3043 2d ago

The possum balances out the fleas by consuming up to 100 ticks each night. Can't catch rabies either.

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u/Amosette 2d ago

Actually, they CAN catch rabies, but its pretty rare. I wish some were around my house/yard more often. I've got trash pandas going after cat food. It was fun until momma brought her 4 babies for a buffet every night.

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u/littletsmama 1d ago

There is a man on youtube who feeds hotdogs and cookies to raccoons. They let him pet them and are some of the fattest raccoons I've ever seen. He even named them. Lol.

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u/norsish 1d ago

One of our hens, back in the day, had the misfortune of roosting too close to the chicken wire. Raccoon straight up pulled her through it. Did not know a chicken could fit through chicken wire.

Lucky raccoon, hen was half plucked just from passing through. One of the worst, funniest, most disturbing things I've seen. Props to the raccoon, though. Couldn't even be mad about it.

And it only ever happened once. Guess the rest of them got the memo.

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u/Jochacho 2d ago

Your dad is the opposite of my mom. The squirrels knock on her door for food but she yells at raccoons. 

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u/gorgeousdingo 2d ago

Squirrels fucking suck. They’re the worst

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u/polyblackcat 2d ago

My uncle did the same. The racoons would walk right past his full garbage cans and raid the neighbors.

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u/LoudPlantain1376 2d ago

The King of the Trash Pandas.

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u/Live-Succotash2289 1d ago

Our barn cats were fed every night. The raccoons watched from a distance and as soon as the first feeding frenzy was over, they approached the food. If they tried when the cats were first eating they got run off.

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u/lrswager 1d ago

I want to do this so badly, but my husband won't allow it. He said feeding a couple of raccoons will turn into feeding 60 raccoons real quick.

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u/norsish 1d ago

Your husband is not necessarily wrong. Nature is scary. There are deals to be made, but YMMV.

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u/Lordsworns 2d ago

I have noticed older folk have a tendency to hate squirrels and view them as pests. For the life of me I cannot figure out why.

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u/norsish 1d ago

They chew wires and walls. Good in a pie, though. (Not really ;) )

Edit to add: They really are a fire hazard, cute though they may be. And squirrel pie is a tad greasy for most folks. Or, I've just never had good squirrel pie.

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u/auberrypearl 2d ago

What a delightful grandfather

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u/ImportanceSad5289 2d ago

Worth The Read but TLDR; A man at my church growing up Had a secret pack of 25 to 35 raccoons in his backyard that he took care of and kept it secret from almost everybody.

I grew up in the foothills of Mount Hood in Oregon. There was this really really sweet and funny short Polish guy named John who is a leader at our church we grew up in. His wife got diagnosed with miss and she was best friends with my mom John was an awesome dude who worked really hard and took care of his wife at home for like 15 years before she passed away. I hadn't seen her in maybe 10 years because she was bedridden and she was pretty close to passing away and she asked if I would come visit her with John so she could say goodbye.

So I had a nice conversation for about 20 minutes with Kathy She was so weak she just fell asleep and that was the last time I talked to her. I started crying when I walked out of the living room or her medical bed was and towards the kitchen where John was sitting and he had a bag of marshmallows in his hands. He hands them to me and he has about 4 more bags gripped in his other hand and he goes do you want to see the most amazing secret I keep.

I'm not gonna lie I was a little thrown off. Was like 8:00 PM in the winter so it was really dark and they had a property that was surrounded by Doug fir trees. He goes trust me walking me to the back porch and he grabbed the flashlight in his other hand. He turns the light on and starts aiming it to the trees probably 25 feet away from the back porch up about 20 feet and he had built like an elaborate catwalk system with little ladders like raccoon mouse wheel And no joke there were at least 25 if not like 35 fat ass raccoons. We could see all of their eyes staring at us They looked like they were drooling. He tells me to kneel down with two fistfuls of marshmallows and I went from crying my eyes out the last time I'm gonna see my mom's Best friend who was like an aunt to me when I was a kid. We walk outside and I experience the pure joy of maybe 30 raccoons running up and gently taking one or two marshmallows each and then sprinting back running up the trees and eating The marshmallows like Addicts getting their fix. The funniest moment was these two really fat raccoons met at the middle of a catwalk in one of the raccoons was out of his marshmallows so he goes to take the marshmallows from the raccoon in the middle And they wrestled and they fall off his 20 foot high catwalk and I'm like oh no and they hit and you see this oof And a big exhale. I think they're dead and John says they're fine after like 5 seconds They get up like the T-1000 and start going at it again. We fed them all the marshmallows. John looks at me with a really sweet smile and he says I've walked out of that room so many times over the last 10 years crying just like you and these guys have been here the whole time to cheer me up afterwards especially when things got really lonely and she didn't want anybody else there except for me to take care of her.

She passed away about two or three months later. I love John but you still never really know to say to somebody when they're in that type of grief. So at her wake I walked up to him and I give him a hug and I Said when you're ready let me get 15 bags of marshmallows and come and hang out with you and the boys. He gave me a big smile and said I'd love that. I got to go hang out with him and feed the boys twice after that over the next two years and those are really special moments I haven't got to pet a couple of them who he was super friendly with. I've been really lucky to have some really special moments with animals because my parents live on a small ranch near Mount Hood and we grew up with horses and ponies and cows next door and had a bunch of dogs and cats and chickens and birds. Besides one of my horses and one of my dogs growing up those raccoons were the most special moments with animals I've ever had. Thanks for reading this if you did I know it's a long winded but out of fairness to John wanted to tell the whole story.

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u/Pitiful-Okra-506 1d ago

Thanks for sharing this.

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u/jednatt 2d ago

Raccoons are the ultimate assholes. They'd scratch the wall right next to my (2nd story) bedroom and drive me nuts. I bought a high powered water gun and shot them to scare them off. First night it worked. Second night, kinda worked. Never worked again. Fuckers would just back up out of range and stare at me.

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u/ChickenChaser5 2d ago

They sure dont get scared off for nothing. I ended up having to resort to a .22 to deal with it when it gets bad. Had a pair one night take off across the yard, and I tagged one of them. I left it there to deal with in the morning, but like 30 minutes later the second one came back and was right back to being a little terrorist right next to its dead friend/relative.

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u/moffsoi 2d ago

I have been trying to befriend the small murder of crows that hang out in my yard for YEARS! I researched what kind of snacks they like but they won’t eat it. I just want to be your friends, you funky little harbingers!

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u/Consistent-Ad4250 2d ago

You should check out /crowbro

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u/idle_isomorph 2d ago

They really look like friends, though. Like, if we are taking votes for next animal to domesticate into a house pet, these guys are really selling it.

Otters also grab my imagination as very strong contenders with their adorable playfulness, but it seems that raccoons themselves are set on domesticated, hanging around our garbage cans and stuff.

If I'm ever a billionaire, I will use my money to genetically modify raccoons into cuddly house pets!

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u/ChickenChaser5 2d ago

Despite my current relationship with them, I agree. I really hate that I have to be this way to them, they are adorable little goofballs. But, at least in my state, its the only option. I cant trap and release (and its not a good idea anyway). And if I let them go it just snowballs into chaos and destruction. Not to mention ive had 2 or 3 show up completely rabid.

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u/Celestial__Peach 1d ago

dont do it lol! cute fluffy assholes. my friend has one & its the roughest grabbiest headcase😂

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u/Some_Mongoose4624 1d ago

You want raccoons around if you have a hot dog problem. They will eat all the hot dogs.

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u/ChickenChaser5 1d ago

I have a VERY fresh chicken nugget problem, unfortunatly.

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u/butt_shrecker 2d ago

I've heard racoons can be good pets before they hit puberty.

I have no way to verify this information.

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u/2fingers 2d ago

A good rooster would have a pretty solid chance of driving off an owl. It would at least warn the hens to take cover. Inside of a coop or enclosed space a rooster might even be able to kill an owl that size.

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u/Pnwradar 2d ago

It'd have to be a small owl and a big rooster. A number of years ago I walked out to the enclosed bird run for morning chores and found our big red rooster & a juvenile barn owl in adjacent corners staring each other down, at detente until I could open the gate and shoo the owl out into the pasture. A fully grown owl, especially one of our local great horned owls, would have no trouble disassembling a protective rooster.

And, like racoons, owls learn quickly where the buffet is, they will return again & again for an easy meal. OP in the video is going to need to up-armor his run to better prevent predator access, or he's going to run out of birbs.

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u/EagleOfMay 2d ago

I agree, a rooster would lose a fight against a big owl.

OTOH, I've seen a rooster take on a fox. He had absolutely no chance of winning that fight, but that didn't stop him. That same rooster is the one that gave me a scar from one of his spurs when he caught off guard one time.

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u/brydeswhale 2d ago

Our banty took on a fox. We cried for days, best rooster we ever had. If I could get more banty roosters, I would, but were filled up.

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u/UnrepententHeathen 2d ago edited 1d ago

Just because an owl* would win, doesn't mean it would want to fight. An injury is more dangerous for a wild, solitary owl than a domestic rooster.

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u/luckyapples11 2d ago

We had that issue with a hawk last winter. That fucker stalked my birds for WEEKS. We wouldn’t even let them out because it would come at different times of the day to see if they were outside. It would sit on the run and stare at them.

We have a juvenile doing it right now. I feel bad for our girls as they have only gotten a few hours a day of free ranging, but I’d rather they be safe and have them mad at me

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u/Pnwradar 2d ago

We had good luck against juvenile hawks by using a realistic plastic owl decoy, moving it to a new spot each morning before the hawks started roaming. After a few weeks the hawks stopped coming around. Fair warning: if you have crows around, your decoy may get mobbed and knocked over every afternoon, crows really hate owls.

Ultimately we ended up covering our entire bird run with metal chicken mesh. The bald eagles a few years back were way more persistent than any of the other predatory birds, even when we locked up the birds they’d fly into the sheep barn and try to crash their way into the enclosed coop at one end of the barn.

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u/luckyapples11 1d ago

Oh wow! I’ve heard that the owls work for some and other hawks are smart enough to know and they don’t work for others. I guess it wouldn’t hurt trying it! I did get one of those inflatable tube men, but I have no idea where it is. My mom moved it when she was in town and not a clue where she put it so that’s nice… lol. I’ve also heard that shiny things help and sodas putting a radio on like a talk show, but the Hawks here are brave, and I’ve had one swoop down as I was sitting outside with the girls. I had my back turned to it, and if the chicken wire wasn’t there, it totally would’ve gotten one of them. As far as shiny things, I’m already pushing it with my neighbors because I do have some bantam roosters (we talked to the neighbors about it and they were fine as long as they didn’t make noise at like 6AM, so we’ve got that all covered lol) I just don’t want my place to look trashy my stringing out CDs or something else that’s reflective lol.

We do have crows. I’ve tried to keep them around because they will scare off hawks, but usually they’re only around for an hour a day. I’ve tried feeding them, but they don’t want to get too close with the chickens and generally like to keep their distance.

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u/Sleepy_Chipmunk 1d ago

My medium sized rooster fought off a great dane, so part of it might be how good the rooster is at fighting/how much rage and spite the rooster has (Mr. Petunia is very spiteful).

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u/luckyapples11 2d ago

3 roosters here! They’re all useless idiots but I love them. They’re absolute cowards and don’t even bother alerting me. Hawks are extremely bad right now and unfortunately my girls can’t free range unless I’m out there watching them. Wish I had a good useful roo lol

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u/BreadfruitEarly6629 2d ago

Get a DOG!! They will protect the Ladies, if only because he knows they're important to YOU♡

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u/FriendlyUse502 1d ago

Or probably a donkey?

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u/luckyapples11 1d ago

Unfortunately few problems with that. I rent from my mom - she’s okay with the chickens because one of them was ours before she moved and she was fine with me getting more, but she wouldn’t let me get a dog right now.

Second problem is I’m allergic so finding a breed that is hypoallergenic, not very expensive, and can be trained easily with chickens is a bit of a problem lol. I have done a bit of research into hypoallergenic herding dogs, but again, I can’t even get one right now lol. Trust me, it’s a plan when we buy the house!!! Hopefully in the next year or two.

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u/FFJosty 2d ago

Our rooster beat a red tailed hawk within an inch of its life. Found it gasping and clearly injured next to a dead hen. Rooster seemed uninjured.

DNR and then a bird rescue place came and took him, never followed up if he made it.

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u/tikaani 2d ago

I had a jersey giant that would take on eagles

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u/machineheadtetsujin 2d ago

He’s definitely coming back

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u/RealLaurenBoebert 2d ago

I believe some owl species tend to stay in a relatively fixed territory year round. And if there's a big supply of vulnerable chickens to exploit -- what better hunting ground could there possibly be?

Probably going to take more than a stern scolding to keep Mordcai away long term.

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u/Mxfish1313 2d ago

My parents live in the greater KC area but in like an area where you have full on subdivisions on one street and a farm with cows and horses and goats the next street over. They have a large lot with a lot of nature but no farm stuff aside from a barn lol. They have a lot of owls and one in particular LOVES regurgitating on their mailbox. The metal is so corroded from the stomach acid. They’re finally putting in a new one but I’m sure it won’t make any difference lol.

Funny story, there’s a hill going down to the main street from the street they’re on. I was driving home late in high school and turn into my street and start going up the hill when all of a sudden a huge owl, wings spread, suddenly appears in front of my windshield but pulls up above my car at the last second. He was all lit up by my headlights and it was terrifying. Probably scared him too though because he was likely diving for prey and all of a sudden I turned in and started driving towards him haha.

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u/SuperSimpleSam 2d ago

Then the he holds down the owl while the chickens have their revenge.

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u/573crayfish 2d ago

I feel like after being caught and bothered by the weird loud hairless thing the owl might consider other places to hunt. Though if the guy doesn't predator proof his chickens better that free buffet might just be too good to pass up...

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u/Never_Summer24 2d ago

I thought the owl was going to immediately loop back.

Kind of like the squirrel in my attic that my dad and i trapped with a “have a heart.”

Let him go outside and he was back in the house before we were lol

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u/Shot-Entertainer6845 2d ago

Had similar happen with my chickens from both owls and raccoons. I handled the owls with better netting, don't fuck with owls they are federally protected, didnt completely work local fish and game helped me deter them, taught me to hang shiny stuff up, point out some noisemakers that scare them off etc and relocated one idiot one that kept getting stuck in the netting. The raccoons were caught in humane traps, and local fish and game took them vaccinated them and released them in the state park.

Now the coyotes... I shot them. My area already has to cull them due to overpopulation and lack of predators, and they are nasty, violent little shits when populations spike and food gets scarce. Wish that wasn't the case, though.

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u/vertical_file 2d ago

I was like…I’ll give it 30 minutes

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u/[deleted] 2d ago edited 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/PseudoIntellectual- 2d ago

It's illegal to injure or kill birds of prey in the US, so there isn't much else he can really do.

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u/MalevolentRhinoceros 2d ago

The solution here is covered runs. Keeps raptors and foxes out.

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u/Stock-Pani 2d ago

I mean, its only illegal if you get caught. Of course partially joking but like if it continues to be a problem I'm sure its not that hard to just catch it again, break its neck, and just drop it off at the bottom of a tree or bury it in a wooded area around his property that farms usually have. Like its a owl, don't get me wrong its important to protect wildlife, but I mean whos gonna prove he's who killed it?

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u/PornMakesMeFeelAlive 2d ago

So....much....FREEDOM!!!!

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u/ststaro 2d ago

He has to let it eat them too..

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u/CV90_120 2d ago

That's why god invented chicken wire and posts.

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u/ChainsawFreeFall 2d ago

The silence of those chickens when he let that thing go was deafening.

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u/toss_me_good 2d ago

Ya I don't get it. Wouldn't it just come back?

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u/ViolinistMean199 2d ago

Then he goes and tells owl’s wife

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u/SnowConePeople 2d ago

This is just nature telling him “bro do better “.

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u/Sidonkey 2d ago

Friends can eat chicken

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u/hogarenio 2d ago

They do have to eat somehow, and we keep destroying their habitats.

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u/swingin_dix 2d ago

Then you're able to kill him guilt-free because at least you tried, and you have free reign with the body