How to deter owls from poults

[Sussex gardener]

As per the title, can anyone advise on how best to deter owls from the release pens?

So far I can only think of using a radio on a talky channel.

[old'un]

 

As you say owls I presume you are finding poults with their heads removed and nothing else (Tawny owl), if so I have seen fishing line used to good effect to stop owls, put some six foot poles in the pen and run the fishing line from post to post across the pen, hang a few old cd around the pen, you will not stop all predation but it will cut it down, depending how long its been going on for it usually stops after a week or two.

Forgot to mention, nail some bird spikes to the tops of the poles.

Edited July 28, 2019 by old'un
Forgot to mention

[Walker570]

Yes, put lots of scrub on top of your pen fence posts so they can't land and sit there.  remove any other perches. I also hung some garden mesh down/across the feed rides like a curtain and this also deterred sparrow hawks.   Owls will soon get used to sounds and even bags and shiny things hung up , they do however like to fly into a perch and hunt from there. Reduce those opportunties and your halfway there.

[JRDS]

Build your pen properly with a net roof.

[jall25]

Roof ?

How big is your pen ?

[Walker570]

29 minutes ago, JRDS said:

Build your pen properly with a net roof.

Don't believe I have EVER seen a pheasant release pen with a fully netted roof !!   Breeding pens yes but release pens need to be open topped. 

[Sussex gardener]

8 hours ago, jall25 said:

Roof ?

How big is your pen ?

1ha and 1.4ha 

8 hours ago, Walker570 said:

Don't believe I have EVER seen a pheasant release pen with a fully netted roof !!   Breeding pens yes but release pens need to be open topped. 

Me neither, clearly everyone has been doing it wrong.

[rimfire4969]

9 hours ago, JRDS said:

Build your pen properly with a net roof.

I have never seen release pens with net roofs, surely that means they are not “release” pen just pens.  We have 4 pens I would think the smallest is about an 1/2 acre and largest about 2 acres with trees and large bushes netting them though not impossible would be very difficult and expensive in time and net. Never seen it and certainly won’t be doing it. 

[Nmb]

13 of our 15 pens are netted most are about 300x100 metres costly to net but better than picking a bag of dead poults per day.

cds used to work for us but they seem to get used to whatever you try.

 

[Walker570]

36 minutes ago, Nmb said:

13 of our 15 pens are netted most are about 300x100 metres costly to net but better than picking a bag of dead poults per day.

cds used to work for us but they seem to get used to whatever you try.

 

These are pens in open fields I assume. In other words breeding/laying pens.   Netting an area in a wood 300 metres by 100metrs through all those trees must have been a nightmare.

[Nmb]

We tend to build our pens in areas with lots of broom, heather or other rough ground cover and build plenty of shelters and crossed beams to roost on. 

It is costly netting pens however if the ground is suitable and you can then feed them into the woods or gamecrops nearby it’s worth considering. 

Last season we had a disaster when a goshawk caused absolute havoc in two of our pens which had 500 birds between them! The birds scattered within the first 24-48 hours and never really knew where home was so it really affected that area last season! 

 

 

[JRDS]

22 hours ago, jall25 said:

Roof ?

How big is your pen ? 

It is a dog leg so 2 sections, probably around an acre in total maybe a little more. It has always been netted we use fishing nets which can be made to any size mesh and size.  It is not in a wood so trees are not an issue although it is surrounded by them.  The roof is held up with long posts with hub caps on the top.  No roof and we would lose alot of poults especially to Buzzards but other birds of prey also.  There is plenty of cover, shelters and perches it works fine.

Edited July 29, 2019 by JRDS

[JRDS]

12 hours ago, Sussex gardener said:

1ha and 1.4ha 

Me neither, clearly everyone has been doing it wrong.

You asked how to keep Owls out of a pen, I answered with a solution we have used succcessfully for many years.  You never stated the size of your pen or where it was sited.

Edited July 29, 2019 by JRDS

[Walker570]

14 hours ago, JRDS said:

You asked how to keep Owls out of a pen, I answered with a solution we have used succcessfully for many years.  You never stated the size of your pen or where it was sited.

Appreciated. Just that I have never come across a pen out in the open. The answer is, if it works , use it

[chesterse]

Cut some strips of white plastic and tie them onto a string washing line style and criss-cross the pen with them. Like sewelling!

[Walker570]

2 hours ago, chesterse said:

Cut some strips of white plastic and tie them onto a string washing line style and criss-cross the pen with them. Like sewelling!

Good idea and probably cheaper than netting. I would have them long enough to nearly ouch the ground. The movement would hopefully mess up the owls eye sight as well as their eyes are set in a funny way for ranging and three or four layers plastc strips would make things difficult.

[rimfire4969]

20 hours ago, chesterse said:

Cut some strips of white plastic and tie them onto a string washing line style and criss-cross the pen with them. Like sewelling!

This is what we do as well as cd's hung up. I keep meaning to get a radio and leave it on at any pen with problems.

[Dougy]

Netting release pens,,,, MMmmm how do we net round all the trees and then cover a pen that takes 20 minutes to walk round

Just finished putting the last of 11k birds out over a few hundred acres all in woodland no way of covering them, there are loads of bits of plastic lids,disks plastic bottles and all sorts hanging on the woods. Ground cover is pretty thick with nettles, brambles and other high foliage cover crop. 

 

[Nmb]

I thought I'd put a picture up of one of our netted pens just to show what we do.

obviously 11k pheasant Dougy with lots of trees probably can't do it as would be expensive for nets but for a small syndicate like ourselves where every bird lost can affect the amount of shooting greatly it's a no brainer in my mind as we have lost 30-40 out of 450 in our non netted pens and that's with many of the tips mentioned above being used.

 

Edited August 4, 2019 by Nmb