Tag Archive for: barn owl nest box

Mark
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Why installing Barn Owl Boxes
in the summer makes sense.

We often are asked what the best time of year is for installing nest boxes. Most people believe that springtime is best since it coincides with the breeding season. But barn owls begin choosing mates and potential sites not in spring, but in late winter. December and January mark the beginning of courtship and females are normally positioned inside the nest box by February or early March preparing to lay eggs. So, installing a nest box in spring is often too late.

In addition, the longer a new nest box is visible to local owls, the more accustomed to it they become. So installing earlier can help with the speed of occupation once breeding season begins. Summer also affords better weather for installation, so the upshot is that summer is an excellent time for getting barn owl nest boxes in the field.
Thanks to all of our customers for making our business as successful as it has become. Each time we sell a nest box, it is a win-win for barn owls across the country and for those wanting to enjoy these beautiful rodent hunters.

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MARK BROWNING

Kaboom Instant Rodent Control Offers Barn Owl Boxes In San Luis Obispo County

Pest Control Company In San Luis Obispo County offers Molded Plastic Nest Boxes for Barn Owls

kaboom_logokaboom_logoKABOOM! Instant Rodent Control, a fully licensed, registered and insured pest management company specializing in subterranean rodent eradication is now a distributor of the cutting edge, molded plastic nest boxes for barn owls made by The Barn Owl Box Company. In business since 2009, KABOOM! was developed with the sole purpose of eliminating underground rodents. Now, in addition to offering the P.E.R.C. (Pressurized Exhaust Rodent Controller), which uses carbon monoxide to kill rodents in their burrows, the company also sells the innovative Barn Owl Box which has been proven to attract barn owls quickly and in high numbers in a three year study.

The Pole Model

“The Barn Owl Box fits well into the scope of our business,” says Sheryl Cove who, with her husband Cory, owns and runs Kaboom. “A very important aspect of our business is that we deliver the nest boxes in our area and also install the next boxes utilizing our knowledge of barn owl nesting preferences. Installation often helps property owners make the decision to attract barn owls since many do not want to fuss with ladders, etc.”

“We support a clean environment along with farmers, ranchers and vineyard owners who want to protect their land from subterranean pest control problems and the damage caused by burrowing rodents. As requirements for rodent control are made more restrictive regarding the use of pesticides in public settings, we are here to offer the control needed to exterminate rodents while keeping children, families, pets and the environment safe. We don’t use any pesticides, poisons or toxins and with our process there are no Pesticide Use Reports to file. Barn Owls are a perfect addition to our line of products.”

“And we are proud to be a California Certified Small Business. Our client list includes government entities such as National Guard posts, schools districts, state and city parks as well as vineyards, cattle ranches, farms and neighborhoods. ”

Farmers Save Money Using the Plastic Barn Owl Box

The Barn Owl Box, designed by Mark Browning, owner of the Barn Owl Box Company, is a lightweight, long-lasting alternative to wooden boxes. “Farmers can save good money over time by utilizing our plastic design since the Barn Owl Box far outlasts wooden ones,” he says. “In addition, the nest boxes are very easy to install and have an excellent track record for attracting barn owls quickly and in high numbers. They are now in use by hundreds of vineyards and orchards as well as The Army Corps of Engineers and the Audubon Society.” The Barn Owl Box has been featured in an eight minute segment on PBS’s American Heartland and in AgAlert Magazine.

San Luis Obispo and Paso Robles Area Excellent Area for Utilizing Barn Owls

Not only does the central coast of California contain high populations of barn owls, the rich agriculture of the region has long utilized barn owls for natural rodent control. Both vineyards and orchards benefit by installing numbers of boxes to encourage the owls to nest. Barn owls are voracious rodent eaters, consuming high numbers while having large numbers of young, all of which contributes to an ability to keep rodent numbers in check.

Kaboom Maintains Inventory of Barn Owl Boxes

Kaboom! Instant Rodent Control is a licensed, registered and insured underground pest control service located on the California Central Coast in Paso Robles, California.

Pocket gopher mounds

Pocket gopher mounds

While serving Monterey, San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties, Kaboom provides a variety of environmentally safe, alternative pest control maintenance plans to eliminate your subterranean rodent problems for residential or commercial businesses.

Sheryl and Cory maintain an inventory of barn owl boxes and are happy to help farmers and property owners design effective nest box programs that can reduce or even eliminate the need for poisons or trapping. Their inventory allows folks to purchase the owl boxes locally while availing themselves, if needed, of Kaboom’s installation services.

If you are interested in barn owl nest boxes and you live in their region, Cory and Sheryl encourage you to contact them for more information on barn owls, and using barn owls for natural rodent control.

KABOOM! INSTANT RODENT CONTROL

Cory R. Cave

QAL #121261

Underground Pest Management

Fully Insured, Eco-friendly & No Poisons

805-434-7055

P.O. Box 1855

Paso Robles, CA 93447

www.kaboomnow.com

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MARK BROWNING

San Diego Pest Control Using Barn Owls

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5818179-map-of-san-diego-californiaSAN DIEGO PEST CONTROL USING BARN OWLS

As a major metropolitan area, San Diego has its normal fare of urban rodent pests. These are mainly the house mouse and Norwegian rat. And because surrounding San Diego County also contains a great deal of agriculture, even more species of rodent pests are prevalent in the area, doing damage to crops, homes, and other structures. Such pests include the vole, the pocket gopher, and the roof rat.

San Diego Rodent Pests

roof rat 3

Roof rats damage citrus

House mice and rats carry disease, eat large amounts of stored foods, damage wooden structures by their constant chewing, and also damage electrical wiring. Voles inhabit grassland and farmland and cause expensive damage to vines and orchards, consuming fruit and sometimes girdling trees and vines so badly that they perish. Pocket gophers create huge burrow systems, create large mounds that interfere with machinery, and damage crops by chewing on roots. Roof rats live in trees and manmade structures and cause untold damage to citrus and other crops.

San Diego Pest Control

In other words, San Diego is a haven for harmful rodent pests. And there exists an abundance of pest control companies in the region. Such companies offer trapping and poisoning programs, both of which have their limitations. One limitation they hold in common is that such programs need to be relentless in their application–the moment that traps and poisons are withdrawn, rodents resume expanding their population with their high reproductive rate. Another is their relatively high cost per rodent taken. Lastly, poisons invariably find their way into the ecosystem, killing numerous other species of wildlife.

Barn Owls in San Diego

The Pole Model

Click for more info on the molded plastic Barn Owl Box

But the unique and rather amazing barn owl offers a solution that both offers relentless pressure on rodent populations and lower costs and maintenance. A single occupied nest box at an original cost of under $200 will normally house two barn owl adults and four offspring that will, over a year’s time, consume over 1200 rodents. That is a cost per rodent taken at 17 cents each, contrasting strongly with the estimated cost of around $8 per rodent taken by trapping. Each box needs cleaned out only once per year.

And San Diego residents, from farmers to property owners, have been catching on to this growing trend as more and more nest boxes are installed for natural pest control. The solution for pest control using barn owls is simple: install a nest box to attract a pair, and let the barn owls work each night to reduce your rodent pests.

Barn owls are very common in the region, giving San Diego pest control an option that is highly viable, inexpensive, and also helps conserve these beautiful white, golden winged owls. Nest boxes normally achieve 80 to 100% occupancy in their first season or two. Once established, barn owls tend to remain faithful to the area, breeding year after year.

 

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MARK BROWNING

California: Land of the Barn Owl

California Barn Owls

While great stretches of the United States, from New York to Iowa, have seen a decline in barn owls since the 1950’s, the state of California maintains surprisingly robust populations of this beautiful white-faced, golden winged owl. In fact, in a state with a wide variety of common raptors, the barn owl may very well be its most common avian predator. iStock_000020901530MediumThough not seen as readily as many hawks due to its nocturnal habits, barn owls nest in large numbers throughout much of the state. They inhabit old barns, outbuildings, silos, bridge girders, holes in cliffs, and even aviation hangars. The author has even seen breeding pairs inhabiting holes in large trees along a busy street in heavily populated downtown Davis. Waitresses in the restaurants there often observe the owls swooping down on rodents that had been attracted to food that humans had dropped earlier in the courtyards and shopping areas that day. This may be the first description of barn owls going to restaurants for their meals! One of the reasons for the abundance of these owls in California is the abundance of wide open spaces in much of the state, much of it natural grasslands. On top of that, much of these grasslands have been converted to irrigated agricultural fields where rodent populations increase significantly, only making the land more agreeable to this voracious rodent predator.

Barn Owls in Vineyards and Orchards

BARN_OWL_VINEYARD_842Recognizing the value of having winged rodent killers on their property, California farmers have led the nation in utilizing barn owls as integral parts to their integrated pest management programs. Growers of grapes, cherries, plums, almonds, and walnuts have been using barn owls for decades now. Literally thousands of nest boxes have been erected in the state and this effort has helped allow barn owls to flourish in the landscape. Their nest box of choice is one that mounts to a metal pole or wooden post. Here is a link for more information on our Barn Owl Box Pole Model.

California Barn Owl Box Programs

The Pole Model Barn Owl Box made by the Barn Owl Box Company of molded plastic

The Pole Model Barn Owl Box made by the Barn Owl Box Company of molded plastic

In California, it is not unusual to put a barn owl box up one day, and find barn owls in it the next. Farmers with large nest box programs typically have eighty to one-hundred percent occupation rates. In a research project designed to determine best methods of creating a nest box program, the author attracted 18 breeding pairs to a single 100 acre vineyard in 2012. These 36 adults fledged 66 healthy young for a total of 102 birds hunting the vineyard by mid-summer. This population on one hundred acres was more barn owls than biologists in Pennsylvania believe exist in the entire state! Such dense populations can take a significant number of rodents and effectively reduce damage to crops and annoyance to farm operations. And the use of barn owls for natural rodent control is growing. Increasingly, farmers are sophisticating their nest box programs by erected larger numbers of nest boxes to ensure that the barn owls can harvest significant numbers of rodents. But farmers are not the only ones interested in having these beautiful owls around: large numbers of property owners are also erecting owl houses around their homes. (Barn owls are aptly named since they do not mind living around human activity.)

Common Rodent Pests in California

Pocket gopher mounds

Pocket gopher mounds

California happens to have dense populations of rodents as well as any California resident will tell you. Mounds, trails, and runs dot the landscape. Different species of rodents dominate different areas, mainly due to moisture and soil types. Two of these species are the most damaging to crops, the pocket gopher and the vole. Whereas vineyards in the Lodi region harbor a majority of pocket gophers, vineyards in Napa and Sonoma are often dominated by voles. Sometimes these two species thrive on the same land.  Both the pocket gopher and vole cause damage to vines, fruit and nut trees, irrigation systems, cover crops, and the integrity of the soil. So the use of barn owls has become a rodent control method of choice for many farmers and property owners.

Barn Owl Distribution in California

The barn owl is common throughout the state except for forested areas and very high elevations which they avoid. The deserts of the southern parts of the state do harbor barn owls, but not in the great numbers that exist in the fertile agricultural regions, wetlands, and grasslands. Even people in the suburbs of large cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego have successfully attracted these large owls.

More Information about Installing Barn Owl Boxes

If you are interested in putting up a barn owl box, make sure you visit our blog post on Best Methods of Installation. For any further questions, email us at info@barnowlbox.com.

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