diff --git a/k8s/automated-nfs-backup.sh b/k8s/automated-nfs-backup.sh
index 83ae174..542db5e 100644
--- a/k8s/automated-nfs-backup.sh
+++ b/k8s/automated-nfs-backup.sh
@@ -53,7 +53,7 @@ restore_warnings=0
 total_backup_size_bytes=0
 
 _kubectl() {
-    "$KUBECTL_BIN" "${KUBECTL_ARGS[@]}" "$@"
+    "$KUBECTL_BIN" "${KUBECTL_ARGS[@]}" "$@" </dev/null
 }
 
 parse_workload_kinds() {
@@ -129,16 +129,25 @@ capture_replicas_state() {
     local kind
     local name
     local replicas
+    local owners
     local output
     for kind in "${WORKLOAD_KIND_LIST[@]}"; do
-        if ! output="$(_kubectl -n "$namespace" get "$kind" -o jsonpath='{range .items[*]}{.metadata.name}{"\t"}{.spec.replicas}{"\n"}{end}' 2>/dev/null)"; then
+        if ! output="$(_kubectl -n "$namespace" get "$kind" -o jsonpath='{range .items[*]}{.metadata.name}{"\t"}{.spec.replicas}{"\t"}{range .metadata.ownerReferences[*]}{.kind},{end}{"\n"}{end}' 2>/dev/null)"; then
             log_warn "Failed to list kind '${kind}' in namespace '${namespace}' while capturing state"
             scale_warnings=$((scale_warnings + 1))
             continue
         fi
 
-        while IFS=$'\t' read -r name replicas; do
+        while IFS=$'\t' read -r name replicas owners; do
             [[ -z "$name" ]] && continue
+            # Skip resources managed by a higher-level controller (e.g. a
+            # ReplicaSet owned by a Deployment) — scaling them directly
+            # conflicts with the owning controller and can leave workloads
+            # in an inconsistent state after restore.
+            if [[ -n "$owners" ]]; then
+                log_debug "Skipping ${kind}/${name} in namespace '${namespace}': owned by ${owners%,}"
+                continue
+            fi
             if [[ -z "$replicas" ]]; then
                 replicas="1"
                 log_warn "Resource ${kind}/${name} had no explicit replicas; defaulting saved value to 1"
@@ -155,7 +164,7 @@ scale_resource() {
     local name="${3:?name is required}"
     local replicas="${4:?replicas is required}"
     retry "$SCALE_RETRY_COUNT" "$SCALE_RETRY_DELAY_SECONDS" \
-        _kubectl -n "$namespace" scale "${kind}/${name}" --replicas="$replicas" >/dev/null
+        _kubectl -n "$namespace" scale "${kind}/${name}" --replicas="$replicas"
 }
 
 scale_namespace_to_zero() {
@@ -260,6 +269,12 @@ wait_for_scale_state() {
             status="$(resource_replicas "$namespace" "$kind" "$name" '{.status.replicas}')"
             ready="$(resource_replicas "$namespace" "$kind" "$name" '{.status.readyReplicas}')"
 
+            # If all three values are empty the resource was likely deleted
+            # between capture and now — nothing to wait for.
+            if [[ -z "$spec" && -z "$status" && -z "$ready" ]]; then
+                continue
+            fi
+
             [[ -z "$spec" ]] && spec="1"
             [[ -z "$status" ]] && status="0"
             [[ -z "$ready" ]] && ready="0"