The barn owls settle down

This is the continued story of two barn owls that I looked after in May this year.

I asked Lawrence, the young man who had brought the owls to me, to find me some rats to feed the owls, which I offered to pay for. Meanwhile I offered my two owls some chunks of beef steak, but they were still too scared to eat. The next day Lawrence turned up with some rats, so that evening I offered one to the owls.

That got them excited and the bigger grabbed the rat and had soon swallowed it whole. There was no sign of the smaller one eating for a few days. However, it did not die, so I assumed the older one was feeding it somehow. By this time I had decided that these may not have been mother and baby, not being that much different in size, but two siblings. I had read that barn owls start incubating their eggs one by one, as soon as they are laid, so the chicks hatch at different times and siblings in one nest may be of varying ages. Older siblings will often look after and actually feed the younger siblings.

The younger owl would call for food every night with a loud hissing or “shhhhhhhh” sound, repeated at frequent, regular intervals all night.

The older one did not do this, but when one got too close it would give a deep, puff-adder-type, guttural hiss in defence, at the same time, lowering its head and raising its wings to make it look bigger and scarier.

By day, the owls would snuggle up together on the shelf in their cage. Baby owl always looked rather sleepy.

Every night I would feed them on rats or chunks of beefsteak. After a few days the younger one started feeding itself.