Two Barn Owl Babies Need New Home

The following story about a barn owl was shared with us by Napa Wildlife Rescue of California.

It was late in the evening when we got the call that there were barn owl babies in the ditch by a barn owl box. Racing against daylight, we used flashlights to find two young barn owls huddled at the foot of an oak. Their nest box had fallen apart due to neglect.

Barn owls leave the box or nest cavity able to fly, but these owls weren’t able to stay in their box long enough to be able to fly out. We weren’t sure how long they had been down and hiding, but they arrived dehydrated and emaciated.

To be sure they would bounce back from starving, we used EmerAid IC Carnivore as a starvation transition food. It gives them hydration and easily accessible calories. Once they were processing the EmerAid well, we started giving them more of their natural diet. Eventually they were able to eat whole mice on their own.

We weren’t able to put them back in their original box and didn’t have a suitable occupied nest to foster into, so they went into an unoccupied barn owl box. We played the role of parents by throwing rodents inside for the owls to eat. When they were ready, they left the box on their own.