That's a nice enclosure for rehab. I wonder how they get at it for treatment.
Do they just let mice loose in the enclosure and let the owl do it's thing?
I'm not sure about this little one. I haven't seen anyone remove our Screech Owls yet. I have yet to see them during normal business, they are quite reclusive.
One time when I was visiting a place, they had a new Barred Owl (which may have been the cutest Barred I've ever seen!) and he had a lady in with him who was trying to basically crate train him as one would a puppy. Owls are a bit stubborn and not near as food motivated as a cat or dog, but she did manage to get him into the crate a few times, and she said that was how they transported him to the office for his exams.
We don't have any live prey animals, well, not ones meant to be eaten on site, because little mice still don't want to make that noble sacrifice to benefit the owls and such, and that can lead to injuries from bites of scratches to the animals looking for their meals. I was going through all the freezers looking for what they were calling cockrels (baby rooster) but that is not how they are labeled on the bags! So I spent way too much time looking at everything we keep on hand. We have mice and rats of all sizes, chickens of many sizes, quail in 2 sizes I think, and probably some other things I can't remember. I got to learn they take foooooorever to thaw if nobody does it ahead of time, thanks night shift! π
Ah, so that answers another question. Snakes can be notoriously picky about eating carrion - anything that isn't alive. A roommate of mine long ago had a boa of some sort, and he basically had to buy frozen mice, thaw them, and then puppet them around to make them seem alive. Feeding that thing was a whole-day process; thankfully, it only ate once a month or something.
I wasn't sure about owls. I know sport raptors eat raw meat - that's common in videos of them - but I wasn't sure about owls, especially wild ones not raised on already-dead prey.
That's a nice enclosure for rehab. I wonder how they get at it for treatment.
Do they just let mice loose in the enclosure and let the owl do it's thing?
I'm not sure about this little one. I haven't seen anyone remove our Screech Owls yet. I have yet to see them during normal business, they are quite reclusive.
One time when I was visiting a place, they had a new Barred Owl (which may have been the cutest Barred I've ever seen!) and he had a lady in with him who was trying to basically crate train him as one would a puppy. Owls are a bit stubborn and not near as food motivated as a cat or dog, but she did manage to get him into the crate a few times, and she said that was how they transported him to the office for his exams.
We don't have any live prey animals, well, not ones meant to be eaten on site, because little mice still don't want to make that noble sacrifice to benefit the owls and such, and that can lead to injuries from bites of scratches to the animals looking for their meals. I was going through all the freezers looking for what they were calling cockrels (baby rooster) but that is not how they are labeled on the bags! So I spent way too much time looking at everything we keep on hand. We have mice and rats of all sizes, chickens of many sizes, quail in 2 sizes I think, and probably some other things I can't remember. I got to learn they take foooooorever to thaw if nobody does it ahead of time, thanks night shift! π
Ah, so that answers another question. Snakes can be notoriously picky about eating carrion - anything that isn't alive. A roommate of mine long ago had a boa of some sort, and he basically had to buy frozen mice, thaw them, and then puppet them around to make them seem alive. Feeding that thing was a whole-day process; thankfully, it only ate once a month or something.
I wasn't sure about owls. I know sport raptors eat raw meat - that's common in videos of them - but I wasn't sure about owls, especially wild ones not raised on already-dead prey.