Teton Raptor Center needs barn owl boxes for 19 owlets

The Teton Raptor Center is in desperate need of barn owl nests that are being used by adult owls and owlets. They have 19 rescued barn owl babies, and they would do much better if they were raised by wild parents. There are lots of barn owls in Idaho, but they’re nocturnal.

“They only come out at night, and they’re silent hunters. They don’t hoot like most owls, so many of us have never seen one,” says Meghan Warren, the rehabilitation director.

The rehab center is doing everything it can to protect these babies and return them to the wild. They’re fed four times a day. They only eat mice, so volunteers chop the mice into bite size pieces for the littlest owls, and then dress in camo so the babies won’t imprint on humans.

“We don’t even speak when we’re in the owl shed,” says Warren. “We put purple gloves on so they won’t ever recognize human hands. And we feed them with tweezers.”

This group of baby owls will eat 100 mice a day.

“At 70 cents a mouse,” says Warren, “you can see the costs mount up. The Center would be thrilled if anyone wanted to make a donation towards their care.”

As for future help, the Center would love it if more people would buy or build barn owl boxes. These nests would be much safer than a hay stack nest, which gets moved and tears apart the nest. That’s how some of these 19 owlets arrived. A farmer was nice enough to turn them over to Fish and Game.

You can call the Teton Raptor Center at 307-203-2551 or visit their website to let them know you have an active barn owl nest.

By the way, baby barn owls do not make good pets. You’d have to arrange for 50 mice a week to be delivered to your door. You’d have to feed them four times a day. After they eat, they cough up something like a hair ball. It’s the parts of the mice that won’t digest.

Oh, and it’s illegal to own a native owl as a pet.