this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2024
471 points (99.4% liked)

Superbowl

3491 readers
330 users here now

For owls that are superb.

US Wild Animal Rescue Database: Animal Help Now

International Wildlife Rescues: RescueShelter.com

Australia Rescue Help: WIRES

Germany-Austria-Switzerland-Italy Wild Bird Rescue: wildvogelhilfe.org

If you find an injured owl:

Note your exact location so the owl can be released back where it came from. Contact a licensed wildlife rehabilitation specialist to get correct advice and immediate assistance.

Minimize stress for the owl. If you can catch it, toss a towel or sweater over it and get it in a cardboard box or pet carrier. It should have room to be comfortable but not so much it can panic and injure itself. If you can’t catch it, keep people and animals away until help can come.

Do not give food or water! If you feed them the wrong thing or give them water improperly, you can accidentally kill them. It can also cause problems if they require anesthesia once help arrives, complicating procedures and costing valuable time.

If it is a baby owl, and it looks safe and uninjured, leave it be. Time on the ground is part of their growing up. They can fly to some extent and climb trees. If animals or people are nearby, put it up on a branch so it’s safe. If it’s injured, follow the above advice.

For more detailed help, see the OwlPages Rescue page.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Found this, which I hadn't seen before, but looks to be a popular repost.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Will owls eat pears, or are they strictly carnivorous?

[–] anon6789 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Owls are birds of prey, so they only eat meat. This can include insects, butterflies, snakes, fish, skunks, porcupines, rabbits, and whatever other small animals they can lift.

They can't chew, their tongues just work like a conveyor belt to pull things down to be digested, so they can't really eat a wide variety of things, and they don't have a crop to break down fruit/vegetable matter or seeds like other birds.

You will find people online of course saying they've seen an owl eat this or that. Owls are goofy like most animals and will chew on things to check them out when they are bored, but I don't see any accounts of them eating anything but meat for sustenance. All the rescues give them various birds and rodents and that's it. They don't even need to drink as they get all the water from their prey, though again, they will drink if they're hot or bored or while taking a bath.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

That tracks.

Cats are purely carnivorous. And yet we've had cats who'd regularly eat:

  • lettuce
  • potato chips
  • popcorn
  • canteloupe
  • grass
  • Hershey's Kisses

The lettuce thing was a kitten phase; she stopped doing it as she got older. Potato chips and popcorn are "cheat" foods; most of the chips we eat have MSG, which is the "meat" flavor, and we put seasoning with MSG and nutritional yeast on our popcorn, so they probably think they're getting meat. I've read many cats like cantaloupe; something in it tastes like meat, and it's pretty common. Grass, well... I don't know. Supposedly they eat it as an emetic, but this one just gnoshes on it and never throws it up. We have to keep a small lawn in the house for him; he's just a weirdo.

The Hershey's Kisses thing was odd. I know chocolate is toxic for cats, and we'd try to keep it away from him, but he'd find the bowl wherever we put it, pull one with carefully unwrap it, and eat the chocolate. He'd eat one or two at a time, and never seemed to suffer any ill effects from it. We'd re-hide the bowl, and when we discovered the wrappers around the house we knew he'd found it again. It was only around Christmas; Kisses in a bowl at Christmas was something my wife was brought up with. Anyway, strange cat.

Oh! We had another who'd dig through the trash for fast food wrappers and eat them. The paper. I think that's because he was an older adoption and had lived on the streets and learned to live out of trash cans, though.

This has nothing to do with owls, but there's a pure carnivore parallel and it makes me wonder. Are there owl individuals who pick up a taste for something omnivorous somehow?

[–] anon6789 2 points 6 months ago

I've had a few cats that enjoyed snacking on random things as well. The sky cats/land owls comparison contintues!

My cats have enjoyed green beans. They all definitely liked chips. The one cat loved that cat grass you can buy to grow your own. My parent's cat liked powdered donuts. I don't think any ate fruit. One I saw eating macaroni salad and corn on the cob when she was a stray.

I couldn't find much discussion on owls eating odd things, but there was a redditor that started pictures of a GHO eating acorns, which sounds very strange. I'm thinking it would just throw them up later. Owls have very weak digestion, and they'd be too big to get past the gizzard.