RSPCA: Orphaned barn owl chicks were given a second chance at family life

Tuesday, 9 August 2011 5:15 PM

Orphaned barn owl chicks were given a second chance at family life after they were placed in the care of feathery foster parents.

Four baby owls were thought to be just a couple of days old when they were brought to RSPCA Stapeley Grange Wildlife Centre in Cheshire in May, after the building in where they were nesting had been knocked down.

For the first ten days they were hand-fed using tweezers, but as the chicks were so young staff thought their best chances of survival would be to be fostered out into another nest.

This meant an urgent search for barn owl parents who might be able to cope with adding an extra mouth to their existing brood.

With the help of South Cheshire Barn Owl Group, they found four such breeding pairs with chicks of the same age. Separate families were needed for each owl as parents would not have been able to feed more than one extra mouth each.

Each rescued chick was carefully slipped into a separate nest and then left to settle into their new families – where their new parents fed and cared for their foster chicks as they did their own.

David Bromant, from the barn owl group, said it was the first they had fostered out so many chicks at once. “We’ve never done it on this scale before and were really pleased that it went so well,” he said. “It’s nice when a plan comes together.

“It was the simplest thing to do. We literally just sneaked the chicks into the nest, and they immediately snuggled up to their new siblings.

“As long as they are compatible with the age of their existing chicks barn owl parents will just accept foster chicks as their own. They arrive at the nest with food and just feed to whichever mouths appear.”

The group returned to ring all the owls in July, so they can be followed and monitored in the wild, and found that all four chicks had survived. They and their siblings have now left the nest and are fully fledged back to the wild.

RSPCA wildlife supervisor Maxine Bland, who cared for the owls when they were at Stapeley, said: “They were quite possibly the smallest chicks we have ever had at Stapeley – certainly the smallest chicks I have ever treated. It is so wonderful to think they are now flying around in the wild – thanks to their foster families.

“It is not that we couldn’t feed and care for them at the centre – but nothing substitutes for parents of their own species, regardless of whether they are foster or biological.

“Further down the line their survival chances are greater if they are fostered and the younger they are when this happens the better. Parents tend to help them along with the fledging process by feeding them mid-air.

“We were incredibly lucky to find enough breeding pairs with chicks of the right age.”

Notes to editors

— For images and interviews please contact the press office on 0300123 0244/0288

RSPCA, Wilberforce Way, Southwater, Horsham, West Sussex RH13 9RS
Press office direct lines: 0300 123 0244/0288 Fax: 0303 123 0099
Duty press officer (evenings and weekends) Tel 08448 222888 and ask for pager number 828825
Email: press@rspca.org.uk Website: www.rspca.org.uk

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• animal welfare