Everyone who is interested in birds ask for what does owl eat, so in this blog post we gonna learn everything there is to learn about owls food.
What does owl eat
They are not known for their great predatory skills. Sometimes they are eaten by other birds of prey like the eagle. They themselves can eat smaller specimens of their own kind. Snakes, if they can climb trees, will eat their eggs and young.
When it comes to food, they prefer smaller animals, because they cannot kill them if they are large. They do, however, have a wide variety of food choices, and prefer:
- Amphibians
- The reptiles
- The insects
- Rodents
Owls prefer mice and rats because they are easy to catch - they just need to grab them by the tail. They are also very fond of hares and rabbits, but these are more difficult to capture due to their speed and the fact that they escape with great skill. In winter, when mice bury themselves below the surface of the earth, the owl has a much harder time finding them.
You should know that this bird consumes only living prey. If he finds a dead or decaying animal, he will continue on his way as he has a highly developed predatory instinct and sometimes the hunt satisfies him more than the tasting of the animal itself.
Read about : Are owl birds
What food do owls eat?
The eagle owl food
The eagle owl is a “super predator” that occupies one of the highest places in the food chain. Its diet is variable and depends on many factors, including the season, their habitat and the amount of prey available.
They usually hunt at night and prefer open, rocky spaces to forests. This owl's very quiet flapping of wings combines with its perfect night vision, sharp claws and hearing acuity to make it an exceptional animal for hunting. Thanks to its exceptional sense of hearing, it is able to hunt even in total darkness and its claws allow it to immobilize its prey in seconds.
The eagle owl's diet is very varied and consists mainly of rabbits, small rodents, insects, squirrels, hares, hedgehogs and other birds such as pigeons, blackbirds, magpies, partridges, crows, owls and jackdaws. This raptor can even catch prey weighing 10 kg, such as foxes or fawns, certain reptiles or fish, as well as other raptors such as red kites or variable buzzards.
Once the prey is digested, it regurgitates through the beak the less digestible parts such as hair, skin, feathers and bones in the form of rejection balls after about 10 hours. In fact, eagle owls swallow their prey without chewing them. They use their beaks to tear meat into easy-to-swallow pieces and eat them without chewing.
The amount of food these raptors need depends on the species to which they belong and their size.
Eagle owl hunting techniques
The eagle owl belongs to the owl family and has several hunting techniques that it can use both in flight and on land. The most common is the stalking or ambush technique, which involves staying still and on the lookout for when to hunt their prey, dropping in absolute silence on any animal that has come out in search of food. His hunter activity can begin at sunset and continue until dawn.
The eagle owl shares this technique with other nocturnal raptors or owls, as does many physical characteristics such as a flattened face, large head and eyes, and short, rounded wings. It also shares excellent hearing and visual acuity with its cousins the Tytonidae, as well as the surprising ability to rotate its neck through 270º.
What does the owl drink
▪️Owls do not usually drink water from tanks like other birds, but rather meet their water needs from the bodies of their prey.
▪️With every prey they eat, they get a gram of water for every gram of fat.
▪️Sometimes they drink a little while bathing in pools and ponds.
What does a pet owl eat
Food in the tawny owl
It feeds mainly on insects and small mammals. It also eats birds, frogs, worms and mollusks.
Feeding in the little owl
It feeds on insects, rodents, amphibians and reptiles. Its balls are light gray in color , oval and elongated (37mm x 17mm) , and when dry they become very crumbly.
Food for barn owls:
The barn owl's diet consists mainly of voles, shrews, field mice and mice, which they capture in large quantities in the fields. Also feed on small birds and insects. Finds the art balls of scares in attics, churches, ruins and barns (rodents represent 90% of the diet of the owl).
Food in the long-eared owl:
It consists mainly voles, shrews, squirrels, birds and various insects.
The diet of an owl that is raised from a young age as a hobby or for knowledgeable tests varies according to the size and type, each owl is fed with alternatives close to its diet in the wild, keeping an owl as a pet is not easy because it needs a varied diet that we have eaten in Owl breeding article.
Owl loves to eat its food as a whole and not in pieces. Every potential owner should understand the diet of the owl he intends to keep and how he will ensure the availability of those pieces.
Owls in captivity do not need to kill their prey as they are supplied to animals that have already been killed, the most popular diet among the many species that are kept in captivity includes:
▪️Mice
▪️Rats
▪️Chicks
For those who keep owls as pets, it is extremely important to maintain a varied owl diet.
▪️Owls often swallow their prey as a whole, so it is best to feed them with small, whole nutrients rather than small pieces of large animal meat.
▪️Captive owls feed on worms, insects, and mollusks and are sometimes fed by a small bird or frog.
▪️Wild rats are mostly avoided as feeders because they carry disease.
What do little owls eat
-The simple answer to this question is that little owls eat what their parents feed them.
-The mother owl hunts their natural diet for their baby and then tears it up into small pieces so that the little owl can swallow it easily.
-Baby owls have the same diet as large owls of their own kind. So if you want to know what an owl owes, you need to first determine its species and then search for a list of that species' prey.
What does a snowy owl eat - What does a white owl eat
The snowy owl is found in Alaska, Canada, Northern Russia, Iceland, Greenland and Scandinavia. They eat medium to small sized mammals that are present in their habitat which includes:
▪️Hares
▪️Field mice
▪️Mice
▪️Squirrels
▪️Prairie dogs
▪️Badger
▪️Rodents
▪️And they hunt geese and small birds
What does a large horned owl eat
The large-horned owl received a very varied diet. Being opportunistic by nature, large horned owls hunt both small and large mammals and birds.
90 % of its diet consists of mammals and theremaining 10 % are birds, insects, reptiles and amphibians.
Great horned owl like to eat:
Field mice
Mice
Hares
Waterfowl
What owls eat burrows
Burrowing owls are found throughout North and South America. They are small in size. Being small in size, it hunts small animals which include:
▪️Moles
▪️Lizards
▪️Mice
▪️Beetles
▪️Grasshoppers
What do barn owls eat
Among all species of owls, barn owls or store owls are most widespread and are found in habitats as diverse as farmland, woodland, and hedgehogs as their main food and prey:
Common mice
Shrew
Mice
Rats
Small birds
What does an owl eat
The Screeching Owl mainly hunts small mammals and large insects, and it is preferable to:
Mites
Beetles
Scorpions
Centipedes
Field mice
Gophers squirrels
What does a desert owl eat
The desert owl, known as the desert owl, eats small rodents and insects such as:
▪️Jerboa
▪️Mice
▪️shrew)
▪️Geckos
▪️Scorpions
▪️Grasshoppers
▪️Beetles
Do owls eat snakes
Yes, some types of owls eat snakes such as:
Owl burrows and hunts small snakes.
Long-eared owls eat brown dikai snakes.
Screaming owls eat:
Earth snakes
Garter (viper garter)
Blind Snakes
Elf owl eats blind snakes
Does owl eat squirrels?
Yes, most owls eat squirrels such as:
-Great horned owl hunts ground squirrels.
-Burrow owls also eat squirrels.
-Great Gray Owl hunts red squirrels.
-Northern pygmy owls hunt squirrels.
-Barn owls hunt both ground and flying squirrels.
Red squirrels are also hunted by:
▪️Northern Dwarf Owl
▪️Northern Hawk Owls
Little owl
Most owls eat insects and other invertebrates. For example, Eastern owls eat beetles and crayfish along with mice and birds, while the smallest owl, Elf Owl, eats beetles, moths and scorpions. Some types of small owls are also known to hunt and kill birds of their size.
Big owl
The diet of large owls varies a lot and owls are opportunistic in nature, so they will eat whatever food they can find. For example:
Big horned owls eat raccoons, squirrels, cats, hawks, small dogs, and even other owls.
Barn owls, which are their main prey, are rodents, but they also hunt bats and rabbits.
Eagle owls hunt golden eagles and young deer weighing up to 28 pounds.
Asian fish owl (blackstone owl) hunt fish, amphibians and other aquatic invertebrates.
What do owls eat in the wild
In the wild, owls usually eat:
Rodents
Rabbits
Field mice
the birds
Bats
Insects
Reptiles
Amphibians
Fish
Depending on their size and habitat they also eat:
Insects
worms
Spiders
Frogs
Lizards
the birds
the cats
Dogs
Spinner
Other owls
▪️Owls are also able to hunt animals that are in size and even larger.
▪️Owl swallows its prey as a whole. The stomach digests the digestible parts of its prey and the external cough gets rid of the indigestible parts (teeth, claws, fur) of its prey in the form of small balls known as pellets, the pellets are stored in a separate part of the owl's stomach called the gizzard.
▪️Owls use their claws to pounce on their prey and if the prey is still alive it kills it by breaking its neck with a quick bite. Then they fly into the tree branches with their prey to eat them.
▪️The owl stores surplus food in tree holes when needed.
