Pages

September 3, 2010

Owls Are Bulimic (and their barf is the perfect gift!)

You probably learned this in your first outdoor science class: Owls like to eat mice and other other rodents and small animals. And when the owl eats these little critters, it eats the WHOLE critter!

The owl then barfs up the skin, bones, and other tough-to-digest parts of the animal in a nasty little ball called an “owl pellet.” Back when I was a kid, we used to go around collecting and trading owl pellets.

I’ll give you a rat for a gopher snake!

No way, gopher snake owl pellets are totally rare! Give me a rat AND a hedgehog!

That sort of thing. But today’s lazy children can simply go on Amazon and purchase an owl pellet online. 

Well, that's progress. And look, the bag even says “Puke” on it, so you know it’s the real deal!
Awesome owl pellet picture from WiseAcre Gardens.

3 comments:

  1. Your Gracious Grossness!!

    Very funny!! Reminds me of the classic Dave Barry 'Things That Go Hornk in the Night' (see 'Dave Barry Talks Back', 1991). Of course, it all stopped being quite as funny once the owls moved into the neighborhood (you know, bad owls, the kind that hang out all night).

    Still, I wondered where the chihuahua had gone... just glad we could get the collar back.

    ReplyDelete
  2. That is so gross! Owls don’t make a good solution for mouse control if it barfs it back up. If you’ve got a mouse problem, skip the owl and go for a good mousetrap. Victor even make ones these days that you don’t even have to see the dead mouse, the exact opposite of the owl. http://www.victorpest.com/store/rodent-control/m265#desc

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hmm...okay, but you aren't associated with Victor in any way, are you Marc?

    ReplyDelete

No bad words, thanks!