Destined to be a Great Horned Own

We got a baby great horned owl in to the Wildlife Rehab abotut a week ago. Here he is looking silly sitting around in his little enclosure.

He looks half plucked and fuzzy, unkept, bent beaked and like he might not have use of his legs. Click on the photo below to see it enlarged -- This fella's a little Benjamin Buttonesque, wouldn't you say? But he is perfectly fine.. he just doesn't have a mommy. Except us of course! We clean up after him, give him a soft place to sleep, feed him all he needs so he can grow into his beautiful eyes. Those big, golden, mezmerising eyes are the only sign of what's to come.

Because you see, when he grows up, he will be among the most handsome and mysterious birds on earth in my opinion. Here's an idea of what he'll look like:

I took a little movie of him today, doing cute things in his cage which I will upload and post in the next few days, so please come back-- this little guy is quite amusing to see in motion.

Baby chicks

I mentioned a ways back that there were a large group of chickens sitting in the large warehouse next to the rehab center, cock a doodle do-ing all day long. They really make quite a racket.

Well, we took in about 6 tanks worth of baby chicks, 8-10 a tank, and kept them warm, clean and fed. They grow so fast! I came in one Thurdsay to little yellow puff bals and the next thursday to these guys below, double in size from before, and already growing out heavier, mutli- colored feathers. To look down on the tanks from above you can appreciate how beautiful they looked much more. I wish I had taken a photo from that angle, but I was too busy scooping them out into a new tank so I could clean the one they were in.

Instead, I took this quick little snippet of them eagerly drinking some fresh water I'd put in while they were waiting for me to finish up and get to feeding them their breakfast. They are as cute, swallowing with their little beaks in motion, as the baby ducks where that I filmed HERE.

All those roosters crowing made me think twice about having chickens when I buy a home/have some land. I thought it would be a great way to have live animals, while having a source of fresh food (just the eggs!!!). I was thinking that would be even easier than trying to grow things in a garden. But do I really want to be woken up at 4 AM by a rooster crowing? And apparently they don't just do it in the morning if these guys we have are any indication. One of them goes off literally every minute.