To hand rear an owlet time is the most important factor. Before I decided on hand rearing Jazz I had to consider a lot of things , would I be able to cut up the chicks to feed her? feeding whole chicks was bad enough, but to have to cut them up into little bite size pieces positively gave me the shudders. The other was how would I be able to feed her while at work. At the time I was working for a homeless hostel and had to sleep over when doing my shifts, which meant going to work for 4pm and not getting home till noon the next day or later .

The next thing I had to consider was having back up , or should I say a resident baby sitter as of course as wonderful as Jazz was I still had a life to lead, so hand rearing as you can see isn't quite a straight forward a process as you the reader might think.
Before I went to the nest box to take a chick out I rang an expert on owls, Mr Bruce Berry of The New Forest Owl Sanctuary, and asked lots of questions and also his opinion as to the sense in taking on this venture, he was extremely informative and I would like to thank him here in print for his assistance.
The next thing was choosing which one to take , that as it turned out was a simple choice Jazz was the smallest of the brood and would have had little chance if any on surviving as her siblings had grown strong and fat at her expense.

My next problem was her home for the next six weeks or so. she was as I said very small so my husband came up with a wonderful idea , he took an old cool box (the type you keep your beer in on the beach)and drilled holes all around the side( about 25 mm in diameter) and simply placed kitchen towel on the bottom inside making it easy to clean , oh yes I forgot to mention another thing you would have to acquire a strong stomach ,owls are not known for their sweet smell.

I had previously arranged with my bosses, at that time, to bring Jazz to work with me this was made easy by the cool box ( makeshift nest box) having a handle on the lid it also gave Jazz a dark and warm place in which to sleep whilst also enabling me to carry her from place to place. So at this time I would also like to thank Barrow Council and Miss P Wilson in particular for allowing me to break a rule and letting me keep her under the desk. To enable the feeding of Jazz I needed a pair of hooked tweezers (essential), which I got from a discount shop in town ,also I had to have a shallow dish mine was an old fashioned enamel cake tin and most important of all an old tea towel i, to stop drips of blood and yolk from the meal. ii, to give Jazz a nappy type thing to sit on as feeding a baby owl brings immediate affect on their bowels. iii, plenty of rolls of kitchen towel as their living quarters need changing a lot.

On the first day I brought Jazz in from her parents I had her food ready I sat her on my knee gently cupping her with my hand and holding a small amount of food in the tweezer I coaxed her to eat by tapping the food on the left side of her beak as her mum would have done, as it turned out the first feed was not as difficult as I originally thought it could be, the poor thing was half starved and as that ugly looking thing looked up at me for more I immediately fell in love. After putting up with her smelly and disgusting looking food and her losing her down , making my lounge look like it had snowed in doors I enjoyed every minute .
Training an owl isn't easy either they have to trust you for one and you have to have a strong body as their talons are not made for landing on human flesh , so training to a glove is essential .

However in Jazz's case, she is under the impression she is human and still my infant and insists on landing and sitting on my knee , which she now does to all visitors and friends that happen to be in the same room as her and not just to me, if any person visits my home Jazz would like a closer look and come happily flying through the house to the lounge and sit on their knee.
Jazz has turned out to be a very strange owl she has her own flight attached to my conservatory with her own entrance to the house by day she sits in the flight snoozing and looking at the other owls in their flights with a curious but aloof posture as if to say they are very strange looking people.
As soon as she hears either my husband or myself arrive home at night she sits at her door (which is a little window) and waits to be let out for her tea and to join the rest of her family and watch either of us on the computer or watch tv. Expecting later when bored with watching, to play games, this involves throwing paper balls around for her to swoop on, in particular her most favourite toy of all, an 'AA' battery which rolls and is easy picked up for inspection.
There are lots of things I could tell you about Jazz and maybe one day I will expand on this article but for the moment I hope that you, the reader have enjoyed reading

Steve's owl pages can be found at -
Http://freespace.virgin.net/steven.jones1/index.htm

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