How Barn Owls are Helpful to Farmers and Ranchers

The Barn Owl, Tyto alba, was once perceived as the bringer of death, a reputation enhanced by the eerie screech often heard at night, at the same time though, the Barn Owl has for centuries been the farmer’s friend.

The Barn Owl has gotten its common name from the historic prevalence for finding the owl nesting in wooden farm buildings. Indeed the Barn Owl is far more suited to the farmland habitat than the woodlands expected of most owls. Barn Owls hunt from the air, as opposed to hunting from perches, and as a result prefer the more open areas offered by fields and open grasslands. Exceptional sight and hearing aids them in their quest for prey.

The diet of the Barn Owl mainly comprises of rodents and small mammals, although amphibians and small birds are also eaten. It is this diet that has enamoured the Barn Owl traditionally to farmers. Crops and animal feed are extremely attractive to rodents and small mammals, and large amounts can be consumed if some protective measures are not introduced. This is one reason of course why cats are a feature on many farms, but the additional help offered by the owl is not unwanted.

Estimates for just how much help Barn Owls can offer vary but some estimates do suggest that a breeding pair of Barn Owls may well consume as many as four thousand prey items in the course of a year. Historically of course, before the introduction of chemical pesticides, the Ba rn Owl was perhaps more important than today.

Over the past few decades there have been some drastic reductions in the numbers of Barn Owls to be found in the wild, in a large part due to the use of chemicals killing off the prey of the owl, as well as habitat destruction. Many farmers have been vocal in pointing out to the decline in numbers, even if synthetic methods are now used to control pest numbers.

Today many farmers and estates are encouraging Barn Owls to roost in their buildings in the hope that numbers will recover, and indeed the added help in controlling pest numbers will not go amiss.

Of course the Barn owl is never going to be as important to a farmer as it once was, but the owl is still a feature of the countryside, serving a purpose, and anything that encourages numbers to increase them is to be welcomed.