Barn Owl gently uses beak to help egg hatch 🦉❤️🦉
This video is the hatching of a barn owl owlet called “Ace”
It's fascinating to see the care, delicacy, and precision of the female barn owl, Mia, as she slowly picks away at the shell of the egg with her razor-sharp beak as the tiny owlet named Ace tries to get out. She removes the shell bit by bit, helping the outlet out as it moves, and encouraging Mia to help.
Eventually, Mia pulls away the shell and gently pulls Ace out of the remaining ½ shell, using the minimum amount of pressure to hold Ace in her beak, which is usually used to rip apart small mammals.
I've shortened the Video to the main highlights of the egg hatching process, but it took around 24 hours to complete from the egg first showing signs of cracking, known as “external pipping”, as little Ace used its beak to start breaking through the egg. It took Mia around 1.5 hours to help little Ace out of the egg when she began pulling away the shell.
The whole pipping process typically takes around a day.
The stages involved:
Pipping: The owlet uses its egg tooth (a small, temporary structure on the beak) to break through the shell, creating a small hole. This can take several hours.
Internal Pipping: After the initial pip, the Owlet may take a break to rest and breathe air from the air cell inside the egg. This phase can last several hours.
External Pipping: After resting, the Owlet breaks the shell around the pip until it can exit the egg. This final emergence usually occurs within a few hours to a full day after the chick begins pipping.
Barn Owls “Buster” and “Mia” mated, and four eggs were laid. The video highlights the first egg hatching. A summary of the eggs is as follows:
Egg laid Estimated Hatch Owlet Name (if Hatches)
April 29th 29th - 30th May Ace - (Hatched 30th May)
May 1st 31st May - 1st June Pip
May 3rd 3rd - 4th June Tinker
May 6th 6th - 7th June Kit
I hope you enjoy this natural wildlife footage.
Please subscribe to help get this channel going.
Cheers,
Paul
#barnowl #liveowls #owlets #livenest #owlcam