Great Horned Owl Pellets

If you are looking to do "basic" owl pellet dissection, Barn Owl Pellets (not Great Horned Owl Pellets) will be your best choice. Re-assembling a Horned Owl Pellet is for the master puzzler but also a great comparison to the Barn Owl Pellet in demonstrating why we primarily dissect Barn Owl pellets.

If you are interested in standard Barn Owl Pellets click here.

Nature-Watch now offers a limited supply of Great Horned Owl pellets as a compare/contrast opportunity for your owl pellet dissection. Horned Owls and Barn Owls have similar techniques of ingesting and expelling their pellets, with a few differences that make these pellets interesting to compare. Horned Owls often ingest larger prey, which requires that they break the bones of the prey to swallow it.  Key differences include larger bone structures, a chalkier pellet because of the broken bones, and a more porous gray pellet.

Great Horned Owls are considered to be one of the most voracious of all raptors. They eat a wide variety of prey such as mice, rats, rabbits and birds, including gulls, crows, and great blue herons. They also will eat reptiles, large insects, fish and road kill as well as domestic cats and dogs. Great horned owls usually hunt by perching on snags or poles and watching for their prey, or by gliding slowly above the ground. Their prey is usually killed instantly when grasped by their large talons. Great horned owls can take prey two to three times as heavy as themselves.

Range in size from 1" to 3". Sold individually.