The first problem when I arrived home was food. I had read The Observer’s Book of Birds, and other books, and all said that owls eat rats, mice, etc. But I had been told that baby owls are given the insides of animals until they are old enough to eat fur and feathers, which are roughage for them. That night I fed them with plain horsemeat and halibut oil and put them in the airing cupboard in the kitchen, which I thought would keep them sufficiently warm. As I put them into the cupboard our housekeeper turned to me and said, ‘Won’t they cook?’ For a moment I was horror-struck as the thought of cooked owl for breakfast flashed through my mind, but I soon remembered the many other small birds who had started their recovery in our airing cupboard. I went to bed that night thinking what horrible, ugly little beasts my future pets were.
At six o’clock next morning they were ravenous. Beside the larger of the two lay a small round ball of fur and feathers, the technical name of which is a ‘pellet’. A pellet consists of undigested particles of food, bones, feathers and fur, which are separated from the flesh by an iron-hard stomach that nature has placed below the breast-bone, not above as in the case of the crops of other birds. These pellets are regurgitated at twelve-hour intervals and vary in size according to the amount the bird has eaten. My owls produced quite small ones, from one and a half inches long and a third to half an inch thick, because they had more boneless food than wild owls. The pellets of wild owls can be over two inches long and half an inch wide. I once found one with three mouse skulls in it.
I had heard of one or two cases where people keeping owls had lost them due to what I thought was a bad diet and in particular not enough roughage to produce pellets. My biology teacher said that these pellets are of vital importance to an owl, because in its stomach there would be a strong secretion or enzyme that helps to break up the bodies of their prey, and unless this secretion is disposed of through a regular pellet and not left unused in its stomach, it could paralyse and eventually kill. In the wild this presents no problem, as owls only eat furred and feathered creatures. I was terrified lest anything like this should happen to mine, so I immediately started covering the meat with feathers and fur. I also set five mouse traps, and caught six mice, two in one, side by side!
While I was preparing the food, I noticed that the bigger of the two was pecking at his brother, who was now quite still. Very soon I realised that this pecking was no affectionate caress, but plain cannibalism! The other owl woke up and proceeded to try to eat his brother also. The only explanation possible is that in their blind state they mistook each other for food. This habit lasted until well after their eyes had opened; it must therefore have been due to a lack of brotherly love! Meanwhile the day for returning to school was approaching and the time for an answer from my House Master. In case of a refusal I prepared everything for Susan; pages of instructions, clean bedding, mouse-skins (as we gave only the skins at this stage), horsemeat, liver as their main food, tins of chicken pellets, and a bottle of precious halibut oil which I felt was life-giving to them.
I started feeding them chicken pellets when I saw a sack being taken to the chicken-house. On it was written ‘Extra Vitamins’ and so after that I gave them some Spillers Chick Crumbs. I hoped these would fight off any possible paralysis that I’d been warned about, due to lack of vitamins. I soaked the crumbs in water and made them into soft lumps. They smelt revolting, but the owls ate them up readily enough.
The fateful morning arrived and with it no return letter. I had not given my House Master enough time to answer. And so with a heavy heart, as I had already become fond of my ugly companions, I left them in Susan’s hands. The letter arrived by the afternoon post just after I had left home and when I arrived at Eton M’Tutor immediately asked me where the owls were and if they were all right!
For the next fortnight I did not see them but was assured that they were in good health by frequent letters from Susan. In my anxiety I wrote frantic letters asking for news and giving instructions which were either impossible to carry out or quite useless. I wrote continually to find out if they had made a pellet, as I was frightened lest they should die. Each letter said, ‘Put more feathers on the meat, put more fur on, for heaven’s sake. Please watch day and night to see if they produce one.’ Each reply letter was the same, ‘Sorry, I am afraid there is no pellet yet.’ By the end of ten days I had sent five letters and was indeed in a state of desperation, knowing that the next letter would bring news of a pellet or of death.
One morning there was as usual a letter lying on my breakfast plate. The address stood out clearly, ‘J. M. Franklin, Esq., Corner House.’ I picked it up with trembling hands and tore it open. There was one line, ‘I found a pellet this morning’!
Susan kept the owls in a cloth-lined box in an airing cupboard and fed them at regular intervals, in spite of her having to go to school. Feeding times were: 7.30, a large breakfast; 10.30, a light meal, given by Susan’s mother; 12.30, a large lunch, given by Susan; 3.30, a light meal; 7, another meal and 10.30, a large supper to last them through the night.
The food was mainly horsemeat covered with pigeon feathers or fur, pieces of mice and a little liver, plus one drop of halibut oil each per day. They were given as much as they could eat and as a result grew tremendously. In two weeks they were twice their former size. Their appetites were enormous and in a week they consumed half a pound of horsemeat and a quarter of a pound of liver, to say nothing of the many mice which were trapped every day.
When the owls were fed, the food was prepared first and put on a plate. They were seated on the table on their behinds with their feet out in front and heads up like begging dogs. At first they rolled over but soon their legs strengthened and helped them to keep upright. Also, their stomachs were so big and protruded so far that they hardly needed other help. The food was put down their open mouths in small bits. Water was squirted down once a day from an eye-dropper.
Very shortly they outgrew their box and began to wake Susan up in the morning with their beak clickings and raucous cries and so they were transferred into an old budgerigar cage. Susan put this in the kitchen and they spent the day either sleeping or watching with intense curiosity every movement made outside their cage. They would sit motionless and follow the object of interest through its entire course by turning only their heads and watching with unblinking eyes like two old women. Owls cannot move their eyes, only their heads.
Their limbs soon began to strengthen and they began to walk and climb. When climbing they clambered up the side of the cage. This exercise would take anything up to a quarter of an hour. When it reached the top, the owl, unable to think of a means of descent, would loose its grip and fall to the ground with a sickening thud, where it would lie struggling on its back. Shrieks of laughter would come from Susan and her sister Doreen, whereupon the owl would give a convulsive jerk and right itself and then gaze at the source of noise until the laughter ceased. When it did, the climbing would start again. It would go on until both owls were so exhausted that they fell asleep.
After two weeks of the half, i.e. term, I broached the subject of having the owls at Eton to my House Master again. Fortunately he did not object, and very soon I had a plan to bring them to school.
I managed to arrange a dentist appointment in London, when my friend, Mrs Hawdon, would be going there as well. She agreed to bring the owls with her and we fixed the meeting place to be in the hall of Debenhams, as it was near my dentist.
Mrs Hawdon fetched the owls from Susan, put them in a large mouse-cage, 2 foot 6 inches by 1 foot 6 inches by 1 foot 6 inches, and caught the train to London after a restless night, as the owls had decided to spend it pecking the wire of the cage. On the train she sat proudly beside her charges and fended off all questions. However, halfway to London she had to leave the carriage to have her breakfast. Returning, she found a crowd of people in the corridor with one man gesticulating wildly and nursing a finger.