Another Brilliant Design of Nature: Owl Pellets
By Dr. Becker
If you’re like most people, you’ve probably never laid awake at night wondering about the origin of owl pellets. You’ve probably never asked yourself the question, “Just what the heck ARE owl pellets, anyway?”
And after I tell you what they are, you may never want to think of them again. But just for fun, let’s see if you can pick the right answer. Owl pellets are:
- Owl food
- Fossilized owl bones
- Owl vomit
- Owl poop
The correct answer is 3.
Owl Digestion 101
Owls, like hawks, falcons and eagles, are birds of prey. But owls eat and digest their food rather differently from other raptors.
Owls swallow prey whole or in big chunks, but their stomachs aren’t equipped with enough acid to break down bones, fur, feathers and scales. Since these undigested pieces and parts have the potential to damage the intestine, nature has designed an efficient method for handling undigested food – owl pellets.
Owls actually have two stomachs -- the glandular stomach, and the gizzard, which is very muscular. The glandular stomach produces the acids and other secretions necessary to break down prey into digestible and indigestible parts. The gizzard’s job is to grind up the meat.
Once the gizzard has processed the meat, the digestible portion travels into the intestine. The indigestible portion – bones, fur, feathers and scales – stays behind in the gizzard, which continues to grind and compress all these pieces and parts for several hours until they form into pellets.
Once a pellet is formed, it travels backward into the glandular stomach, where it remains until the owl’s body has completely absorbed all the nutrients from the food, which can take up to 10 hours or more. Once absorption of nutrients is accomplished, the pellet will continue traveling backwards and the owl will regurgitate it.
At this point, the bird is ready to eat another meal!
More Info on Owl Pellets
If by chance the topic of owl vomit has left you wanting more, I have another surprise for you. Did you know you can actually buy owl pellets online (from Amazon.com, eBay, Staples, and dozens of other suppliers) and dissect them to discover what’s inside?
If you have school-age children or you’re not too far removed from being school-aged yourself, you might already know this. Many school science classes offer kids the opportunity to dissect owl pellets as part of their study of owls. The students get to actually see the tiny bones, tufts of fur and other remnants of the indigestible portions of an owl’s meal.
As a special treat, here’s a quick video of a snowy owl actually regurgitating a pellet. (Note the impressive size of the pellet!)
Lucid Dreamer over here.. I typically have very vivid and off the wall dreams, all night, every time I sleep.. My first 'dream sign' that I learned to spot out, was giant tsunami waves just showing up out of nowhere.. It used to happen all the time in my dreams for about a year.. and it was always pretty intense to see a giant wall of water coming at me, but finally I learned to realize that was a sign that I was dreaming.. Instead of panic from the insanely tall tsunami, I would just realize it was a dream and charge at it... once I hit the water I would be blasted into a lucid dream 'trip' hah.. That had to be about ten years ago.. Now days it just happens w/o trying, like its built into me.. I lucid dream all the time.. It's fun to take advantage of these free and awesome natural trips 
... One thing I always loved to do (If I could remember) was to test my 'dream characters' in ways... A hand full of times at least I have had some trippy encounters w/ them.. And have been told things I don't see how I could have known.. I don't read too much into it but its definitely interesting.. I have even just been dreaming w/o realizing it, and had a dream character grab me and 'break character' to tell me I was dreaming right now.. that was a trip.. And another time while lucid dreaming I remembered hearing people say if you fall in your dream and don't wake before you hit the bottom you really die LOL.. So since I happened to be on top of a huge building so I tried it, and when I hit the bottom it felt like I was hitting my bed gently.. And I just got up and carried on haha... While we are on the subject, kind of.. has any one ever experienced the Zero Point Field? I have never known it by any name until I heard a description.. but I know it to be real from a hand full of experiences.. Real to me anyway 
That electric guitar in that video is rockin' LOL.. It's funny to watch a bird puke to that guitar jamming out. hah
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