This blog has been created to answer your questions about barn owls, and to give you a forum for telling us about your own nest box programs. Let us know how many nest boxes you have, what the occupancy rate is, how many babies are fledging, and what kinds of pest control methods you use in conjunction with barn owls.

Barn owls have been contributing to what we now call integrated pest management for centuries--long before the term was born. Farms (and human habitations for that matter) attract high numbers of rodents because humans are so good at creating rich food sources through agriculture.

Barn owls are one of those few species that attach themselves to man that are not pests but are beneficial. Wherever humans have spread, so has the barn owl. There are three reasons for this. Barn owls are attracted to the high number of rodents around farms; they are highly tolerant of human activity around their nesting sites; and manmade structures such as barns and outbuildings provide barn owls with ideal nesting sites for this tall raptor that requires large cavities to raise its young.

Although farmers have recognized the benefit of having barn owls around their farms since farming began, in recent years agriculture has begun using barn owls in sophisticated rodent control programs by erecting nest boxes to attract barn owls in high densities. Some vineyards have as many as 50 boxes erected in their vines; Israeli farmers establish boxes as little as 100 feet apart; and oil palm plantations create rows of barn owl boxes between the rows of palms.

Barn owls are used against pocket gophers in California vineyards, against voles in nut and fruit orchards, against cotton rats in sugar cane, and against rice rats in rice paddies around the world, including Malaysia, Thailand, and the southern United States.

Go to www.barnowlbox.com for comprehensive information on using barn owls for rodent control.