Barn Owl Nest Box Plans

Mount the nest box inside the open air building as high as possible away from disturbances and out of the reach of predators.

Barn owl nest box plans. Our design is 11 ft3 with with nearly 6 ft2 of floor space. About barn owl boxes. No perch is necessary and adding one will only give. Simmons has become a significant contributor to bird ecology through a massive program of building nest boxes followed by studying the occupants via banding.

Or you can simply buy a barn owl trust nestbox for inside a building. When siting your barn owl box keep in mind that hungry owlets can be. Nest boxes should be painted july. Always use untreated wood such as fir cedar or pine.

This barn owl box plan was developed by steve simmons of merced california and has been in extensive use since 1995. If boxes are in the right habitat with sufficient prey available barn owls may nest in a range of box styles. Owl nest box minimum standards the barn owl trust a leading authority on barn owls recommends increasing their nest box dimensions by 50 for the american barn owl equating to a floor dimension of 30 x 24 5 ft2 and a minimum of 10 ft3 for a box that is 24 deep. Top of box to top of hole 50mm or 2 front back side side floor roof exercise platform please don t use tropical hardwood barn owl nestbox for a tree cutting plan 430mm or 16 9 720mm or 28 3 430mm or 16 9 720mm or 28 3 705mm or 27 7 400mm or 15 7 500mm or 19 7 430mm or 16 9 700mm or 27 5 730mm or 28 7 730mm or.

Human access and cleaning out. Proper placement is critical to encouraging the owls to move into a new nesting box. Incubation is about 30 days. Barn owls and the law wild barn owls are given the highest level of legal protection possible under the 1981 wildlife and countryside act.

For barn owls a simple wooden box about 38 by 18 by 12 inches 1 by 5 by 3 m provides adequate room for a pair of owls and their young. A barn owl s diet consists mainly of rodents such as gophers ground squirrels and meadow mice. Ideal material is the female lays 1 to 11 white eggs between november and 3 8 inch or 1 2 inch plywood. Boxes can be placed in a variety of structures including barns silos granaries grain elevators and church steeples or mounted on a free standing pole.

Barn owls are very sensitive during the early phases of nesting april may and will abandon a nest if disturbed. Obtain information on the size of the owl species before you begin your owl box plans. Nest box criteria for assessing other plans or designs for interior barn owl boxes. The dimensions given on the owl box diagram below are the minimum required size.

For other species the size will vary. How to put up barn owl boxes. A typical barn owl nest box has a six inch entrance hole that is suitable for a barn owl but too small for a great horned owl and the hole should be approximately four inches above the floor of the box. Barn owl nest box plans.

Poor design can be fatal.