Snickers lives at Liberty Wildlife, and every year, as the baby season begins, her maternal instincts immediately kick in. With no mate around to fertilize the eggs, they won’t hatch into babies, but Snickers carefully tends to her eggs anyway, just in case.
When two orphaned owl chicks, only days old, arrived at Liberty Wildlife, their rescuers knew they would need an experienced and caring mom to look after them. Of course, the choice was an easy one. Snickers would be their new mom.
While Snickers was away from her nest, her caretakers removed the infertile eggs and replaced them with the two babies. They then returned Snickers to her nest, placing her next to the babies, and waited.
Almost instantly, Snickers’ motherly instincts took over. She began talking back and forth with the babies, maybe to let them know that they were safe and she would look after them from now on. Then, she did the sweetest thing.
Snickers climbed into the nest and spread her wings over her new children, protecting them the best way she knew how. She looked back at her rescuers as if to say, “These are my babies. I’ll take it from here.”
Unsurprisingly, the baby owls have absolutely thrived under Snickers’ care. She’s done so well raising them that she was even given a third baby. She’s teaching them how to be owls so that, once they’re released back into the wild, they’ll be able to live incredible lives out on their own.