Owl Saved From Manure Pit Leaves PA Rescuers Stunned After Discovering What Caused Its Collapse

At the end of a long day, wildlife rehabilitator Tracie Young was ready to head home for dinner. Then her phone rang.

Working at Raven Ridge Wildlife Center in Pennsylvania, Young has learned that emergencies have a funny way of arriving at the worst possible time. Still, something about this call immediately grabbed her attention.

A local game warden had just rescued an owl from a manure pit on a nearby farm. And the bird had been trapped there for two days.

Without hesitation, Young asked the warden to bring the owl straight to the center. She already knew it was going to be a long night.

When the owl arrived, the first thing Young noticed was the smell. She had expected the bird to be dirty after spending days in a manure pit, but the odor was somehow even worse than she imagined.

That’s how the owl got his first nickname. Stinky.

The poor bird was exhausted, dehydrated, and covered in grime after spending two days exposed to the hot sun, as the Raven Ridge shared on Facebook:

“This Owl was stuck in a manure pit for at least two days, and upon arrival it was evident that he was severely dehydrated, weak, eye trauma, and layers of dried manure.”

But there was something else worrying Young even more. One of the owl’s eyes looked swollen, cloudy, and red.

She immediately began treatment, giving him fluids to combat dehydration along with pain medication and anti-inflammatory drugs.

Then came the baths. Lots of baths.

Despite everything he’d been through, the owl stayed remarkably calm through the entire process. Little by little, Stinky started to improve.

After just a few days, his feathers looked cleaner and healthier, and the swelling around his injured eye had gone down. But Young couldn’t shake the feeling that something was still wrong.

Looking more closely, she noticed there seemed to be something lodged behind the owl’s eye. Carefully, she used tweezers to investigate.

What she found left her heartbroken. Hidden in the eye socket was a BB gun pellet. Suddenly, the mystery of how the owl ended up in the manure pit made much more sense.

Young believes the bird may have been shot and disoriented, causing him to fall into the pit and become trapped there.

And yet, incredibly, the owl had survived. Even more astonishing, he still retained vision despite the injury.

At that moment, Young realized the owl deserved a better nickname. Stinky no longer seemed right. Lucky did. Because somehow, against all odds, that’s exactly what he was.

Lucky remains at Raven Ridge Wildlife Center, where staff continue helping him recover and regain his strength.

Soon, he’ll move to an outdoor flight enclosure where he can practice flying again and prove he’s ready for life back in the wild.

Everyone at the center is rooting for him. And no one is more amazed than Young.

She almost didn’t answer that late-night rescue call. The game warden could have arrived later. The owl might not have survived another day. But somehow, all the right people crossed paths at exactly the right time.

And thanks to that, a bird once covered in manure and nicknamed Stinky now has something much better. A second chance.