What Is a Kookaburra?
The kookaburra is a bird native to Australia and New Guinea. As part of the kingfisher family, the kookaburra is a carnivorous avian, preferring to eat mice, snakes, small reptiles, insects, and baby birds. At Babby Farms, kookaburras are fed pinky mice, crickets, and meats similar to what the big cats are fed to ensure a strong and healthy diet.
The Kookaburra Laugh
What the kookaburra is best known for is its unusual call: the kookaburra loves to laugh! In fact, even if you’ve never heard a kookaburra call in real life, you’ve likely heard its distinctive sound in movies and shows your entire life. Although this unique bird is found in only one part of the world, its laughter rings often in films that take place in jungles, such as Jurassic Park, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and The Wizard of Oz, to name a few. If you have yet to hear the call of the kookaburra, visit Babby Farms and try to get ours to laugh, or check out this link here. Once you hear it, you can never un-hear it, and you will always recognize it in shows and movies from now on!
How Do Kookaburras Live?
Kookaburras are medium-sized birds, reaching lengths of 11-19 inches and weighing around 11 ounces. They are not generally aggressive towards humans, and can be somewhat domesticated, although they typically prefer to be left alone. They live in multiple types of habitats including humid forests, arid savannahs, and suburban areas. As long as there are tall trees and running water, kookaburras are sure to be found in many areas of the Australian continent.
How Many Kookaburras Are There?
There are five species of kookaburra, including the shovel-billed kookaburra; the spangled kookaburra; the rufous-bellied kookaburra; the laughing kookaburra; and the blue-winged kookaburra. Of these five, only the rufous-bellied kookaburra is found to live in small flocks. Other species prefer to remain solitary except for mating season. Kookaburras are sexually dimorphic animals, which means males look different from females. In the case of more colorful kookaburras, such as the blue-winged and rufous-bellied species, males have blue tails and females have reddish-brown tails.
Babby Farms Kookaburra
The Babby Farms kookaburra is of the laughing species. If you want to make him laugh, listen to the link above and try your hand at imitating this call to him! If you get him to crack a smile, then he and everyone around will get to have a good laugh at your expense!