  Here we describe a compact and efficient strontium oven well suited for
laser-cooling experiments. Novel design solutions allowed us to produce a
collimated strontium atomic beam with a flux of 1.0\times10^13 s^-1 cm^-2 at
the oven temperature of 450 {\deg}C, reached with an electrical power
consumption of 36 W. The oven is based on a stainless-steel reservoir, filled
with 6 g of metallic strontium, electrically heated in a vacuum environment by
a tantalum wire threaded through an alumina multi-bore tube. The oven can be
hosted in a standard DN40CF cube and has an estimated continuous operation
lifetime of 10 years. This oven can be used for other alkali and alkaline earth
metals with essentially no modifications.
