Breeding question

[Ben C]

After having a chat with a friend who is now going to buy an incubator I am asking this..........

Does the employment of 'synthetic' means of breeding and rearing not dilute the strength of any given species bloodline? If a pair of hawks/falcons/owls fail to breed and raise a set of chicks, then why would allowing them to survive through artifical means help that particular species bloodline. Surely it is best to let them die and then try again next year?


Thanks

[HawkMan69UK]

my philosphy on this one was tested when i had 4 chicks hatch all healthy but the youngest one was not getting his/her head up enough i contemplated taking him/her out and rearing him/her for a few days but then he/she would not be the strongest and not have the strongest to survive instinct... needless to say he did not make it and was fed to the others but they are strong fit and have the instinct to survive afterall in the wild only the strongest survive.....sad but thats life....on a another note this is not my income so its an easy chioce not sure what i would do if it was my living.....potentionly i threw away 1000/2000 pounds

[Saker-Clive]

I would say not Ben; I know a breeder that has a female HH, that will eat her young if left with her. She's done this every year for many years now. So what they do is leave 1 egg with her and incubate the others. They then get put with a foster mum or creche reared.
Like us humans, not all birds are good parents.

[Ben C]

Wether a hawk is a good parent or not is not the issue...that is anthropomorphisation.......just because they eat their young does not make them unfit parents surely??? They are only eating the young to re-coup the vitamins and minerals lost in producing eggs and young in the first place. So in that respect they are quite smart!

Other than 'synthetic' incubation what else have people tried in order to coerce their hawks to breed after they have failed....say four times in a row???

[MickeyDredd]

Wether a hawk is a good parent or not is not the issue...that is anthropomorphisation.......

Bloody hell, thats impressive for a Friday night, must still be early ;)

My own personal take on this question is rather simple my friend.....mainly because I am breeding owls which will not require to be the "fittest of the fittest" in a hunting capacity. The RT's are a different matter!!

One of my pairs of great grey owls laid six eggs this year, the first eggs they have ever produced. I know at least 2 were fertile as one was "kicked out" of the nest and i got the sole surviving chick out of the nest box last night and it is in a mechanical brooder as we speak. On Tuesday night there was definately one chick and 2 eggs that were about to hatch yet when I went in last night there was only one live chick -with no sign of any other dead chicks or egg shells so I assume they were all eaten. The female was observed yesterday trying to feed a couple-of-days-old youngster a full weaner rat, she obviously has not grasped the fact she should be feeding them morsels, bless her. This I assume to be the reason there were no more youngsters alive.

I therefore propose to purchase an incubator prior to next year and will take the eggs off the owls when partially incubated, the female actually did a tremendous job of incubation - she only fell down at the last hurdle, and will finish the job myself. As I say, the fact that the owls will all be imprinted makes the decision quite straight forward in my mind. I bought these owls with the sole intention of financing my falconry so it doesnt make sense to carry on losing most if not all of the progeny at such a late stage of proceedings.

The red tails can look after themselves however ;)

Rgds
Mike

[Ben C]

OK, so taking the owls out of the equation and opening the question up to 'proper' hunting BOP.........why keep eggs and young that would be killed or destroyed by natural means????

[MitchellBrad]

Great question Ben. I'm afraid we have let too many birds that shouldn't have survive. My personal opinion is nature is a hard mistress. One mistake and your a meal for someone else. And if you watch a pair of falcons hatch their eggs your going to learn more than watching an incubator and weighing eggs. Peregrines are noisey critters at the nest. They chup and talk to each other all the time. If you take an egg at 25 days or so, place it on a smooth surface and chup at it it will wiggle. When adults hatch their eggs they are communicating to the unhatched eyeases. Once the eggs start to pip and cheep the adults talk back to them. I got a falcon this year as a replacement. She only laid 3 eggs which I was sure were infertile. I'd produced that falcon 3 yrs ago, she was hatched by her parents and never saw a human until the day she was banded. Anyway one day I saw her cock her head and look down at her eggs then chup. At the moment I thought it was odd for her to chup to eggs that were infertile. Two days later the first hatched, then the second followed by the third. On the other hand I've had fertile eggs not hatch underneath the adults. Instead of asking why or why not I was releaved they didn't. Most likely there was something wrong with the chick.

The biggest problem as I see it is PRODUCTION! By this I mean numbers, numbers and still more numbers. Ask yourself why there are so many goofy birds around. Some birds end up in projects and never seem to get things right. Where as others never seem to make a mistake.

Every bird I've let the adults hatch and raise (100%) that ended up in MY project has gone on to be an excellent breeder. For others a few have exhibited wierd behaviors which I can't explain.

Again, I don't produce birds to make a $$$. The few I sell the money goes to pay for my falconry. I'm like about every other breeder and sell them to some good falconers, some average falconers and some real ******s.

Brad

[Ben C]

So why do people use incubators then????

[Sparrow Hawker]

Taking the eggs away and placing them in an incubator allows the parents to recycle and lay a second clutch of eggs, when the first clutch hatches they can be hand-reared, put with foster parents or placed back in with the parents after a few days and the 2nd clutch of eggs can then be taken away and placed in the incubator.

SH

[Ben C]

Sparrow -hawker:

I understand that........but for what purpose? why force parents to lay a second clutch??? why force the issue??? Surely one clutch is the best way for the bloodline and the species and if this fails then so be it.

Why save eggs and offspring that would and are killed, this is not doing the species any good is it????

[MitchellBrad]

If your livelihood depends on production then it's best to have an incubator. Without one the possibility of double clutching is almost nil unless you have a lot of extra birds to hatch the chicks. There are people who are more comfortable with hatching in incubators because they feel if there is a problem egg then they may save it. In some instances the breeder may live in a place and be trying to breed birds from a different part of the world which evolved in, lets say, a dry climate. In a wet climate eggs may have a tough time hatching. Also, you can get the eyeas DNA'd at an early age to sex it. If I tried that I'd have nothing but crushed eggshells and not know who belongs to which shell. In the case of messed up birds an incubator might be the only way to go. I used to have a prairie that would abandon eggs at one or two weeks of incubation. She'd lay 6 and I'd only get 2 or 3 unless I stole them from her before she left them on her own.

If the price of peregrines suddenly went through the ceiling I might got that route but I guarantee you nothing would come back here unless it was parent hatched and raised. One thing I would do would be to get a tape recording of a peregrine setting eggs and play it when the eggs are ready to pip. There is some data on chickens that suggests the hatch may be better. In the case of chickens the increase was small so didn't merit more investigation. In the case of gyrfalcons one extra chick might mean a holiday you weren't planning:grin:

[MitchellBrad]

Sparrow -hawker:

I understand that........but for what purpose? why force parents to lay a second clutch??? why force the issue??? Surely one clutch is the best way for the bloodline and the species and if this fails then so be it.

Why save eggs and offspring that would and are killed, this is not doing the species any good is it????

Ben, I understand where Sparrow-hawker is coming from. Been there and done it for over a decade. The difference is I want my peregrines, I mean my personal gamehawk to be rough and tough just like it's counterpart in the wild. I want no pampered bird that didn't take it's chances though I consider what happens in an artifical chambers as being pampered. It's the best I can do for them.

On the other hand my birds, peregrines, are exposed to West Nile Virus through the multitude of skeeters who feast on them. Just like in the wild. Any barn pigeon that comes in the loft is instantly killed and fed to the falcons. That gets the hand wringers going half mad when I tell them that but I feel these birds are owed a debt of gratitude by me in that I want them like the way they were entrusted to me and not wrecked by some wacko anthropomorphisation I came up with. The passage gyr I treat a little differently but now I'm hearing about falconers in the US who regularly feed pigeon to their gyrs without so much as a sneeze.

Brad

[Sparrow Hawker]

Sparrow -hawker:

I understand that........but for what purpose? why force parents to lay a second clutch??? why force the issue??? Surely one clutch is the best way for the bloodline and the species and if this fails then so be it.

Why save eggs and offspring that would and are killed, this is not doing the species any good is it????

Very good point, there's always a chance the first clutch of eggs is infertile plus I think a lot of breeders do so because your maximising the yield from the bird and some breeders rely soley on the sale of there birds for income.

Be interesting to hear from experienced breeders and what there thoughts are on the subject.

I do think captive bred birds have somewhat diluted down perhaps the strength thats seen in wild popualtions, there probably not as strong as only the fittest survive in the wild.

We've probably got thousands upon thousands of birds in captivity that wouldn't stand a chance in the wild and to a certain degree I can perhaps see why people want the licensing of wild takes back, cause there flying a bird that's beat the odds and made it in the wild, so it's got to be a more than capable bird. There's probably not such a thing as an average bird in the wild they either make the grade or they fail and die.

All The Best,

SH

[Ben C]

Sparro-hawker and Brad:

(lets remove the 'proffessionals' and those who need the money as they are a different species entirely...and good luck to them)

These are very VERY interesting points. So in fact if you decide to breed you have a huge responsibility to ensure that a) your not weakening a species and b) That the species you breed does in fact need to be bred.......and C) (perhaps the most important) you need to EQUAL the outside elements.

I suppose in this context an incubator just becomes another tool and the skill lies in making sure what you are doing is as close to what would happen in he wild.

[GoodFooter]

I would say not Ben; I know a breeder that has a female HH, that will eat her young if left with her. She's done this every year for many years now. So what they do is leave 1 egg with her and incubate the others. They then get put with a foster mum or creche reared.
Like us humans, not all birds are good parents.
My concern for this breeder is that if the parent is a 'bad mother' and if it is a genetic trait.... by breeding that trait may be passed to the offspring which cant be good ( well actually it probably isnt a bad thing because there seems to be a glut of HH so anything to keep the numbers down is probably OK). Now I am not saying bad parenting is heritable it may be a phenotypic responce ( basically how genetics respond to the enviroment) but often the poorer birds are bred from as if they are great or exceptional performers in the field many people would want to continue flying them. Hard as it may be the best breeders breed with the best birds and in my opinion that means the parent stock needs to be tried and tested in the field.Artifical incubation would allow the genes of any bird to be broadcast faster ( via double clutching) which could be a fantastic thing if the bird was in short supply or a great performer but also a very bad thing if it is simply used by irresponsible breeders to propogate poor birds.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Well ... Ben ... I have an old pair of reds ... they arnt very productive I have too thought should I just leave em alone?

But this year I manipulated and the 6th egg was fertile ... hatched in an incubator and reared until 5 day old ... so what you may say ... but when I put that chick back in their was one very happy pair of redtails both in the nest together with the chick in between them ... over joyed with the chick they wuz... and plain for all to see ...

so they still have purpose

Now before we discuss the merits as to If this particular RedTail will be a dud or not .... Ill tell you we can actually find out .. as our mutual friend Jay is taking it on for two years and he plans to "DVD" its Training and succsess ...so be intresting to see what happens

Jez

[Ben C]

I would be very interested to see that DVD......who is filming it?

Also Jez....how do you go about making there environment as close to the wild as possible (if in fact you do???).

[Jeremiah Johnson]

I dont Ben I try make it as comfortable and clean as space will allow

The nesting area is white and cleanable (gloss) the rest is wood and stained with presvative..it is secluded avairy type ( have tried open and the reds get stressed at the sight of me and a BOP (space restraint again) some natrual perchs and some with astro turf avairy is 16' long 10' wide 9' high

Jay i believe will be filming himself i not sure (why you got a camera)

... But currently all changing same design just alll been renewed extended with an access corridor

[Jeremiah Johnson]

Ben just to touch on what yoiu said a bit more ..... What is a natrual breeding envoirment for a 1st .. 2nd ... 3rd ... generation captive bred BOP ???? ... bearing in mind both in captivity and in the wild... BOP's "Imprint" on thier nest and are happier with similar nest sites later on in life ..

[MitchellBrad]

(lets remove the 'proffessionals' and those who need the money as they are a different species entirely...and good luck to them)

Hey Ben,

Sorry, no can remove the professionals or anyone else who breeds large numbers of birds. There are many great breeders who produce the best they can but there are also some puppy mills. The small guy has little or no influence. The responsibility lies with the larger breeders not the little smuck who can barely raise half a dozen a year. This isn't a cut on big breeders it's an attempt to place the responsibility in their laps because they hold most of the cards until either falconry is outlawed or, in your case not mine, a wild take is instituted. If I want anything I just go down to my local telephone pole and see what's sitting on it.

Now back on subject. Incubators hatch eggs. Breeders like to see eggs hatch whether they are hatching HHs or something else. People are going to fiddle around with nature to fit their own needs, human nature. Do we have a big influence on birds. Yes, in captivity but not much in the wild. Can we properly name some of the birds produced now a days "Goofy"? Sure. But Goofy only lives in captivity and wouldn't be more than a memory in the wild. On the other hand Goofy's brother might be just what nature had in mind.

Brad

[Ben C]

Ben just to touch on what yoiu said a bit more ..... What is a natrual breeding envoirment for a 1st .. 2nd ... 3rd ... generation captive bred BOP ???? ... bearing in mind both in captivity and in the wild... BOP's "Imprint" on thier nest and are happier with similar nest sites later on in life ..

This is partly my point.......are you saying that ANY environment can become 'natural' then. And that it does not really matter?

(I am asking these question to learn....not to be an arse by the way :supz: :supz: :yawinkle: I hope you can see this mate)

[Ben C]

(lets remove the 'proffessionals' and those who need the money as they are a different species entirely...and good luck to them)

Hey Ben,

Sorry, no can remove the professionals or anyone else who breeds large numbers of birds. There are many great breeders who produce the best they can but there are also some puppy mills. The small guy has little or no influence. The responsibility lies with the larger breeders not the little smuck who can barely raise half a dozen a year. This isn't a cut on big breeders it's an attempt to place the responsibility in their laps because they hold most of the cards until either falconry is outlawed or, in your case not mine, a wild take is instituted. If I want anything I just go down to my local telephone pole and see what's sitting on it.

Now back on subject. Incubators hatch eggs. Breeders like to see eggs hatch whether they are hatching HHs or something else. People are going to fiddle around with nature to fit their own needs, human nature. Do we have a big influence on birds. Yes, in captivity but not much in the wild. Can we properly name some of the birds produced now a days "Goofy"? Sure. But Goofy only lives in captivity and wouldn't be more than a memory in the wild. On the other hand Goofy's brother might be just what nature had in mind.

Brad

The implication from what you are saying is that humans had better have a bloody good reason for 'goofy' to exist then. :rolleyes: :wink: :supz:

[Jeremiah Johnson]

This is partly my point.......are you saying that ANY environment can become 'natural' then. And that it does not really matter?

(I am asking these question to learn....not to be an arse by the way :supz: :supz: :yawinkle: I hope you can see this mate)

Naa not at all offended

but I think its awnsered if you read what I typed

[MitchellBrad]

The implication from what you are saying is that humans had better have a bloody good reason for 'goofy' to exist then. :rolleyes: :wink: :supz:

I was reading the Toronto Sun when this popped up. Now I have to think again :) I suppose what I'm trying so hard to say is what happens in captivity usually has no effect on the wild. Turn Goofy loose and he'll be back in the mews before sunset and locked it from the inside.

[Stratocaster]

I have bred from for the last five years or so, peregrines from a pair of wild
disabled haggards, they lay fertile eggs but due to the falcons injuries she
cannot incubate properly, I hatch these eggs in an incubator and the eyasses are very good falconry birds, the first of these have gone on to
breed themselves, having been placed back with the parents at eight days.
Had I not intervened, this very important new genetic outcross would have
been lost.
I think the decision to breed in the first place from the individuals, rather
than whether to artificially incubate should be the prime consideration, if the
parent stock are not acomplished fliers with sound temperaments then reproduction by any means is dubious, in the long term detrimental to the
species in captivity.
Just my take on captive breeding,
Regards Mike

[MattSpar]

Double clutching doesn't weaken anything. Whether just one eyass is reared, or ten from any particular pair makes no difference so long as they're given the best of everything. Helping a slow starter to get going doesn't weaken a bloodline either. Many people are delicate as children but go on to be perfectly normal, or even extraordinary. Arnold Schwarzenegger was very sickly as a child.

[Ben C]

That is assuming that every egg and offspring is equal.

[MattSpar]

No offspring are absolutely equal. They all differ as we do. So long as only healthy stock are bred from....

[Ben C]

I suppose that therein lies the skill of the austringer.......chosing and working with nature rather than doing it for a 'blast'...if you see what I mean??

And Arny is the progeny of a Nazi.......good films mind, but a dodgy bloodline none the less :yawinkle: :heart: :supz:

[MattSpar]

And Arny is the progeny of a Nazi.......good films mind, but a dodgy bloodline none the less :yawinkle: :heart: :supz:

Right, but the Nazis wanted to create the Master Race, a straightforward inbreeding programme as it happens. Who knows what humans could achieve if linebred for a particular purpose? The same can be done for hawks. All great performance animals are inbred, i.e. the result of mating closely related parent stock, racehorses, greyhounds, and so on. I think I may be drifting off the thread a bit.

Yes, I lean to the right, but not as far as Adolf (not quite).

[Ben C]

Lucy is an equine scientist and she will beg to differ on dormant line breeding, you only have to look at the conformation of most race horses: the casslicks proceedure is a fine example. I suspect many 'quirks' occur but are just not spotted by those who cannot see the fault. The same must hold true for Hawk breeding.

But I am am only a dunderhead and ask these questions to learn.....

[MattSpar]

The essence of any linebreeding programme is progeny testing.

[Ben C]

Well that goes without saying....but what is the test??? Conformation or function.............

Matt the bottom line for me is a question about the 'why?' and the 'what?' of breeding any hawk. What is the purpose, why bother and what are the results? I am absolutley fascinated by it and wish to learn more, so this is the reason for the questions. But I wouldn't want to do it just because I could...........

[MattSpar]

Either or both. It depends on what product you're after. They go hand in hand.
Your next bit I don't understand. Why breed a hawk.....?

[Ben C]

Why bother to breed a duff line??? Mat, I have seen all sorts of anomolies in Goshawks and HH, yet they are still being bred, which brings me back to the initial question about incubators and weakening lines?

[MattSpar]

Ah yes, I see. I'm sorry Ben, I've been up since five this morning delivering merlins and the old brain's a bit sluggush.
No, I agree, you wouldn't want to breed from a "duff" line but that too is all part of linebreeding. Elimination of unsuitable stock.
The thing is we, as falconers try to make every single bird a success, plus, we all have different criterea about what makes a good peregrine, a good gos, or a good harris'. Some like them big, some small, light, dark, big feet, and so on. What you call a duff line, someone else may find perfectly acceptable.

[Barbary Boy]

Why bother to breed a duff line??? Mat, I have seen all sorts of anomolies in Goshawks and HH, yet they are still being bred, which brings me back to the initial question about incubators and weakening lines?
if no one used incubators and never double clutched, then most of you saddoes out there probably wouldnt have a bird! it is so easy to critisize breeders these days when you all have choice and quantity to choose from. but when there were no birds available and you all moaned about it , the breeders were spending there money and taking the risks to produce birds for YOU now there are birds a plenty you lot are having a feild day critisising the breeder! they have done there bit and given you "choice" a thing you never had before so dont knock the breeders!

[MattSpar]

if no one used incubators and never double clutched, then most of you saddoes out there probably wouldnt have a bird! it is so easy to critisize breeders these days when you all have choice and quantity to choose from. but when there were no birds available and you all moaned about it , the breeders were spending there money and taking the risks to produce birds for YOU now there are birds a plenty you lot are having a feild day critisising the breeder! they have done there bit and given you "choice" a thing you never had before so dont knock the breeders!

Very pertinent point. I'd agree, to a certain extent.