broken tail feather

[Rex06]

my kestrel (11 weeks old) has broke his midle tail feather.
its 1 inch away of the end of that feather.
He is imprited but not yet trained so what should i do?
remove the feather from where it is broken?(that 1 inch)
just let the piece hang there (it bothers me)?
or what should i do tell me.


greetzz rex

ps: i am from belgium so my english sucks (and what is imping ?)

[FlameHairedFalconer]

Hi - your english is pretty good. I'm not sure what your native language is but imping is 'aanstken' or 'enter une penne' (according to MH Woodford!!)

You could needle imp the end of the feather back.

FHF

[Hobby]

Do a bit of research into imping a new feather in place,if you leave it you risk the adjacent feathers breaking also.Not sure you will be able to imp the 1 inch broken piece back satisfactorily.

[Rex06]

could you place some pics (what does it look like) of this how and what do you use to ?"glue"? it back together ?

[Rex06]

who has a link or please wants to put some pics online of feather beeing imped or pics of this handling.

greetzz

[Claire]

Is it broken or just bent? bent feathers can sometimes be sorted out by dipping them in hot water, might be worth a try before you cut it, imping at that point in the feather wont be very strong as its a part of the feather which should flex. but since its this years bird I doubt you will have another male kes feather to imp in

[Francis]

As it is an european bird, in respect with belgian laws, you should be a member of a recognized bird-breeder-fancier organization.

In belgium they are quite a few falconers around

and some with kestrels too...
in Dutch imping means "enten" "enteren" for the The Netherland...
in french "enter" nowadays, in some old books you will find "enserir"


some usefull adress online for clubs, associations, courses, etc...
see for flanders here : http://www.valkeniers.be/
and for the french speaking part : http://fauconnerie.forumactif.com/index.forum
if you search the net, you will find other sites too

tail feathers for a kestrels will be at hand there, as wel as help.

I doubt also about 1 inch imping, litterature has it for cutting a part of the dammaged feather.

Is it only bend, than heat can fix the problem, half broken can also be fixed by a skilled falconer.