Differences between hand rearing and imprinting

[D_Esquire]

Ive been trying to find out the significant differences between hand rearing and imprinting any bird of prey, and also the benefits and disadvantages of each?
Various people have tried to explain but always seem to get tangled along the way.
Any help would be fantastic, cheers.

[BHawk]

an imprint thinks it is the same as you and this brings with it bad habits and dangers, the bird does not have the natural fear of humans so is more likely to attack people, the only advantage of an imprint (in my opinion) is for later breeding as a semen donor.

[KiteTrainer]

an imprint thinks it is the same as you and this brings with it bad habits and dangers, the bird does not have the natural fear of humans so is more likely to attack people, the only advantage of an imprint (in my opinion) is for later breeding as a semen donor.

Think it depends what you are imprinting and what your reasons are the problem is if they are not imprinted properly

[MattSpar]

An imprint, properly done, wants to be with you and takes everything in everyday life in its stride. This must be good, as the tamest, most well manned non-imprint must live on its nerves to a greater or lesser degree, or the effects of manning wouldn't wear off without constant "topping up". Imprinting never wears off. A tame imprint is tame for life.

If done right, an imprint won't be excessively noisy, nor aggressive. They are just delightful to be around.

Here's a photo of my imprint female peregrine trying to help herself to my friend's chicken dinner.

[HawkingTX]

A method that I prefer to have done with my young falcons that has worked great for me is what most people refer to as a dual imprint. Normally I will order a falcon from a breeder before eggs are even hatched. I tell the breeder that I want my falcon to be raised entirely by the parents until at least day 18 of age preferably day 21.

Then I have the breeder ship the falcon to me to start the imprinting process. Of course the bird never sees me with food in any manner during this process. This results with a falcon that knows it is a falcon, but very accustomed to being around people, dogs and all kinds of surroundings.

I will take the falcon almost anywhere and everywhere including my office here at work. It is pretty funny watching the young falcons reaction to driving in a vehicle the first couple of times. It is even funnier when people come into my office and the falcon is sleeping because in short time the bird will wake up and start to stretch their wings and scare the heck out of my visitors. Almost everyone will say that they thought it was a statue or something.

[D_Esquire]

An imprint, properly done, wants to be with you and takes everything in everyday life in its stride. This must be good, as the tamest, most well manned non-imprint must live on its nerves to a greater or lesser degree, or the effects of manning wouldn't wear off without constant "topping up". Imprinting never wears off. A tame imprint is tame for life.

If done right, an imprint won't be excessively noisy, nor agressive. They are just delightful to be around.

Here's a photo of my imprint female peregrine trying to help herself to my friend's chicken dinner.

Thanks that was helpful, a gorgeous looking bird as well.

[Kevin Massey]

Moved From GFT

[BHawk]

Think it depends what you are imprinting and what your reasons are the problem is if they are not imprinted properly

good point in my post im generally referring to falcons.

[Jack]

I might be wrong here, but I fear that in hand rearing a hawk or falcon it would make it difficult not to imprint it at the same time. To me at least, hand reared means the same as imprinted. I mean that this is usually how we manage to imprint them, by hand rearing them. Or maybe you meant something else?

Jack

[OutFlying]

I think the original post compares food imprints to social imprints,

[Misty]

I must confess I have always found this a confusing topic even though I have 'imprinted' many falcons and owls over the years. I think re: falcons, the post 5 from hawkingtx says it for me. My falcons are imprinted the same way except I usually have them straight from incubator, but they are with me 24/7. The one major factor (as hawkingtx states) is that they DO NOT see where food is coming from and therefore son't associate me with food. I have found that the resulting falcon is steady, friendly, flies well and isn't prone to wandering off. There may be a little noise when they see me approach for a few minutes until I pick them up but as soon as they go to their new owner they are quiet. Mattspar also said the same thing in his thread and is quite correct (IMHO)
With owls, the process is the same except they know I am feeding them. I have found this produces excellent natured owls.
I was confused the other day when I telephone someone who is advertising all sorts of owls and I asked if the were imprinted or parent reared. he replied quite indignantly that you don't imprint owls as you end up with a violent nasty bird. His owls are hand reared. When I asked if he could explain exactly how he handrears them he stated he takes then from the creche 3 times a day, feeds them by hand and puts them away again:roll:
If I've got it wrong I'm sure someone will tell me but my methods have always worked for me up to now.

[ReluctantTwitcher]

An imprint, properly done, wants to be with you and takes everything in everyday life in its stride. This must be good, as the tamest, most well manned non-imprint must live on its nerves to a greater or lesser degree, or the effects of manning wouldn't wear off without constant "topping up". Imprinting never wears off. A tame imprint is tame for life.

If done right, an imprint won't be excessively noisy, nor aggressive. They are just delightful to be around.

Here's a photo of my imprint female peregrine trying to help herself to my friend's chicken dinner.

Good post Matt, even better picture! :heart: :supz:

Cheers,
/Magnus

[Sophie]

there have been a few threads on this before:
heres one i did a good while ago:
http://www.falconryforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=26406
i benefits with an imprint is some time based on temerment ie in a gos or spar or owl it is meant to produce a calmer bird which is 'easier to tain' due to a slightly more tolerant nature.
also for weight control a very small bird doesn't have to be dropped as low in weight in order to fly, so therefore less risk of straving.
and of corse for potential futre seme donation.

disadvantages are,
screaming/noise, aggression (sometimes) etc

[Jack]

Food imprint or Social imprint? What?? An imprinted raptor is an imprinted raptor. Just curious, but where do you guys come up with this stuff?

Jack

[OutHawkn]

Food imprint or Social imprint? What?? An imprinted raptor is an imprinted raptor. Just curious, but where do you guys come up with this stuff?

Jack

I have to go with Jack on this one. What are you folks talking about?

[SBFalconry]

good point in my post im generally referring to falcons.

my imprint falcon is a pleasure to handle and totally silent ive had him from 2 days old youve obviously not seen a good one

[D_Esquire]

i still dont get it, is it one of those things that hands on experience is the best like most things about birds of prey? it just seems to get more and more complicated

[Jack]

This is how I see it. Imprints can be raised in a way as not to have all the imprints ill behaviors, but you can not avoid certain things. hawks and falcons have absolutely no idea what they are, or what you are. They just get used to seeing you and consider themselves to be somewhat the same thing. If they even think about these things at all. When they mature they become territorial, even in your hunting fields and especially around the house. Strangers and such pose a threat to their dominance in their own territory and they are prone to act on this by attacking people. Just about any species of bird will defend it's territory against it's own kind, while mostly ignoring other species all together unless they envade the near vicinity of their nests. Hawks and falcons are pretty much the same way about people if they are imprinted. Other than that, I have not seen much advantage in imprinting except for tameness.

Jack

[MitchellBrad]

An imprint, properly done, wants to be with you and takes everything in everyday life in its stride. This must be good, as the tamest, most well manned non-imprint must live on its nerves to a greater or lesser degree, or the effects of manning wouldn't wear off without constant "topping up". Imprinting never wears off. A tame imprint is tame for life.

If done right, an imprint won't be excessively noisy, nor aggressive. They are just delightful to be around.

Here's a photo of my imprint female peregrine trying to help herself to my friend's chicken dinner.

Pea's N Peregrines? Seems like a nice meal to me:-D

Brad

[FredrickFogg]

An imprint, properly done, wants to be with you and takes everything in everyday life in its stride. This must be good, as the tamest, most well manned non-imprint must live on its nerves to a greater or lesser degree, or the effects of manning wouldn't wear off without constant "topping up". Imprinting never wears off. A tame imprint is tame for life.


I think this might be so with falcons, but with accipiters, they do revert back to being wild if not around people and handled daily. At least, that is my experience with the coops I have.

Fred

[Hatchero]

this question pops up like a perennial weed it would seem. i think the heart of the problem lies in the fact that most folks make bold statements based on pretty small sample sizes. After forty years years or so of doing this i still feel like my sample size is pretty small, only being able to fly two or three birds a year. i think another part of the problem is that falconers like to give themselves more credit for how things turn out than is probably reasonable. First off i don't think there is any real distinction between "food imprints" and "social imprints", imprints are imprints. From what i have seen some birds, no matter what species and no matter how you manage them as an imprint will go bad, some birds will be awesome no matter what mistakes you inflict on them. There are some birds that when at hack sit on the hack box and scream all day long at all the other birds--this bird( if it had been taken for an imprint) is made to make some unlucky falconer....well...unlucky, if she were to try to imprint such a bird. on top of all this there is what i see as a species propensity to be difficult imprints. i have little experience with accipters but have noticed that Coopers are likely to be difficult as imprints, no matter what you do. most of my experience is with falcons and these are my observations: Merlins are perhaps one of the most difficult species to imprint well, the jacks are possible but even God would count herself lucky to imprint a female merlin well. most of the large falcons can be managed well as imprints though peregrines are somewhat more touchy and a few mistakes with food handling will make your life a noisy hell though even this can sometimes be cured with a large dose of time. imprints should best be self fed as soon as possible and they should always have food available until a little of there atention is required. every individual bird is different so you have to go with the feel of when it is ok to let a bird skip a meal so as to make them a little more eager to make a kill. Gyrs and teita falcons are probably the most "naturaly" easy falcons to imprint and are almost always a joy to be around. personaly, with the exception of merlins, i prefer imprints but i often just don't have the time to do it and know that an imprint that gets shorted on "quality time" is a little more likely to be a problem though i think that good and bad imprints are mostly hatched not made. Jut a few of my observations.
Jim

[MitchellBrad]

this question pops up like a perennial weed it would seem. i think the heart of the problem lies in the fact that most folks make bold statements based on pretty small sample sizes. After forty years years or so of doing this i still feel like my sample size is pretty small, only being able to fly two or three birds a year. i think another part of the problem is that falconers like to give themselves more credit for how things turn out than is probably reasonable. First off i don't think there is any real distinction between "food imprints" and "social imprints", imprints are imprints. Jim

Jeeze Jim, your a man with great insight. Never heard all these terms until I got on these lists. An imprint is an imprint in my mind, always has been that way. Me? No imprints in the Mitchell household unless they were the human kind but only one of them ever screamed and mantled over food and money. The rest were fine. A little age always seemed to cure that. ;-)

I haven't had one for a long time and don't intend on having another. I'll leave imprints to the smarter more patient falconers:-D

Brad