help needed

[Barrney]

hi every body hope some body can help me i have a eagle owl he is not tame at the moment but working on it , he always trys to bite when i go near his jess or anklets to grease them up , the only way we can do this is by puting a towel over him , will this make him more agressive :(

[Shaun Byrne]

What sort of EO is it Barney? How old is he and how long have you owned him? Is he parent reared or imprinted?

[Jester]

the same questions as H4WKA asked and also do you feed him by your bare hand or not??

[Wightwings]

dont bother sounds like trouble would be my advise.......but since you seem to have grasped the nettle post up some for info like H4 and Jes have said and you may get some more replies.

in answer to your question bout the towel yes it will make him worse. do you need to do this to take him up too??? i would'nt worry about just greasing his jessess at the mo sounds like you have more important issues Barney.
:shock:

[Barrney]

no he is not fed by bare hands but he might of been be for he has been kept in a averie and not been handled for some time, i have had him four weeks and he is getting better slowy but sure, just his jess and anklets are get a bit dry looking ps sorry about my spelling not my strong point

[Wightwings]

From my limited experience with owls i would say they are very difficult to put back right once they have "gone of the rails" so to speak.

All i can suggest is Man..man...........man..........

keep us posted barney...... :D

[Barrney]

i now barn owls arent the same but i have 2 owls go of the rails but with a lot of manning and t l c they do come round again

[Bubo]

some species are a lot harder than others to regain their trust and this is the issue here. You will have to work to earn your owl's trust. Just be with him as much as possible and offering the food (on your glove).

As wightwings said dont bother with the jesses they can be dealt with another time. Just concentrate on manning that bird as much as possible. I see you said you have two birds. Does that mean you have taken two birds on?
bubo

[Barrney]

hi bubo sorry i never got back striaght away i had computer problems , when you say feed him on the glove do mean that he has to be on my fist or can i give him the food out of my glove if that makes sence

[Colohen]

Barrney
With the Owl on the fist. Thoe I dont use a right hand glove when feeding raptors , I would suggest you put a light glove on the hand offering the food , Misstakes happen !
One of he things I do with all my raptors , old and new , is slowly and lightly stroke the brest feathers or adjust slightly out of place feathers while they are on the fist feeding, this helps them laern that my hand movements are not a threat.
Keep him/her with you as much as possiable.

[Jester]

it could well be a food issue as owls dont see well close up and just see a hand coming up as a meal

One of he things I do with all my raptors , old and new , is slowly and lightly stroke the brest feathers or adjust slightly out of place feathers while they are on the fist feeding, this helps them laern that my hand movements are not a threat.
.

that wouldnt really work with an eagle owl as far as i can see ......... unless you can stroke the breast feathers and any adjustments in the few seconds it takes to wolf down a whole chick / mouse.

i have had a whole chick in my glove and held on to it so he has to work a little at it and he grabs maybe half of it, wolfs it down and comes back for the rest but his movements are fairly rough and its harder to do anything with him.

what i had to do to correct his biting habit is stop feeding him with my bare right hand :oops: ( i only found out about this after joining the forum )
then i started to put my empty hand up close to his face keeping it in a tight fist so he doesnt get any loose bits of skin to take a good hold of cos it hurts but at least he has realised the hand doesnt mean food any more.

now i can put his jesses on without too much trouble before feeding him even if he is really hungry and he lets me play a little with his breast feathers and i can even fiddle about with his jesses/feet and toes with barely more then a quick nibble "just in case there is tasty morsel"

he still wont let me near his tail or wings but anywhere else is ok

[Colohen]

Jester
GHO's are not much different only a slight smaller and the power in there beak can make a grown man cry , for some.
I use roughly the same methods only I easly run my hand down the edge of the wings , after some time at this I can even pull the wing open with out any real problems. 8)

[Barrney]

many thanks for you replys i will try all the suggestions over the weekend i will let you all no how it is going once again many thanks keep up the good work helping all use novices out

[Barrney]

also got this sent to me from another forum, does any body agree with this ( I had a GHO rehab bird for awhile and it bit like crazy. I tried to ignore it and not let the bird know it was getting to me.....didn't work......I finally tried this...When he would bite, I would push my finger towards him and throw the bird off balance while he was holding my finger (keep hold of the jesses tightly). Doing this caused the bird to want to get to offending oject out of it's moth quickly so as to regain it's balance. After a few times the bird began to associate biteing with the uncomfortable feeling of being forced backwards. Shortly thereafter, the bird would no longer bite me...he did start to ...for lack of a better word, nibble my finger on occation, but no more biting.

[Bubo]

i may be getting my lines crossed but if he is in rehab does this not mean he is a wild one? if so they shouldnt be training it!


but getting back to your owl, I did mean just leaving your owl where he is perched, putting the food on your glove and offering it to your owl. That way you are not feeding with bare hands at any time and after a while your owl can see that a glove means grub. Once your owl has cottoned on that food is being offered on the glove increase your distance very slightly and you will find that youur owl will also find it much easier to accept and actually start coming to your fist. I would just focus on reaching this stage. Dont haste things and start to touch feathers at this point because it is not something they like anyway really. You may just put him off. I dont mean to sound contredictory but i would leave this til a later time.
bubo

[Barrney]

hi bubo i will do what you said and see what happens , i have just weighed him he is 4pounds 2 ozs so i will start to drop his weight as well i will let you no how i get on