imprinting a gos

[Grovsey]

hi all is it poss to imprint a gos if you work full time (8 hrs aday)
As I thought you are supposedly to spend every minute off the day with the bird as you get them so young

[Darren]

good question...i want to see the replies to this

[Shaun Byrne]

No mate, in short. Not unless you take it to work with you! Even if you do manage to imprint it when are you going to fly it? Weekends?

[Jastreb]

I have 8 hrs work. I work from 7,30am-15,30pm; I eat at work and at 16,05pm till 17,00pm in winter time (19pm in early sommer time) I am flying my gos. Ofcours, and every weekend.
I work on Faculty of forestry in Croatia, and we have 2,5 months summer vacations. That is not good time for flying hawks because of moulting season, but my goses finish in the midlle of August, and in that time start quail season.
It is difficult to make imprint with that kind of work time, but it is possible. If it is not hard to you to go out in the field direct after full time job, it is possible. For me that is not problem, I live whole day at work for moment when I will go out with my gos (I am glad that my girlfriend is not in this forum-Who is more important, me or your gos, your little girlie gos? - you know what I mean).
I don't care is it rain or snow, I am going out hawking.

[Chris S]

long story but i imprinted a female finnish gos last year,i work 8 hour shifts so when i was at work i would get the wife to stay in but if she was out i used to leave the tv on and the bird loved it(word of warning you must have a good partner to put up with the sh#t all over the house)dont know if you have ever imprinted before but they are great untill they hit about 40 days old this is when it can all go wrong because they turn on you trying to bully you same as they would there parents,very tempting to put outside but dont just ignore and carry on they do get over it.
you can get them enterd early and once they start killing most of the noise stops yes there is noise!.havent got mine any more will go in to that another time,but i must say that after doing it myselfe i can not see any real benefits to imprinting over parent reared birds as long as they are well manned just as good and none of the problems.
good luck

[Colohen]

I have to disagree with you H4. My Shang-Ti is a heavy imprint and I work 10hr a day and a half hr drive to the house and my wife wont have anything to do with my birds, "Why dont you go sleep with him" :cry: Know what I mean?
Chris is right about the 40 day stage had to go throught that myself ! What helped thoe ; he got away , decided to take off on a hunt (solo) not far from the house. Had all but give up looking for him :cry: eight days later my wife call me at work "Gess who's back :evil: " Shure enough on top the pigion coop screeming his head off was my goss. But all the better bird scence!

[Gaz]

imprinted a female finnish gos
:mrgreen: used his foot as a lure though :butthead: didnt you brains :mrgreen:

[Shaun Byrne]

I think it depends how imprinted you want your bird to be. To be a full well adjusted imprint I think you need to simulate as near as possible the time a parent would spend with an eyas. In the early stages that would be 24 hours a day and less as the bird gets older. It is possible to have a very TAME bird by spending less time with it than this but it wont necessarily be an imprint.

[HawkNorth]

what is the for and against imprint or parent reared

[Finnish]

Please tell me Grovsey why do you want a inprinted bird what is wrong with parent reared???????????????????? :? :?

[Darren]

i have heard that if you social imprint a falcon it will stay closer to the falconer & will come back to you without a food bribe very easyly

[Chris S]

i have heard that if you social imprint a falcon
must of us have heard an imprint falcon,ok if you live miles away from people make even more row than a gos,like i said can not see the point after doing it ok for spars and the like but just not worth it.

[Colohen]

There are adventages and disadventages to both!
Had my gos been parent reared I would probley never seen him agein ,the time he took off on his own , and that is bad when youve spent $1200.00 on a bird! Parent reared is much like a passage take, they allready have some of the wild instent in them for compition for food and the screaming is little to none. In the some shoe they can be just as hard to manage at first as a wild passage. There killing instent is sometimes a bit stronge and more aggressave. You dont have to go through the parent regresion stage.
The imprint is going to be a screamer , maybe indeffenitly but once he/she is past the parent regresion stage there much better to handle , fly at higher wieghts, easyer to retrive , seldom out of site. Then the other probles come in , would reather waite on you for food then to give chase to something they might not catch, will follow on the ground over flying, I allways thought that one a little strange for a bird to walk or run on the groung when flying is easer and faster.
This is just some if the pro and con but for the $ I'd trust a imprint over parent reared or wild hack. The heaver the imprint the better your chances of not looseing the bird but there is that risk if you fly , imprint or not and if you dont fly , get a parrakeet!

[Jastreb]

Parent rerard: got few wilde hagards and passages - loos them in the wild.
must very care about flying weight.
they were great hunters, but always
something scared them.
Imprint: properly impint them, and they will not scream, or sometimes
but not for a long, never when you are out.
much higher flying weight, stronger bird.
they only care about game, not tractors or something like that.
I don't care is it rain, snow or wind(stronger wind you will
enjoy in something what you can never see with pr gos) they
only wants to fly with you.
Yesterday: I was flying my imprint gos in very hard bush, I was flushing hare, and she was near me in the bush on half meter, she follows me like good trained dog, and when she saw hare and missed, she went on the high tree over me and wait - something like harris but much more explosive - she don't quit chase, I finde her 1km further on the hare! - I never had something like that with my pr goses!

[HawkNorth]

heavy flying weights better response sounds good

less fear of things


what is your views imprint striking face

[GoneHawking]

I think all these wonderful traits of the Imprint gos are fantastic but you really do have to spend masses of time and get things right by the time the bird is flying or later on cracks will start to show in the birds behaviour, I flew an imprint gos and he was really great, reliable, not scared of much or though he never got used to cows or horses, both of which he saw all the time? He did get vocal at home which was a pain but then he was silent in the field, it was the days when he couldn't be flown(weather etc) that were a problem as without just feeding up on the fist food sooner or later had to be given in the mews, I think this was a big mistake although me personally I can't see how I could have avoided the situation.
I want to fly a female gos this year but I really don't think I can do another imprint and risk MAYBE doing it wrong, going to go back to the parent reared way and see how I go, people have been flying p/r gosses for years and blooming good ones so I see no reason why the p/r gos should now fall out of favour, I also think that each individual needs to ***** his/her situation before deciding between the two options, what we don't need are tons of badly imprinted birds being sold on and on just getting worse with each new owner. I also think that two many people who wouldn't normally have time to fly a p/r gos now think "I will imprint a gos coz that is alot easier and don't take as much time" WRONG..

[Darren]

what if you buy a falcon that has been social imprinted by somebody else & you find out it is a screamer, is there any way to stop the screaming?

[Jastreb]

Who do such a thing, and think if he/she don't have enoguh time, that imprint is good choice, it is not!
I like imprints cause they are less scared of things, and I can enjoy in manny flights without thinking of take my telemetry out and looking for my bird.
P/R are good, lots of my friends fly passages or hagards from wild, but now lots of them think of imprints!
Today is hard snowing in Croatia, and I will fly my imp gos with no scare - there is always chance to loos your bird, but not so high like with P/R!
Face grabing - if you dont do things properly, if you put them low. But why fly them on low weight - they will be more agressive on you and they will have short flights!
Think, that for imp gos you need much more time to do things right in the begining, and you will have more joy in the future!

[Shaun Byrne]

Well said Jastreb! If you havn't got the time, dont even think about it!

[Jastreb]

H4wka, what kind of dog do you have?
I just look in your gallery. Is that beagl or pointer pup?
I am just thinking to buy GWP, friend of mine have of the best European blood line.

[Jack Merlin]

I like imprints cause they are less scared of things, and I can enjoy in manny flights without thinking of take my telemetry out and looking for my bird.
P/R are good, lots of my friends fly passages or hagards from wild, but now lots of them think of imprints!

I believe there is something better. My male gos (see photo on the left) was hand raised until 10 days, then reared by an imprint female.

I believe this is the best method. The birds can be kept in an open fronted aviary and the falconer can go into the aviary. The eyasses do not learn fear of humans from their mother. Of course, they need manning but that is no more time consuming than the work you have to put in to create an imprint.

I am only guessing this is what happened in the case of my bird because I could not wish for a better goshawk. He is not manned to other people as I usually hunt alone but he is totally wedded to me. He will come any distance to the fist, follow on, come out of the highest tree. He has taken a lot of pheasants, including two cocks last week. He has also taken a lot of rabbits. He does have one problem of calling at weather when he is hungry but it is not a nuisance to me because I have no close neighbours.

I have heard some bad stories about imprints behaving perfectly after being very carefully raised according to The Recipe, then suddenly taking offence at something and becoming very nervous indeed.

I am not a breeder and I am here to learn, so please blast away if I have got things wrong!

Jack

[Varmint]

I wa sreading a recent thread on this by Mr D.? would he be the breeder of your bird?

I was impressed by the idea and can see all of the advantages of a bird reared in such a way!

My only concern was its ability to be used in the A.I breeding process, i question Tony on this and he hadnt tried any reared in this way?

Id love to hear from anybody that has?

I have bred naturally from Merlins reared in an identicle way, some of which i have flown. They show absolutley no mal imprint traits?

Maybe he's got something there? :wink:

[Jastreb]

I really don't know why they become nervous. If you do things like you should do, I really don't see why should things go wrong. In my case she become more and more responsiv and better with me.
I also know if you give your imprint more chance to fly at game, and give them full crop, specially in the first season, bouth of you will have stronger bondage.

[Shaun Byrne]

H4wka, what kind of dog do you have?
I just look in your gallery. Is that beagl or pointer pup?
I am just thinking to buy GWP, friend of mine have of the best European blood line.

Its a Working Cocker Spaniel Jastreb. She is now 7 1/2 months old. I have started all the basics, sit, stay, turn on whistle etc. She will be starting serious training soon and I'm in 2 minds weather to have a go myself or send her to a pro dog trainer.

[Jack Merlin]

My goshawk was bred by Bob Michel in the south of England. I think he has now given up breeding goshawks.

Jack

[Jastreb]

H4wka nice looking dog!
I was thinking to buy pup and start to work alone, but to have good trained dog and hawk it is little bit hard if you work 8 hrs. But also I am falconer on the 1st place, and I always want best of my hawks, so if I have a dog, I want also best dog I can have.
Lots of work and I will maybe do some things wrong. So I decide to get pup from my friend, but he is also pro hunting dogs trainer, and he will do something for what I will need much more time, and probably there will be mistakes.
Also I am hawking every weekend with his dogs, and that is very nice when professionals do all the things. I just tell him that my dog dont need to do aport, and thats all.
You decide, I like what pro trainers do!

[HawkNorth]

would the male be treated in the same way as the female duel imprint . was at friends house to day looking at the work hes doing in his garage could have stepped on his female gos its that tame he reckons any one could
fly it quiet bird

[HawkNorth]

feeding in in the mews. i have never had a gos. but found throwing food directly was bad for falcons duel and nonimprints i removed the bird
first then hid the food slightly worked but still would not use it for gos
in my case i turned off lights placed food in darkness i was not in sight when light came on

[Coedhirion]

I have known of a lot of imprints turning real nasty later in life, an doing a lot of damage to their owner. Trying to descide which is best. how many fly inprints an how many p.r. ??? Has any one had an imprint for a few years and have they turned nasty??? Have to make up my mind if I'm gonna build a imprint tank !!!!

[Hawkmaster]

what is your views imprint striking face

What are my views on it? IT HURTS!

[HawkNorth]

imprint tank??? coedhirion

[Jastreb]

Do it!
Imprint tank - from plexyglass, gos can see everything around, but side walls keep dirt inside - for one period of his/her life, if you made ??? because of that HN.

[HawkNorth]

yes i see now i noticest a picture somewhere on the forum thanks

[HawkNorth]

ill bet

[HawkNorth]

RETURNING TO with suggestion

what are your fews on imprint striking face

mistake made? direct feeding the cause or would there be more

[Martin]

imprints done right are spot on but make a mess of one and you may live to regret it or you mat not,

[Jastreb]

I only see and heard about striking face with to low weight imprints. My imp fem start to mate with me, she is sometimes agressiv, but she don't strike my face, she do that with my hand. She did that today, and next second she is good. She don't do that with 100% of her strength, just a little bit. She is still on flying weight, and I know when I put her more up, she will not do that.

[HawkNorth]

i hope to fly a gos this year im think of a parent reared as my first posibly
eight week old male for mostly feather using the same training to my female harris

[Colohen]

I have had some up and downs with my gos imprint but loseing him is not one of them nor is attacking me . He has allways hated dressing even thoe I started this at 3 weeks old along with hood training , this is the only time he becomes agressive , why , I have no Ideal ,other wise out side of screaming he has been a good bird and that has cooled down of late.

[HawkNorth]

colohen how long are you flying your gos imprint