35 Day old Gyr/Peregrine

[Roberto]

Dear friends

I´m getting a male gyr/peregrine from a breeder in Spain. The tiercel is been reared by a female imprint peregrine in a open pen. Next weekend i´m going to France to pick up a French Brittany and will be passing by the falcon breeding centre in the north of Spain. Since there are are some problems on sending birds to Portugal by ground i am tented to collect the hybrid in this occasion and avoid another future long trip. But there´s a problem, the falcon at that time will be just 35 days and i was trying to avoid an imprint with all the possible "bad habits" of this rearing method. So what are the chances of the gyr/peregrine end up in a screaming imprint?

Thanks in advance
All the best

[Ginty]

A very good chance!

[HawkingTX]

If you are careful about a few things, you can raise a bird this age to be as quiet as any chamber bird sir. I have done a couple with great success as with many of my other falconry friends. I personally perfer having an imprint falcon myself if I am the one doing the imprinting. Sure it is a little more work, but there are many rewards if done right.

John

[Roberto]

Thanks for helping.
Any tips that you like to share John? Are you talking about the usual procedures when dealing with total imprints to avoid food association? How to deal with the human fear factor in this age? I can´t put him in a block at this age or could i? How do you handle a bird at this age?

All the best
Roberto

[HawkingTX]

The one thing I have been told by a breeder that I have seen is true also is for some reason a Gyr/Peregrine will associate itself to most any little animal. It is hard to explain, but even though these other animals in sight of the young bird, the Gyr/Peregrine will become imprinted to it.

You mentioned that you will be getting a dog. Most falconers will put the dog and young falcon together to bond, however for the falcon, this isn't good. I would recommend doing just the opposite sir as we have had excellent results.

Keep any dogs, cats and etc. away out of sight of the young falcon until this falcon has killed at least a few times. Here in the U.S. we can use baggies, so I will have the young falcon kill on its own even if it is still tied to the perch on a long leash at least three or four live quail. After the falcon has done that, you can put the dog and bird in sight of eachother.

For some reason after the young falcon has killed a few of these baggies, the imprint association to other animals has gone by. As I have mentioned, this has worked for me and my other falconry friends. I have seen a few cases where the dog and falcon were put together and as the young falcon gets older, it will start screaming at the dog. After the screaming has started a while, then I have seen these same screaming birds wanting to attack these dogs. It can be ugly.

The other thing that I do is to use a cat feeder system that has a timer. We can purchse these little devices at the large pet stores here. Basically it will have two compartments and timers with lids on it. What works so good about these is that you can put food in the compartments of this feeder and set the timer to set off anywhere from 15 minutes to 24 hours. All this should be done completely out of sight of the falcon in order for it to not to associate you with food at any time.

With the cat feeder system closed and set, you can then place the feeder in whatever box system you are using to house the young falcon in. The falcon will see it of course, but with it closed will not have that food association to you. What is great is you can literally be anywhere in sight or out of sight when the timer goes off and one of the lids pop open. The falcon then sees the food and starts to eat. Afterwards you can easily go back and close the lid sometime later and remove the feeder back out of sight to clean up.

I use this system a lot so when I take my young falcons to the office with me at work, I can go to meetings and etc. without having to worry about being back at a certain time to feed the bird as the timer will be set to open when I think the bird will start to become hungry again. ALWAYS try to set the timer to open before the bird becomes hungry so the young falcon has food when it does have that hunger.

At thirty five days old, I would put anklets the young bird, but I would not tether it to a block until it starts to roam around a little too much for you. Make sure that when the falcon does start to roam around some to start tethering otherwise the young falcon that has had privledge to roam all over for any extended period of time seem to resent being tied to a block for a couple of days.

Also, the first day you get the young falcon, start hooding the bird pretty often. In the past I would slide a hood on a young falcon about 5 times plus and pull it off (back and forth) every morning, every time I would put the feeder in or take out and right before bed. Don't strike the braces closed until the bird is pretty much hard penned and use an oversized hood. All you want to do and get the falcon used to being hooded. Most of the time you will have no problems at all if you do it consistently and fairly often. Don't skip a morning or anything like that though.

That is just the start of what I do. You have to be consistent, but you can raise a great imprint without any noise. If you do it right, the young falcon will think you are basically his daddy in a way. This is great when you go to start flying at hard penning time as each falcon I have done really tend to stay with site of you and will normally come back as you will become their safe place to be around.

John

[Roberto]

Thank´s again John. Baggies are allowed here as well, i will make it an early killer. If i decide to bring the falcon down this weekend i will look for the automatic feeder in some petshop and try your method.

regards
Roberto

[HawkingTX]

The earlier you can get it on baggies, the better, but also be careful not to do it too early or with something too large so you don't hampers it's confidence sir. That is why I like starting with something fairly small such as a quail. After the falcon handles quail pretty easily, then maybe a pigeon or chuckar.

Have fun with the new bird.

John

[Ginty]

I would advise you to go back and collect the bird when it is ready.

I would much rather spend a day driving than a season listening to a screaming bird.


Note: Raptors only imprint on the food supplier, unlike ducks and geese etc.

[HawkingTX]

Actually I had a friend of mine that lived in Alaska that raised an eyas jerkin in an area where it could see ducklings as they grew up. He had a heck of a time trying to get that bird to kill any ducks when it got old enough. He could get it to kill anything else that a falcon would kill normally, but ducks took him a long time. I would have never believed it myself if for not seeing it with my own eyes. You should have seen and heard him when he came back to Texas to fly ducks that first season. It was very comical to many of us, but to that falconer it was pure frustration to him.

Everyone has their preferred way of doing things which is what falconry such a great sport sir.

John

[Ginty]

He might have had a heck of a time getting the jerkin to kill ducks even if it was raised where it could only see sheep :lol:


Raptor rehabilitators have conclusively proven that raptors only imprint on the food supplier.





Actually I had a friend of mine that lived in Alaska that raised an eyas jerkin in an area where it could see ducklings as they grew up. He had a heck of a time trying to get that bird to kill any ducks when it got old enough. He could get it to kill anything else that a falcon would kill normally, but ducks took him a long time. I would have never believed it myself if for not seeing it with my own eyes. You should have seen and heard him when he came back to Texas to fly ducks that first season. It was very comical to many of us, but to that falconer it was pure frustration to him.

Everyone has their preferred way of doing things which is what falconry such a great sport sir.

John

[Roberto]

Was at the breeding center, saw and payed the falcon but decided to not take the risk and wait a few more days. Is just that i have never seen a silent imprint myself and was reluctant with the result. He is looking good, big, healthy and very pale for a youngster.

Thanks for the advise.