Harris Hawk

[Hacker]

Can anyone shed light on why a FHH has eaten one clutch of eggs, one nest of young, not very old and one nest when about to fledge?
Owner thinks maybe MHH not feeding FHH on nest.
Is this viable ,or do you have other ideas?
Any help appreciated.

[As The Falcon Her Bells]

What food is she fed on?

[Tr1gger]

Im not speaking from experience here, but somtimes dont they just eat the clutch if they think somthing is rong? They are in tune with if there is anything rong with the clutch

[As The Falcon Her Bells]

Many times when the female is eating eggs/young it is due to vitamin/mineral defficency ore anemia in herself.
No it does not have anything to do with that the male is not feeding her. If there is food in the aviary she will leave egg/young to feed herself.

[Shaun Byrne]

ATFHB

Do you think it is important to feed freshly killed carcasses to birds when breeding and brooding?

[Hacker]

i will find out what food they have been feeding them.

[Wurkin]

I remember reading about this when I was doing research last year. If memory serves me right it has to do with the freshness of the food. If it is an unexperienced or new "parent" bird. It was strongly recommended to provide lots of live or freshly killed food. A bird that has reared several clutches are much less likely to kill its own young if the food is not quite as fresh. I'll look through the books and stuff that I still have and see if I can find and provide the reference material I saw. Please keep in mind this is from memory, last year, when I was reading a ton of stuff to start my apprenticeship.

Henry
aka Wurkin

[Osiris]

I remember reading about this when I was doing research last year. If memory serves me right it has to do with the freshness of the food. If it is an unexperienced or new "parent" bird. It was strongly recommended to provide lots of live or freshly killed food. A bird that has reared several clutches are much less likely to kill its own young if the food is not quite as fresh. I'll look through the books and stuff that I still have and see if I can find and provide the reference material I saw. Please keep in mind this is from memory, last year, when I was reading a ton of stuff to start my apprenticeship.

Henry
aka Wurkin

I have heard similar theory m8. Fresh, bloody food.
Its best to feed a bird thats in the breeding chamber supplements such as raptor essentials or similar to.

[As The Falcon Her Bells]

HAWKA, I totally agree with you!
I am a great beliver in fresh food and thinks that the blood expecially is importent. I would always recomend fresh food to any breeding birds, but if she is even eating the eggs (not killing one young to feed the other one with) it also tells me she is seriously lack of something. Make sure she has a variated diet (quail, rabbit, rat doc etc) and some fresh food at least twice a week.
But we could also be on the complete wrong track, for example disturbence/stress (someone changing bath to often, ore checking the young so she notice it, open aviry with dog outside, neighbours kids, hand gliders, the list is endless) can cause the same thing, even tough then you might find problem even at the stage of incubation.