Falconry: What to feed your bird
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- čas přidán 7. 05. 2023
- In falconry, wildlife education, wildlife rehab, and zoological institutes, people caring for raptors must know the right kind of foods to feed their birds. This is not as simple as it might at first seem. Many factors are involved including loosing fat and gaining muscle to be able to hunt. having extra nutrients during the molt to be able to grow new feathers, keeping birds heavy enough to be healthy, but not so healthy that they develop pressure sores from perching. This video discusses some of the most common foods used in falconry and raptor care.
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I would very much enjoy watching a video on butchering and preparing food for raptors if you produce one!
Yes , it would be helpful to many . I heard if you do the video in black and white Utube won’t block you and you can show detail . I agree it’s silly to block falconers and not cooking shows .
@@shereesmazik5030those poor live lobsters 🥺🤣🤣🤣
@@JFEnterprize Well , all you can hope for is quick .
RTH. Base feeding is squirrel, rabbit, and nutria, also feed quail and cockerel through the molt. Mainly cockerel, squirrel, and quail during hunting season.
I have become obsessed with falconry! One day in the future I will become a falconer
Hopefully same for me as well
I would love to see your video on butchering quail for the Raptors in your keep. I think that there are a lot of people out there secretly thinking the same thing. . .love your videos?
Ben Woodruff: the great communicator! The friendliness and approachability of Mr. Rogers, steadfastness of Churchill, and poingant passion wild life of David Attenborough :)
Ben try using needle-nose pliers instead of game shears to snip the bones. I find it easier. Just crunch here and there on the outside. Don’t have to be as precise, and works just as good.
An explanatory quail prep video sounds great!
My mate feeds his peregrines on pigeon all year round, 30 odd years never a problem, Merlins pigeon and chick and what ever caught .
My Harris gets chicks during hunting which we are 7days a week, after a catch will eat a crop full of what ever, then fly the weight down and so on.
The rest goes into freezer for moult, rabbit, woodcock, pheasant, I also add rat and pigeon, each day alternating between these meats as he moults.
I also cut bone, these do seem to get fully digested .
No additives used, although I have used some in the past.
Thanks Ben always good to hear a good Falconers views.
Like your content Ben. Way more informative into the daily details.
Nice one Ben food for thought (no pun intended) it would be interesting to hear your view on weight management ie percent age of crop fill, flying on appetite , margins etc keep up the good work
I would definitely enjoy seeing how you prepare the food
Yes Ben definitely one on food prep would be a good educational video. But keep making more videos I'm running out on the play list . Flying and hunting lanners .
A video of properly butchering a quail would be excellent! It would deffinatley help for apprentices that need visual representation that dont get to meet with their sponsor often. Also a cheat sheet of averages would be nice. Such as 10g of quail will burn this fast on averages vs beef heart ect. I know it would have helped me in my first year.
I think video's on game preparation for different species for both the birds and humans would be a great addition to the channel.
Definitely love to see a video on meat prep
Ever think of doing something like Patreon for us that would like to see a longer more in depth content, then you could do the short version on here?
I feed almost exclusively eurasian ringneck dove to Harris hawks. It’s really nutritious and brings out the yellow in the feet. Never had a problem with frounce. I just make sure itwas frozen for a few weeks and I avoid feeding the feet, lower digestive system, head and crop.
Hi, excellent video.
Hi Ben, just to add to the conversation, i'm planning to use a mix of day old chicks and quail, but add in chicken heart and livers as a every 2 or 3 days thing to spice it up, with a turkey neck as a tiring.
One thing that did make me cringe a bit was breaking up the bones, i'd be to worried about crop impaction, maybe a good compromise would be to only break it once or twice?
As for the butchery video, i've heard that the best way of avoid youtubes temper tantrums would be to put the bits of the video that show the quail in black and white.
Yes on food prep!
Great information pal, would like to see butchering game as well
Thanks for the great info, as always. Would love to see a butchering video. I’m an apprentice this season and all game prep is new to me. I have the best sponsor and will definitely have great instruction, but seeing others perspective is always helpful.
Coturnix are a fantastic food source for all kinds of predators. They're a lot more lean and cleaner than rodents so feeding them makes it easier to maintain or drop weight. They're really popular among reptile keepers. I want to start breeding them for my large monitors and my birds if I ever finally get into falconry
I once read the very young ones still have their yolk sacks with too much cholesterol from the yolks . Every reference book has a different opinion. One said mice of different ages. Others say rats , but some raptors refuse them and they smell .
To my knowledge, a single barn owl will eat upwards of 2000 mice/voles a year. A family with babies will eat upwards of 12,000-15,000 mice/voles per season. However, one thing to keep in mind is barn owl diet is 98% rodent based and dont thrive as well when fed other foods. Also, domestically raised mice/rats are FAR more calorie & nutrition dense compared to wild counterparts when raised correctly. I love your videos & posts on social media BTW!! ❤️
👍👏
I would like to see the quail butchering video
Yer like to see that vid on cutting up quil
awesome video. i raised my female common kestrel on beef heart mixed with false fillet and she grew quite well. but she is a dark maroon which is not the normal coloration, is it the food i feed her or does she just have a dark mutation? also this is off topic but she is not interested in hunting anything living. her training is going exceptionally well but she has no desire to even chase a lizard. is their something I'm doing wrong?
Hi Ben, great video. Any thoughts on primary feeding a goshawk squirrels during the hunting season?
I’ve never tried that, but it is good meat. I am sure you could dial in a goshawks weight management properly on squirrel meat. Especially tree squirrel
@@benwoodrufffalconry Thanks for the input.
You're not kidding about falconers and their difference of opinions. Myself and most of my falconer buddies in the 70s & 80s, fed our birds mainly skinned chicken necks. We never had any problems with them. The vertebrae bones were rounded, broke apart easily and sometimes it would make a casting. Of course we would mix in rabbit or whatever game they caught, and then mix in a little 'Vionate' vitamin supplement, especially during the moult. If I mention that now, falconers would look at me like I recommended broken glass as food.🤯
I use turkey necks with my red-tail throughout the season. I take the the excess meat off the neck and use that as tidbits. The rest of the neck is perfect for keeping the beak in shape.
In my opinion a good mix is the right way. For my redtail I use trapped nutria and muskrat mixed with quail from a breeder near by and soft fur rats from my own breed. But carefull with the Nutria. They are verry ritch in nutrition!
I feed my Harris beaver, muskrat, ground and squirrel. When I don't have that, I use quail. My tiercel peregrine gets pigeon, starlings and quail. It has worked so far
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I am someone who swears by coturnix quail and day old cockerel. I feed them both to my shrikes and current rescue japanese sparrowhawks. Theyre great but shrikes no matter what go through food super quickly and they tend to get super expensive.
Since avian flu, no farm in my area has allowed me to purchase day old cockerels or visit the farm
I typically feed small rats during training and early hunting. Once I start getting a supply of game they've caught, I'll start feeding that. Usually, by that time, weight and training have been figured out. In my experience, my birds would burn through quail faster than rats. I do have to adjust my birds' rations depending on temperatures throughout the season. For the moult, I'll feed a variety of foods. From rats, day old chicks, pigeons, starlings, squirrel, sparrow, chicken/turkey necks, and portions of whatever meats I'm butchering for my consumption (beef, venison, lamb, chicken, pork, etc). I have used vita hawk, but noticed extreme beak and talon growth with its use. I don't use it unless I feel the bird might need some extra nutrients (such as a freshly trapped bird with a heavy worm load or a sick bird). I am typically in a warmer climate (very southern usa), so that could be why rats work for me. Another thing to consider with the barn owl theory, is that number including the rodents caught and fed to their eyasses or not?
You just a falconer or part of a sanctuary type place? Asking as I’m trying to get as much info as possible on how to before I really push it forward. Sadly there aren’t many if any falconers local to me besides Audubon society
What do you think of starlings for a peregrine? Ive heard some say they don't do well on them.
they do absolutely fine. all i feed is starlings (80%) and collared doves (20%) and i have had prairies, peregrines, and hybrids do perfectly fine. just be aware one starling per day is probably not gonna suffice for medium/large falcons
Thumbs up for the quail video.
I use day old chicks once a week during the season, and mixed in fairly regularly during the moult. I use quail, vita hawk and whatever my bird catches during the season. In the moult I mix it up a lot, using captured quarry, starlings sparrows, cockrels, quail.
Keep in mind that store bought quail or chicks are only as healthy as the food they were raised on. I used those two foods but raised my own and health wasn't an issue. A lot of "free range" feed went into my quail food and I knew they had a good diet. I realize not everyone can do this but keep quality in mind when you're feeding.
Trapping English Sparrows and adding them to the diet can ease your mind regarding nutrition. A Gos or Peregrine consuming 4 ounces of food a day with one ounce of that being a sparrow will surely be getting enough nutrients.
As for feeding wild prey I usually gave my hawks the head, neck and organs (again, for nutrition) and not the meat. I would top them off with the quail or chicks later.
Be wary of feeding wild duck meat. In my experience duck is extremely oily and filling and will throw your weight management off considerably. Just some thoughts.
Would love to see that quail video
I would like to see that gory video with quail in a leading role 😀
ok im curious aout cooked meats and if it should be used at all ( at most it would be for meat that isnt the most trust worthy and might have parisites or would it just be a toss)
I wonder if you can cook all the bad things out at all . HPAI has me worried. Raptors are very vulnerable.
@@shereesmazik5030didn’t think of that one but same here
no ,cooked meat is no good for raptors
I am from Bangladesh. How much feed food of ages, quantity of food?
Would liver be a good food for a bird becose I know that liver is high in nutrients
I have often wondered for species that eat carrion if there is a way to safely "age" or ferment the meat. Could be that scavenger species are more used to eating food partially digested by microbes, kinda like how us and our microbiomes in our gut find it beneficial. Just a thought.
Another thought; I wonder if insects like superworms, mealworms, dubia roaches, etc. could be used. People feed reptiles these things and many small birds of prey also eat bugs. I am used to bugs since my current hunting partners are frogs.
How are your current hunting partners frogs? I don't understand.
@@tiffanycross8838 I never said they were good at it. Also a joke lol
coturnix is the genus, but the domesticated species used for food is specifically Japanese quail.
I’m not sure why so many breeders just say coturnix, because there’s multiple species there
Oh you said it farther in, haha
What's your thought on just feeding them pig
:)
Bones
My plan was maybe using home raised “natural” chicken. 🤷♂️ bird prob gonna live better than me 😕 😂🎉 but I’m ok with that.
Hey Ben what are those 2 Juvenile Hawks in the nest together in your opening sequence? Are they Swainsons?
Those are actually Ferruginous hawks
@@benwoodrufffalconry ah thank you that was my other guess, yes I have seen Ferruginous with a light and a dark form.
Feed as close as possible to what they eat in the wild. Use your brain don't just go off what you are told
Make butcher video
Im looking for someone in PA that i can come on a hunt with??