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Modern Captive Breeding continued

 

and development takes place in the digestive system and the liver, so small easily digestible pieces of meat are required. Hence we feed small pieces of lean quail meat from the chest or leg muscle.

From the third clay, the diet is changed to finely minced fullbodied carcasses. This falls in line with the start of major skeleton growth where calcium and other nutrients are required. Our diet from this point consists of 50% prime quail mixed with 50% laboratory rat. All food is prepared once daily, split into four and refrigerated until used. Each carcass is skinned, the head, feet, wings (where applicable) and digestive tract removed before being finely minced. At the time of feeding, a small amount of warm water is added to warm up the food and to lubricate the food for easy swallowing. The eyasses are kept on this diet until they are either put back with parents, or if being imprinted, are pulling large items of food for themselves. Some breeders state that roughage should be included from around day ten, we have not found any problem with excluding this until they are feeding from complete carcasses.

When unfamiliar with hand rearing eyasses, it is human instinct to over feed. A very common cause of death is from over feeding, this may be due to either too greater quantity of food being fed at a single meal or by feeding too often. From the time of hatching we feed the majority of our eyasses four times daily with approximately five hours between each feed. With small raptors such as merlins and sparrowhawks we increase this to five feeds at fourhour intervals. No eyasses are fed through the night. The quantity of food fed at the first feed should only be three pinhead sizes of meat. Then four at the next feed and so on. Once enough food is being fed as to discernably see it in the crop, then the crop must be checked at the beginning of each feeding session to make sure it is empty before the chick is fed

again. If food is still in the crop, do not feed for a further hour

depict how much the chick is eating and its weight gain since the last meal. Several breeders have published a number of weight gain charts, plotting a specific chick's growth. Although these are very interesting, it is important that direct comparisons between them and your own chick are not made. Too many outside parameters such as type of food, amounts fed, frequency of feeding, brooder temperatures, humidity levels etc. will affect a chick's growth trend for any true comparison to be made.

We try to get as many eyasses back with parents by day seven as possible. Not only does this cut the workload down but we

have also found that the parents can do a better job at feeding

Nutritionally, a freshly hatched chick is fuelled by the yolk sac, which has been drawn into the abdomen just prior to hatching. No attempt should be made to feed the chick until it will voluntarily beg for food. To initiate a feeding response from a young falcon simply `chup' at it and it should then lift its head and gape, waiting for food to be placed in its beak. The feeding technique for accipiters and buteos is totally different as they respond visually to the sight of food held within tweezers directly in front of them and will lurch forward and snatch at it. At first, their sight to snatch coordination can be a little haphazard but they soon get the hang of it.  The period of time from hatching to the first feed will vary enormously between individuals, from as little as two hours up to fifteen.  

Individuals, which have had problems hatching, may be weak and dehydrated and will require fluid replacement both orally or via subcutaneous injection.

When considering nutrition, the tyro breeder is faced with a number of questions, What type of food to feed? Plus what amount and how often does the eyass require feeding?

As to the type of food, the easiest line to take is to ask oneself what type of nutrition a chick needs, at each stage of development. As an example the nutritional requirement for a twodayold peregrine is totally different to the needs of a tenday

old eyass. During the first three clays of life the major growth

and check again. It is always better to leave the chick a little hungry at the end of the feeding session than to over feed it. If you find yourself thinking, `just one more piece' then stop at that point. Food which stays in the crop for too long will ferment resulting in death. When observing an imprint falcon brooding chicks in the first few days after hatching, it is easy to become very anxious at what appears to be a total lack of interest in feeding the eyasses very often. But due to them absorbing the last remnants of the yolk sac coupled with a low nutritional requirement, they simply do not need it.

Weighing each chick both prior and after each feed will