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She has been an awesome bird, although I am biassed towards sakers because I really like the species.

Birds of prey need to be fed a good source of quality food, and in my opinion variety is good. Depending on the species of raptor that is involved that would dictate the main foods being given. Store bought chicken is not a good source of routine food being offered and is not considered quality food for a bird of prey. I sometimes will purchase chicken gizzards from a store, but nothing can compare to wild rabbit, squirrel, duck, and etc.

Spectacled owl, native to the Amazon ecosystem South America

Perhaps in one of my upcoming videos I would include that. Thank you

Thank you for the comments. As you know not everyone does everything the same way, the bottom line is that we enjoy what we do and the birds are doing something rather than sitting in a mews or tied to the block. I have learned from my experience that asking why this is or is not working helps me to problem solve and overcome hurdles.

That is a good idea, I can do a little video of using the swivel. It may be a few days before I get to it.

Appreciate it and good luck as you get started.

Why is it that one feels that they are the leading authority over what is or is not considered crappy music to over 7 billion people in the world.

The cage was actually designed for a few chickens, I made a few changes to it for the pigeons. Such as the wire on the bottom so I could get it up off the ground, and on the inside where the chickens would lay eggs, I place nest bowls for the pigeons to nest. Added a few perches. It works great, but a pen this size I personally wouldn't have more than 8-10 birds.

Great idea, I like it when we think outside of the box. Yes, I believe it could work, lighter leather (less thick) and instead of a shoelace for tying the harness onto the bird possibly use braided line like what is used for a chalk string in carpentry.

Thank you, you might find it interesting. I am going to be posting a video to my channel about Masada, Israel. King Herod 2000 years ago, and one of his fortresses - they kept pigeons at that time. Hope to have it posted in a few days or so.

Thanks for the comments. Historically, and maybe even currently - pigeons definitely were used for sending messages, but in some cases not as portrayed in movies. How can a bird fly to a loft it never has been at before? How could it know what house is yours or what castle is yours? They home back to the place they have imprinted upon, and I use the word imprint loosely here. If I wanted to send you a message, I would need to have a few of your birds here with me so I could place my note on your birds and send them home to you. Also, one bird probably isn't enough. If I need to get a very important message to you, I would send it on several birds. Why?? - homing isn't 100%, a bird can get killed by a hawk or falcon along the way, flying into bad weather can also be an issue along with the fact that depending on the distance and the quality of the bird it just may not find the way home. Thus 3 is better than 1, and 10 better than 3, etc. Homing pigeons doing hundreds of miles like our modern pigeons probably was not as coming back in history; the distances most likely were not as long. Messages from a battlefield back to the castle, or a centralized loft in safe zones, etc. The key that most people don't understand with homing messages back and forth is that you don't send the bird out to an unknown address. In most cases one would release visiting birds so that they can return back to their home loft. They would be temporarily housed separately and not placed directly into my loft with my birds. Huge difference than what most people think, and if one keeps the bird too long the bird will not return home. I have purchased older homers kept them a month or so and they stayed here with me, most of them. I also purchased birds that have escaped shortly after getting them, and I never saw them again.. Thus, if you had a castle and I had a castle, and I had a spy in your castle I would have to get my pigeons to my spy in your castle. Then after the information was gathered the person in your castle would have to release my birds with the message back to me. Or in this case, if you were visiting me and I wanted to know that you returned safely; you would have taken some of my pigeons with you placed them in a travel crate fed them cared for them. When you made it home safely you would release my birds with the note saying you made it. Or, if you were attacked along the way home or ran into a dangerous situation like a wheel broke on your wagon you could release notes back to me. I then could send aid out to you. On average pigeons fly about 45-50 miles per hour, the good ones up to 60 miles per hour. Also, when you came to visit me you could have brought some of your birds, and I then could send a message back to you. Bottom line, in some way I would need your birds and you would need my birds for two-way communication between us. I am not aware of the same bird being used to go back and forth, but I could be proven wrong. If pigeons are taken to a battlefield to give news of the current conditions on the front line or that type of thing, one would go with birds from the location that you wanted the information to go back to. In this case different individuals could take birds from the same centralized loft into different places around the battle and several pieces of information from the battle would be shared if the pigeons made it back to the loft. Once the information is attached to the birds and released even the person handling the birds could be killed in action, but the birds could get word back to the loft. It's all not a 100% success, but one can see the powerful tool of using homing pigeons for a great variety of purposes. In England the birds they used to use were called English Carrier Pigeons. We call a similar version of this here in the USA our modern homing pigeons. I buy cheap pigeons with no pedigree because my main focus is not to fly them as a hobby or enter races. I play around with them a little bit as you seen on my video. The pedigree racing pigeons culled and bred for that purpose generally are much more expensive than the quality homers that I get. For my purposes I don't need good quality homing birds for falconry. Currently I only keep between 6-15 birds, and I am down to one small coop. At times I may go several months with no pigeons until I purchase more. My much larger coop is now being used to produce chicken eggs that I hatch out chicks for food to feed my birds of prey.

@@falconquest-birdsofprey7326 Thanks for the clarification. I guess I don't really need to spend the extra bucks on expensive birds unless there's a specific line or color I want. I don't imagine I would ever go hunting anywhere near 100 miles out let alone 200+. That would put me in another state in most cases. I kind of figured that hollywood lied about messenger pigeons. They lied about so much other stuff like the roar of the lion for lionsgate logo is actually a bengal tiger, the sound of a dolphin is actually the sound of some mammal sped up, and hilariously, the sound any and all birds (especially eagles) make in movies is actually a redtailed hawk. Thanks for the info. Now I'm really wondering if it's feasible to breed a species of owl pigeon to have a strong homing instinct since their flying ability is pretty similar to homers anyway. I could maybe come up with my own line of homers specifically for falconers. A falconry specific line of pigeons sounds like a worthwhile project. Of course I know I'm much too inexperienced in all of these things to even think about breeding right now. I'm just thinking ahead. Looking at my options. Of course I will have to rethink things if it turns out keeping pigeons in a semi-mobile home doesn't work. I do wonder if any otter birds with a homing instinct could work. Something like a swan. Large enough, and mean enough, to avoid predation from hawks and falcons, leaving only eagles as an issue. 🤔 Just a thought, don't take the swan bit too seriously. Like using vultures or sea eagles for falconry. Fun to think about.😄

Awesome, thanks for the feedback. I will definitely do more on pigeons. I hopefully will post in the next couple days so watch for it. You may get a notice once posted if you are subscribed. I won't try to cover everything you mentioned here, and will address some of it in the videos. I will surely talk a bit more detail about how they home. In short, you can keep a few pigeons in a tight spot so if you need a pigeon to recall a stubborn bird you would have that option. However, a mobile homing situation that probably won't work very easily. If you were staying at the same place for a couple few weeks that might work a little bit. They home or return to a place where they have been habituated. A geographic location, and when they return to that location they see the coop that is familiar to them and that is where food, water, shelter is. If I buy young birds from someone I have to keep them locked up for 3-4 weeks or they may fly back to their home. Older birds takes longer. I have successfully raised a pair of squabs from a pair of breeding pigeons in a 36"' square pen designed for rabbits. I wanted two specific birds to pair off mate and I wanted to band their babies. Not ideal, but you can see we can sometimes pull things off when we think outside of the box. a 36'"pen is very small that was short term to get one clutch of babies, then they went into a larger loft. The key is air quality, clean up the poop, and fresh food and water. I could share at some point in the future some things I have learned from others who have flown owls for falconry purposes. Usually a great horned or an Eurasian eagle owl tend to be the most common from what I have heard.

@@falconquest-birdsofprey7326 Thanks for the fast reply. A tiny home is only limited horizontally. The longer it is the bigger the truck needs to be, and the wider it is the less mobile it will be on the road. Vertical however, is open for growth. It may be possible to have a bigger loft like 3-5 square foot is reasonable. Thinking out of the box is all I ever do. Can be unnecessarily hard sometimes but life is always fun when I don't limit myself to modern conceptions (mediocrity). Sort of like investing. It doesn't always pay off but when it does...😁 Also, since I'm so excited about pigeons now, I looked up some common species. I've fallen in love with the owl pigeon species. Especially the African Owl Pigeon. Pigeonask has an awesome picture of an almond/red? African Owl Pigeon and it's gorgeous. What are your thoughts on breeding owl pigeons with homing pigeons to get the best of both worlds? Is it even worth it? As for the poop and sanitation issue I have an idea. What if I put down some soil and plant mint as a ground cover? Mint is antibacterial and antimicrobial. It also doesn't grow tall so trimming isn't needed and it smells nice which helps with any odor. There will also be some small fauna like worms and other decomposers to eat the poop and produce more soil. I already have a vermicompost bin for kitchen scraps. Their poop is is like liquid gold to plants. The loft and aviary for the pigeons and falconry bird will be partially open with a coverable double screen so they can get full sun and weather. Probably vertical bars then a screen for the falconry bird. It's not too far of an idea to have a metal, cement, or stone floor so I can put down soil without rotting through the floor. I'm also real big on littering my home with house plants already for air quality. It's air plants galore around me right now. So I think with the soil, plants, double screen exposure, and decomposers working in the soil, the pollution should be manageable.....I hope.😅

@@falconquest-birdsofprey7326 Also I have no intention of being on the move all the time. That's why I'm going with a tiny home on wheels instead of a 5th wheel trailer like a toy hauler. I plan to stay put for half a year at a time. Basically I would stay up north during the spring/summer and go south for fall/winter. Would that be long enough for pigeons to rehome? About 6 months at a time.

Thank you.

Glad you enjoyed a video. Back in the day I also flew a kestrel. I would trap the invasive/introduced species to the USA - English house sparrow which is legal, and use them. I would use a braided, not twisted, thin line and tie to a foot of a sparrow. The line would be about 12" and I tied it off to a heavy object. I happened to have a very large Master brand padlock. I would tie the end around the loop of the lock. The slip not around the leg above the foot I tied in a way that it would not keep closing tighter and tighter. Along the line I tied a knot so the slip could only tighten so far so it wouldn't dig into the leg, yet it was small enough to slip over the foot. Set an as open area as you can so the kestrel can see it and as the sparrow flies around fighting to get free from the line it will draw the attention of the bird. In more enclosed areas to help the kestrel see the sparrow you could use a longer line and toss the sparrow in the air. One could also use an introduced invasive starling which would be larger to work with. Hope this helps give you some ideas.

Such incredible advice, I'm on it! Thanks so much!

@@ap-nu3ckGlad you found something that might assist you. Have fun..

I am keeping an eye out around my pigeon coop, and will see what will come in next. Although, I might change up my quarry to crow rather than quail this season.

Thank you, good to hear that you enjoy some of the videos. Hopefully will be posting more regularly again.

That is an excellent way to trap for sharpies and Cooper's. I have done that myself.

@@falconquest-birdsofprey7326 I remember one time we were trying to trap a Merlin with a micro mistnet and after jumping out of the car and setting up the net as we were closing the door of the truck a sharpie was balled up in the net within seconds of setup and within a few feet of us.. good times.

@@jackhawk8952 Definitely exciting times for sure.

I have used for African Pied Crow and White Necked Raven.

Hello, glad you found my channel and that it has been helpful. I have a new Lanner falcon that I will be working with. We are not yet to the point to begin introducing the lure, but I plan to capture her lure training on video for editing and posting to my channel. I would hope to see the video posting sometime towards end of October 2023.

Ok! I will be looking forward to it. Good luck with your new lanner falcon.

That is awesome. The way falconry methods are used for birds of prey can certainly help with other non-raptor species. For example, I have used for Von Der Decken's hornbill, toucan, African pied crow and raven, and etc. It is interesting to learn about how others are working with different species, and hoping your work with your peafowl turns out good for you.

Glad you found this interesting. I mentioned in the video I posted on raising rats, that I don't feed just one source of food to my birds. Kookaburra would most likely always prefer mice to super worms, however in the wild they are going to eat a variety of foods. In captivity there is danger in feeding only a preferred food, because with a variety of foods different sources of nutrients are then made available. Super worms are just one source of food items for a kookaburra, that can be added to a varied diet.

@@falconquest-birdsofprey7326 Totally agree, that's why we give her a variety of feed including super worms and Canadian nightcrawlers as well as the other feed I mentioned such as mice, quails, hamsters, day-old chicks, lizards and small fish such as minnows.

Each bird is different can't predict time and how many days. Factors such as weight of the bird, hunger levels all factor into it. In the video the 20 times consistency comes into play once the bird begins to start to allow the hood. Once the gos is standing good feeding on the glove you might want to place the food on the hood let the bird take the food from the hood. If the gos bates each time it sees the hood sometimes I go into a dimly lit room and each time the bird bates I bring in the hood up close to the body, the bird bates, I do it again and eventually I quickly slip the hood up onto the hood. It may take several tries, but that hood is going to get on that bird. Then after it sits and I feed the next day as soon as the hood comes off there is already food sitting on the glove. Once the connection is made between hood coming off a little whistle as the hood comes off and food sitting there on the glove. If the bird is too heavy not hungry it probably just going to bate. The video is a guideline one still needs to bring down the weight and get the bird feeding from off of the glove. A person also has to be consistent in working on getting that hood on the bird. At first may even have to get that hood on with the bird hanging upside down from the jesses. When I trap a passage gos or coopers, the hood goes on day one and every day thereafter. The first several days until after the weight comes down and the birds starts to feed on the glove, those days will certainly try your nerves for sure. Good luck.

Good way of stating it. Perhaps someday I will do a video describing why a raptor is a raptor.

Glad it was helpful!

I have fed rats periodically to my falcons for a few years. In fact, I feel that they help nutritionally. Even in the wild many falcons will periodically feed upon mammalian quarry. Prairie falcons in the USA checking off and flying a cottontail rabbit as an example. Some falcons such as the gyr, saker, lanner, prairie, and such actually make mammals as part of the diet. I personally believe that a varied diet is good for birds of prey. Feeding packaged frozen quail is a staple for most falcons in captivity, but that becomes a mono nutritionally sourced diet. I am a firm believer of variety nutritional sources to include sources from the wild who are feeding on an assortment of items in the wild. Domestically raised rats is part of what I put in my bird's menu of food.

Thank you for the positive response, glad you enjoyed.

In traditional falconry, one doesn't typically train a falcon to fly to the fist like one would train a hawk. Depending on hunting style and conditions I usually want my hawk (like a red-tailed hawk for example) to come directly to me when called to my glove with a tidbit of food, rather than to a lure. The lure is used when the hawk won't come down to the glove. The key objective is to get the falcon to mount up high and then wait on overhead until either quarry is flushed under the falcon or the lure is presented to bring the falcon down. Training to fly horizontal from a perch to the fist, can contradict the traditional flying objectives of mounting up with a falcon. I am not training this falcon for traditional mounting up and waiting on falconry purposes. In parts of the Middle East and other parts of the world some falconers prefer to fly their falcons from off of the fist in a more pursuit type flight and not from an overhead waiting on position. The sequence of events with traditional falconry is to unhood the falcon while on the fist, have the falcon mount up very high, and then either come down upon quarry or to a lure. Once on the lure the falcon is transferred back unto the fist. With pursuit horizontal type flights flying back to the fist and coming directly to the falconer is preferred by some falconers. That is the beauty of falconry, we train the birds for what we prefer.

@@falconquest-birdsofprey7326 Right gotcha. You just mean usually falcons are trained to wait on rather than fly back and forth to the fist like a Buteo or Accipiter. I gotcha. Thanks for the explanation.👍

@@happybee7725 Exactly, Thanks

My pleasure!

Rodents such as mice and rats are very nutritional and natural foods for owl species. I would say that rats make up about 60-70% of the diet of my owls.

Hello, you have nice gyr falcons

Glad that you have enjoyed the videos. I am hoping to be adding more content in May.

Thanks for the positive comment on the video. The pen is very airy with the bottom being wire and the entire front also being wire. I have areas of shade inside by using plywood. I also hang a large plant I hang from the cage on the part that gets the most sunlight. This plant creates more shade from the sun. I just use an outdoor plant hook and attached it to the cage to hang a big basket plant. When we have heat wave temperatures. Upper 90's with high heat indexes I do bring the ferret into the house from early afternoon until the sun sets. I just use a small pet carrier with wood chips. If my pen were totally shaded, I wouldn't have to bring the ferret in. I planted some pampas grass that will eventually provide the shade I am looking for, together with the tree that has branches growing over the top the pen will soon be in total shade. Never let the ferret run out of water. Hope this helps.

Thank you, glad you liked the video. Great question, no you do not and in time should not give food after unhooding. In my video you will see the Saker falcon biting after the hood and such. She is not aggressively attacking the hood, she is looking for and expecting food. Once accepting the hood well, just periodically give a treat or after the bird has been put up in a mews for a time. After taking up a bird that has not been handled in a while one can use the food to reinforce the hooding, then stop after a while. Too much food reward for a hood-trained bird can and will eventually cause other problems. The food reward to me is more for actual hood training, and then reinforcement of hood acceptance when necessary, after not being hooded for a long time. Hope this helps answer your question.

Thank you, I am glad that you are enjoying the channel. I am hoping that you can get an opportunity to get more exposure to falconry someday. In the meantime, I will be continuing to post to this channel.

You are very correct, iron storage in the liver is a concern with these birds and most certainly foods high in iron should not be fed on a routing regular basis. However, in the wild and in captivity the toucan will eat higher level of protein sources during the mating season. Young toucans in the wild will be fed an assortment of foods to include more protein sources. Documentation from wild birds shows that during breeding season toucans raid and eat baby birds and they have been seen even snatching up fruit-bats. In captivity, most pairs of toucans will not breed unless given higher protein to get them into breeding condition. Bottom line however, a toucan should mostly be fed foods with no are very little iron. I only feed a periodic protein source to this growing toucan like once a week. Once fully grown, no more protein.

Rats are really easy keepers and reproduction rates are hard to beat, much more than pigeons. You can search online for methods of humanly dispatching them for the harvest. One way is to use what I think is carbon dioxide, just basically puts them to sleep. There are other methods the key is for it to be quick. Some say a quick blow to the head. You will have to research and find the way that works best for you. Bottom line for me is that it is that done quickly. I have a separate freezer just for food items for my birds of prey.

Thank you for the comment, and glad you like the bewit deign. The more you use them the easier they will be to put on and off.

Welcome aboard. Exactly, that is what I have found to be the best way to get a bird to fly from the lure to your glove. Either periodically have no food or very little food on the lure then have some food on the glove visible to the bird so as soon as done on lure and the bird starts looking around for more, he/she sees the food on the glove. Thank you for your comment.

You are welcome, and glad you found something that may help you a bit. Thanks for taking the time to comment. There are many techniques that work for some and not so much for others, and the same applies to the birds themselves. I am not one to tell others what to do, I simply share information that works or doesn't work for me. My material is just another source of information for you to consider.

The length of rope is more dependent on your style than the species being flown in my opinion. Some like to have the lure rope attached to a wood handle and wrap the rope around the handle. Therefore, you can take in and let out rope as you swing. For me, I don't use a handle, in my left hand I hold the extra rope and I twirl with my right hand. Thus, your length will depend on your style and what feels comfortable to you - generally speaking you need to twirl the rope and not have your lure hit the ground on the bottom part of the twirl plus the length you keep in your other hand or on the handle for if you toss the lure up high for a catch. I will admit, that this method that I use holding the rope in my left hand may not be the best as I have had tangles and such from time to time. Also keep in mind that whichever method you use it all does take a little practice, I can tell when I haven't used the lure for a falcon for a while I am rusty and takes a bit to get timing and such calibrated again. One thing you can do is actually practice without a falcon. Stand in an open area and imagine a falcon flying around twirl and turn as your imaginary falcon is flying around you. Speed up as the falcon comes in for a stoop or a fast flyby. Sounds kind of silly, but it helps me getting the coordination better for long times between using the lure. I hope this helps you a little bit.

Hello Stew, Glad you liked the video, With the information you provided is appears that you might have to drop her weight a bit more. Another thing you can try to do is if she is coming to the lure at least a short distance 10-15 feet. Just dangle the lure off the ground a few feet from the ground while standing back 10-15', see if you can get her to come to the lure and grab it while in this position. Even if she lands by it then jumps up to grab the food. If so, then you can start swinging it back and forth like the pendulum of a grandfather clock. Keep stepping back further and bring more motion to the lure. Sometimes when you sing a lure in a full circle to a young/fresh bird it kind of intimidates them a bit at first. See if this helps, but it also may just be you need to drop her weight more. Personally, if she is responding well at the weight you are using - I would only drop her weight more after you tried the dangling lure idea a few times. Let me know if you make progress, and good luck to you. My Lanner tiercel was flying with me at a zoological park this past weekend for fall festival. Just wanted to add, that I really like the Lanner falcon for lure flying!

@@falconquest-birdsofprey7326 thanks for replying mate👍I will certainly try those tips .really appreciate the advice. I've dropped her about 3% .but definitely think your right she may need to come down a bit. She's a great little bird though.😀 . I let you know how I get on Keep those videos coming. Really enjoying them. Best wishes Stewart 👍

Hi mate your tip worked a treat 😀👍she's going well now the penny has dropped .I dropped her a bit and then brought her back up. Thanks for you help and advice👍

@@stewgordon9291 Awesome, I was fairly certain that if you just dropped her a bit more that be the ticket, and glad it worked out when you tried it. Appreciate the feedback.

Thank you, glad that you enjoyed watching it and I appreciate the positive feedback.

You welcome. It will depend on the bird, but most don't mind much at all. I usually will have the bird hooded place the bells on and have the bird sit on the perch a better part of the day hooded with the bells. You can leave the bells on often as you like, but if you have a bird that stands in the water pan often, generally speaking regular water soaking usually isn't all that good for the bells. Most people put them on right before they fly and take them off when done flying. You can also get the used to the bells while flying to the lure with or without the creance.

I have done it several ways over the years, and as with many aspects of falconry it can be a bit controversial between people. A good friend of mine and I hunted pigeons in the desert canyons all summer long with his prairie falcon during the molt. He also hunted rabbit with his ferruginous hawk through the summer. He didn't fly as often and keep the weight at flight weight for as long. Lately with my falcons I haven't been free lofting them during the molt, I bring their weight down periodically as I give presentations with them off and on during the summer molt. Thus, I tend to keep them on the block, but in years past I have free lofted and kept them fat during the molt. I believe that the key is just don't keep them low for any length of time, and of course watch those new feathers from breaking. In either case I believe it is wise to let them set a for bet good and fat and feed a variety of fresh nutritious foods during that time - even if it isn't through the entire molt good to give them this break. Thanks for the comment/question.

Ultimately the main purpose of the lure is to get the attention of the bird back on you perhaps to get the bird to change direction and follow you, or to actually return to you. With that said, the lure is also used for other purposes such as conditioning training, and in some cases to be used to show an audience some of the wonders of having a bird of prey flying for a group of people. Initially, the purpose is to have the bird return to me so that I can catch up the bird and get it back under control so we can return home. For example, I was flying a red-tailed hawk and she would come to me when I placed a tidbit of food on my glove. One day she was a little heavy in weight and she wouldn't come to me. I tried several times and nothing. When I brought out the lure and drug it on the ground in front of her I got her back.

I short the lure can serve several purposes, but the most important is to have the bird return so we don't lose a bird when it is flying free.

@@falconquest-birdsofprey7326 Appreciate the response. Thanks again.

Thanks for the positive comment.