she was at first saraphine but now it is a very different story. positive conditioning can overcome much. Since the video was taken she has improved further, continues to self hood and clearly associates the hood with positive experiences such as being taken out for free flight and flying... She is also now playing a valuable role in environmental education also...something that was impossible before. But Thankyou for your contribution...such as it was
Also I might add a general comment based on the statement by Saraphine below, for the benefit of those who are not falconers or raptor handlers. The whole purpose of hoods and hood training is to avoid fear. It prevents your raptor from seeing things that may alarm her and to keep her calm. Also the use of the exaggerated word 'terrified'. Having cared for injured birds of prey for 26 years I have seen many terrified birds and it doesn't look like this! Many of the birds I receive are very damaged both emotionally and physically. Positive conditioning is a vital tool in overcoming this...
Hi Scott. not at this stage. Possibly earlier on you might but i never did with Cleo. However since I did this video I've read Jim Nelsons hooding book which has very good advice on this stuff... Im now working with a hobby training her into the hood with this approach. I Started by getting her to put her head in to retrieve a small reward but whistling and rewarding her (with a high level tid bit) before she quite snatched it - tricky as she is very fast! But now she has made the mental link i can just hold up the hood and she'll shove her head in knowing I'll reward her. It didn't seem to matter if she got the planted bechin in the hood...just meant she got 2 rewards for putting her head in!
thanks for the comments :-) I have seen Jim Nelson online using similar methods. His new book on hoods and hooding is in the post to me now so i can't wait to read it..
Thank you for posting this as it is a method I'm definitely going to try. I have a a red-tailed hawk I'm training to be an education bird. She did wonderfully initially with hood training until I took her to have her beak coped. Now she wants nothing to do with the hood.
Thanks Desiree. Sounds a bit like a Little Eagle i have... similar in size and possibly temperament to your Red tails. I made the mistake last year of hooding her when she was upset one day. Before I new it I had a hoodshy bird... I went back to positive conditioning.. which sometimes begins with simply rewarding the bird for being in the presence of a hood. I also now feed her a little food through the hood post hooding. This helps remove the resentment factor you sometimes get with the shortwings when they realise hooding means the end of the session and thus the end of food rewards.. Good luck with your Red-tail!
Sorry just saw your comment. Not often these days. Now that she has the idea I only hood her if she has to be transported. I guess the investment of 2 sessions of 10-20 minutes daily in the early days paid off.
As I am merely a person who likes to learn new things about whatever seems to spark my interest and not a professional in this particular field, I hope you'll forgive me if I come across as ignorant. I was under the impression that all falcons liked hoods. Also (since I'm obviously wrong on the previous query), which birds use hoods? I'm sorry if I am bugging you guys. You can always just redirect me to a reliable source. I promise to not be offended. 😄
Hi Christina. You're not bugging me. I'm happy to answer. looking at videos and documentaries you would think all falcons loved to be hooded. People rarely will want to show off a bird that is not good to good. In a sense that was the purpose of paying this video.. Usually if a bird hates being hooded it indicates some miss handling in its past, high fear levels, a natural inclination against such things or perhaps a badly fitting hood. Cleo had only just come to me when this video was taken and was very hood shy. So what this video shows is me using positive reinforcement (a food reward) to turn her fear of hooding around so that she can wear it confidently. To this day I never force hood her and in fact can now usually rely on her to put her own head in the hood voluntarily. With patience and perseverance hood shyness can be overcome. Most raptors need a certain amount of training to accept a hood to begin with but a bird that may have had negative experiences with it in the past will need a patient and gentler approach to overcome their learned phobias ( just like people!) I hope that answers your question!
also just realise you had a second question sorry... All birds of prey that are trained for free flight and glove handling can benefit from hooding which keeps them calm in situations that might otherwise frighten them (e.g in a car or a visit to the vets). As far as I'm aware people don't often hood other species of bird.
+Martin Scuffins thanks! do you know any reliable sources of information about these things in general? I'm not looking for a career in this field (I'm way too scared of birds on top of my being epileptic), but I'm still curious about a lot of stuff. 😆
+christina113704 There's heaps of good books on falconry available but I'm not sure about internet land! You could visit our website www.hawkandowl.com.au and follow the links page. lots of great raptor stuff there. Cheers.
she was at first saraphine but now it is a very different story. positive conditioning can overcome much. Since the video was taken she has improved further, continues to self hood and clearly associates the hood with positive experiences such as being taken out for free flight and flying... She is also now playing a valuable role in environmental education also...something that was impossible before. But Thankyou for your contribution...such as it was
Also I might add a general comment based on the statement by Saraphine below, for the benefit of those who are not falconers or raptor handlers. The whole purpose of hoods and hood training is to avoid fear. It prevents your raptor from seeing things that may alarm her and to keep her calm. Also the use of the exaggerated word 'terrified'. Having cared for injured birds of prey for 26 years I have seen many terrified birds and it doesn't look like this! Many of the birds I receive are very damaged both emotionally and physically. Positive conditioning is a vital tool in overcoming this...
Excellent technique. Thanks for sharing.
thanks for that insight helped me loads
Hi Scott. not at this stage. Possibly earlier on you might but i never did with Cleo. However since I did this video I've read Jim Nelsons hooding book which has very good advice on this stuff... Im now working with a hobby training her into the hood with this approach. I Started by getting her to put her head in to retrieve a small reward but whistling and rewarding her (with a high level tid bit) before she quite snatched it - tricky as she is very fast! But now she has made the mental link i can just hold up the hood and she'll shove her head in knowing I'll reward her. It didn't seem to matter if she got the planted bechin in the hood...just meant she got 2 rewards for putting her head in!
Very well done!
thanks for the comments :-) I have seen Jim Nelson online using similar methods. His new book on hoods and hooding is in the post to me now so i can't wait to read it..
Thank you for posting this as it is a method I'm definitely going to try. I have a a red-tailed hawk I'm training to be an education bird. She did wonderfully initially with hood training until I took her to have her beak coped. Now she wants nothing to do with the hood.
Thanks Desiree. Sounds a bit like a Little Eagle i have... similar in size and possibly temperament to your Red tails. I made the mistake last year of hooding her when she was upset one day. Before I new it I had a hoodshy bird... I went back to positive conditioning.. which sometimes begins with simply rewarding the bird for being in the presence of a hood. I also now feed her a little food through the hood post hooding. This helps remove the resentment factor you sometimes get with the shortwings when they realise hooding means the end of the session and thus the end of food rewards.. Good luck with your Red-tail!
Thank you for the extra tip. I didn't realize they could be fed small amounts while wearing the hood.
it helped me
Well done!!
Are you showing a tidbit through the opening?
How many minutes and how many times do you do cap training every day?
Sorry just saw your comment. Not often these days. Now that she has the idea I only hood her if she has to be transported. I guess the investment of 2 sessions of 10-20 minutes daily in the early days paid off.
As I am merely a person who likes to learn new things about whatever seems to spark my interest and not a professional in this particular field, I hope you'll forgive me if I come across as ignorant. I was under the impression that all falcons liked hoods. Also (since I'm obviously wrong on the previous query), which birds use hoods? I'm sorry if I am bugging you guys. You can always just redirect me to a reliable source. I promise to not be offended. 😄
Hi Christina. You're not bugging me. I'm happy to answer. looking at videos and documentaries you would think all falcons loved to be hooded. People rarely will want to show off a bird that is not good to good. In a sense that was the purpose of paying this video.. Usually if a bird hates being hooded it indicates some miss handling in its past, high fear levels, a natural inclination against such things or perhaps a badly fitting hood. Cleo had only just come to me when this video was taken and was very hood shy. So what this video shows is me using positive reinforcement (a food reward) to turn her fear of hooding around so that she can wear it confidently. To this day I never force hood her and in fact can now usually rely on her to put her own head in the hood voluntarily. With patience and perseverance hood shyness can be overcome. Most raptors need a certain amount of training to accept a hood to begin with but a bird that may have had negative experiences with it in the past will need a patient and gentler approach to overcome their learned phobias ( just like people!) I hope that answers your question!
also just realise you had a second question sorry... All birds of prey that are trained for free flight and glove handling can benefit from hooding which keeps them calm in situations that might otherwise frighten them (e.g in a car or a visit to the vets). As far as I'm aware people don't often hood other species of bird.
+Martin Scuffins thanks! do you know any reliable sources of information about these things in general? I'm not looking for a career in this field (I'm way too scared of birds on top of my being epileptic), but I'm still curious about a lot of stuff. 😆
+christina113704 There's heaps of good books on falconry available but I'm not sure about internet land! You could visit our website www.hawkandowl.com.au and follow the links page. lots of great raptor stuff there. Cheers.
+Martin Scuffins thanks for your help and the information
Well I will be more than honest with you, the bird is completely terrified from being unable to see.
Please, read more about what is the function of hood in falconry.