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Modern Captive Breeding continued

 

than we can from this point in development. Experience has shown that if we feed a chick at this stage while food from the previous meal is still in the crop it usually leads to major problems. But an eyass only has to yawn under a parent and it is fed, crop full or not with no adverse effect. How parental birds get away with this feeding behaviour is a mystery.

Hygiene

As with incubation, hygiene is of paramount importance when rearing eyasses. Raptors have little natural immunity to outside pathogens, particularly those they may meet in the alien environment of a brooder room. Brooders should be kept as clean as possible with any substrate changed regularly. Close alliances should be made with an avian vet prior to the breeding season, as if a chick shows signs of illness, immediate medical assistance must be at hand. Any chick showing signs of illness must be quarantined away from the others immediately.

 

Food storage bowls, feeding utensils and the propagator's hands must be clean and sterile (as possible) before any contact with the chick. Common problems like splayed legs can all be eradicated by using the right sized brooding tub and substrate. Unfortunately, some breeders have taken the direction of the prophylactic use of antibiotics when rearing some species in particularly merlins. This course of action is usually based on problems, which have occurred in previous seasons. My own

opinion is that if we can only breed certain species with the

indiscriminate use of drugs then it is time to pack up.

To help with the cleanliness of the nest ledge our imprint chambers have a double nest ledge system, the chicks spend the first two weeks on the top ledge and then are moved to the bottom one for the remainder of the rearing period.

As with all animal husbandry, close detail to cleanliness and

hygiene is just a case of common sense.

 

Placing back with parents

Placing chicks back with parents, particularly for the first time, can be nerve racking. But again there are certain safe guards you can take to at least improve you chances of the chicks being accepted. Over the years we have experienced all manor of behaviour with parents when chicks have been introduced, from perfect acceptance through to all out aggression. It is important not to place eyasses back with parents at too later stage of development. Small and medium size raptor chicks will show fear responses toward parent birds if introduced beyond 14 days of age. Generally we place all our eyass falcons with imprinted females to start with (around day 7), some will stay with these and others will be moved on to natural pairs at around the twelveday stage. By placing the chick with an experienced parent for a few days teaches it to feed and act normally around a parental bird, this is a great help when finally placed with a novice parent.

A natural assumption is to try parents with a single chick to start with, however slightly aggressive parents are more likely to attack a single chick than a group of them.   With this in mind

we always place at least two chicks in with first time rearers.

One option is to try parents with young kestrels if they. are available.

When introducing chicks back with parent(s) for the first time, we try to choose a warm morning and with the eyasses slightly hungry, so as they will soon solicit feeding. Watching the parental bird's behaviour should give you an idea of their intentions. When dealing with imprints the whole scenario is a lot easier as you are in the pen and it is easy to intervene should there be problems. A common occurrence is for the female to gently bite at the chick's neck and sometimes they pick the chick up with their beak and walk across the nest ledge, very much to the chick's annoyance. However if there is any sign of the parent grabbing with a foot, intervention is needed immediately as this is outward aggression. On a number of occasions when we have tried individual imprints with chicks for the first time, they have totally ignored them, even when left with them for several hours. Some of these falcons have been tried several weeks later and took to rearing duties immediately. One female barbary refused to rear for her first three egg laying years, on trying her in her forth season she took to rearing like an old pro.

When positioning falcons in our imprint pens, we try to place one yearold females opposite older experienced birds. Through their