come on....

come on you long wingers give us a nice in sight into the training of your birds, tips n tricks etc we need something to rival mac's gos one.

lol there will be loads of differant views on the training ben personally as soon as i get a falcon i like to get straight in to the manning normally what i start to do is walk around in circles in the garden with the falcon on the fist hooded so it gets use to being carried around after about 20 circles i sit down and loosen the hood braces and sit there for 5 or 10 mins then remove the hood ive always been told never to look in the birds eyes when taking the hood off so not to freck it out not sure if thats true or not leave the hood of for a couple of seconds then but it back on again without closing the braces on it when she starts to eat of the fist i move on to jumping to the fist same as u would do a halk once she is coming instant to the fist i start to feed her on the lure for instance if she comes to the fist for 1 chick i feed her a second chick on the lure after that its on the creance normally get my dad to hold her hooded on the fist why i walk away with the lure my dad takes the hood of and i swing the lure once and throw it on the floor normalyy the falcon comes straight for it after that its just getting her fit and ready for hunting i havent told u how to get the falcon to pass the lure because i didnnt know how to put it in to words lol this is just a little brake down to what i do other people will do it completeley differant hope it helps a bit
atb
Liam
sorry about spelling

cheers liam you done the easy part of manning and you have the hard part for us to explain, what i mean it is easy to do but its hard to explain i need to work out how to explain it

same here andy it was hard trying to put bits of the training in to words

Liam Fensome wrote:same here andy it was hard trying to put bits of the training in to words

lets get rob to do it

Well he's got nout better to do

u slackers, get out a dictionary and crack on!!! come on andy, surely u have some slight variations to liams way? any big hints n tips uv learnt along the way? thanx liam nice start

i like my birds to settle in not picking them up every 2 mins and sitting there for a hour manning i like th ebird to take to me more naturally ,thats yous my way and works for me ,

right then lets see if i can get what im thinking down in here.
this is how i try and do my falcons it may not be the right way but then it aint the wrong way either.
plenty of manninig and not done for 2 mins at a time like how grovsey does it. the bird will me on my fist while watching tv etc the same as you would for any bird.
start making the falcon to the hood as soon as manning starts. but then i also make my hawks to the hood as well saves trouble later on.
when the falcon is jumping about a meter to the fist the lure is shown for the first time. how i show the lure to the falcon for the first time is to place the bird on her block and get a good piece of tiring normally a lamb neck with most of the meat cut off, and tie it to the lure facing upand place the lure my swinging it in fornt of her and leaving it there for her, she will soon jump down and feed on it (forgot to say the falcon has already eated lamb neck)
once the falcon is eating from the lure i need very rarely fed on the fist always on the lure. it is just then a case of training her to come to the lure by increasing the distances one thing i do is every time i show the falcon the lure i give a short blast on a whistle. once the faclon is coming the length of the creance just let her losse. If you follow the basics of hawks ie a calm sunny day with out any wind you should be ok. what i have found though is you have to have the falcon flying free sooner rather than later.
i have found with falcons is if you get the manning and weight control right every thing else is alot more easy than a hawk.

good post andy
atb
Liam

If i start with a pr bird the young falcon is hooded straight from the breeding pen, if i have to travel home i spray it with water as soon as the hood is on, i don't like traveling young birds on hot days so i try and avoid this. A mews Will have been prepared before hand witch may have a floor covering of carpet or Astra turf, the mews will be one of my more sheltered ones to keep the heat down ( i have even blocked them in a darkened bedroom) at this stage the water spray is never far away. I some times use the hood like horse trainers do with blinkers, i use a over sized hood with the braces not pulled up the idea being to restrict a birds vision while in the first stages of manning, i only do this with very highly strung birds the last one i used this method with was Shakira my female Gyr/pere who is sadly now dead, she was also the last pr bird i have trained, from her i went on to imprints witch i find are far more work but so more rewarding. With pr birds once home i work of gut instinct and mann them usually 3 or 4 times a day for a short period i cant say how long this will be, it is all down to how the bird responds, but if i think the bird is getting stressed the hood goes on and the session is finished, i usually do a longer manning session on a night with the lights out while watching tv again it is all down to how the bird reacts to me, food is usually taken for the first time during one of the evening sessions, once the bird is eating from the fist i try and introduce as many things as i can again how much and how fast is governed by how the bird responds, once the bird receives all its food ration from the fist for 3 or 4 days i introduce the lure garnished with a little food pegged to the floor of the mews.
I did not mention the scales and weighing, as soon as i get a bird home i weigh it then obviously every day after wards, i always weigh at the same time of day ,i cant wont and could not give general flying weights for different species, each bird is a individual and should be treated as such

Good post Rob & Andy , very interesting and nice to see what other people do!

ED

nice work rob and andy, keep it comin!! wat do u perch your birds on in the mews? shelf, block etc?

to start with ben i always start them of on a block and when they are trained ad settled they all go onto shelf perchs

same as andy