Dual Imprinting? Cohort Rearing? Avoid Screaming?

[allredone]

Hello,

Anyone have experience with, "Dual Imprinting", of goshawk eyas'?

In summer 2009 I plan on raising a male or male/female pair of eyas goshawks for myself and another falconer. I am trying to put toghether my plan for how I want to do this, this time around and would like input from anyone experienced with, Dual imprinting, or... "cohort rearing" more than one chick at the same time.

I've made two imprints before. One Coopers Female and one NA Goshawk Female.

With the Coopers I did something half way between McElroy and McDermott and when it all fell apart I fixed the problems with heavy influences of Layman. With the NA Goshawk I skipped most of the in public socialization did some tame hack a few hours on most days over a couple months and used games and food rewards to overcome fears after she was old enough to bring out into the world and chase stuff.

She is wonderful now but a real screamer. Time will tell if this will subside but I am intrigued by the prospect of overcoming screaming by changing my imprinting method a little next time.

As I've heard this described the chicks are left with the mother, or foster mother, until hard penned but the falconer enters the chamber 3-5 times a day to socialize with them and the mother.

According to the David Jones videos a female Fin Gos raised this way did not scream and will accept the falconer as mate. Best of all worlds right?

I'm also considering relying on confidence building almost exclusively instead of weight reduction for the first season, and keeping them indoors.

Please post if you know anything about this method or a variation on it. Also feel free to contact me directly at allredone@gmail.com

Among others, issues I am interested in are:

Possibility/consequences of food association if the chicks see me food transfer to the female

Possibility of opening the chambers for a tame hack towards the end of penning and onward

Possibility of tame hacking the mother along with her chicks for a short
period of time

Possibility of taking the chicks from the mother when still large downies and "cohort rearing" them toghether

Possibility that I am just making things too complicated. http://www.nafex.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

Would love to hear from anyone with experience or just ideas for me to Guinna pig.

Aaron

[Saluqi]

Never done it, I think the Brits and Europeans do it often - I think they call it creche imprinting or something. Have you asked on the IFF?

[Bryant Tarr]

It works nicely with cranes! :)

[allredone]

Thanks for the suggestion. I have not looked on IFF. I should.

All I want out of the imprint process is tameness. Okay with me if the bird learns some habbits and it's own bag of tricks on extended hack. Think I can make the bird into what I want. I'd really like to leave the screaming at the door though.

I will check IFF. So how's it go with the cranes Bryant? Natural breeders but tame and low stress around humans?

[Bryant Tarr]

. So how's it go with the cranes Bryant? Natural breeders but tame and low stress around humans?

Yes...that's the idea. With the cranes at ICF, particularly whooping cranes, we had to control genetics through AI, but the females won't lay unless they are in a good pair bond. It was a dilemma because parent-reared birds would totally freak by being handled for AI. Cohort reared birds with exposure to humans will grow up knowing they are cranes (and do appropriate pairing and breeding), but don't get freaked out when handled and settle quickly after. With cranes we took the extra step to use costumes and puppets when they were little to avoid the dual imprinting.

[voslerdo]

Thanks for the suggestion. I have not looked on IFF. I should.

All I want out of the imprint process is tameness. Okay with me if the bird learns some habbits and it's own bag of tricks on extended hack. Think I can make the bird into what I want. I'd really like to leave the screaming at the door though.

I will check IFF. So how's it go with the cranes Bryant? Natural breeders but tame and low stress around humans?
I tame hacked a gos this year and am amazed with the tameness...no screaming except prior to the hunt. It really is only vocalization..not screaming. I had screaming with my recipe bird 5 years ago. It seems to me that with the recipe (or maybe even a "half" tame hack) the bird always wants to get away, and is conflicted about that need and the need to feed. Aggression may be the result of that conflict...(I;m no expert). With the complete tame hack, the bird is never restrained (except at night free lofted in the mew), and always seemed to want to be with me rather than free. No conflict. I fed from the lure twice daily with many flights each time. He never bates or screams. He seems quite a bit happier being with me in the house than by himself in the mew I think. Not exactly on topic except that he is sooooo tame with a high weight window.

[allredone]

Thanks for the input! I have a few questions for you.

I hacked my bird but only a couple hours a day at home and I quit as soon as she would roam extensively.

How long did you hack him for?

Did he catch anything while on tame hack?

Did you leave him unsupervised while at work etc?

What kind of habitat did you hack him in? What part of North America are you in?

What age did you start? What age did you quit?

Let me know...

[Jack]

Some things to consider. A goshawk does not have any clue as to what it is. Probably never occurs to them. They have no idea what you are. And again, probably never really occured to them. The recipe, and the Mcelroy methods will develop screamers in most cases, and the old standard methods of raising an imprint do not really work, but most people continue to use them. Goshawks raise clutches of young all the time, so raising more than one is no different. There are some things that people do that in my opinion are the direct cause of habitual screaming. Screaming usually has very little to do with food. It can, but in this instance you can stop the screaming simply by feeding the hawk. Habitual screamers continue even with a full belly and crop.
I don't think the average working person has the time to do this right. Adult goshawks do not work a full time job while trying to raise their clutch of young. Neither should you. Hawks have a dreaded fear of falling. This helps them survive since they usually live up high in a tall tree. Without this fear they would most certainly end up on the ground and dead. Being on the ground is cause for concern to an eyas. It is an instinctual thing with them. Picking them up also causes them to develop a dreaded fear of you and any human. The fear of falling comes with being picked up, and they soon learn to fear your approach. Eventually the young hawk develops an anxiety complex and will scream continually. I have experimented with several screaming imprints, and I have noted that in every case the hawk would act as normal as any hawk if I were not visible. Upon seeing me, or even hearing me, the hawk would begin to scream. Strictly an anxiety complex of some sort. They need not be introduced to things early in life because no sooner then they hard pin they will become again fearful of them. You have the right idea on that. And when feeding, never allow the hawk to experience hunger. Never. Always have food available for the hawk, and never let it run out. I would not even consider flying it in a hack mode or free at all until well past hard pinning. I raised a male goshawk in this manner and he seemed as perfect as a passage hawk.

Jack

[everetkhorton]

Jack:
Is there any reason to raise the bird inside. I am thinking of trying to imprint a COHA. But it can not be kept in the house. I have the time etc.
When do you start hood, lure training etc.

[Jack]

Jack:
Is there any reason to raise the bird inside. I am thinking of trying to imprint a COHA. But it can not be kept in the house. I have the time etc.
When do you start hood, lure training etc.
__________________
Ev. Mi.


Hi Ev. At the risk of sounding dumb, what is a COHA? As for raising inside, I did it that way because it gets really hot here and I wanted to stay under the air conditioner for both of us. A young hawk in full down can not shed heat like they can once feathered. I guess mainly the reason was to just be close to him every day. I slept with him. I guess you could do it by putting him on a nest ledge in the mews and visit him as often as you can during the day. The thing is not to be carrying him around. The first thing I did notice was that my goshawk was startled and absolutely terrified by this. Another thing too is that when they are placed out on the lawn when real young they suffer extreme anxiety. Being down on the ground exposes them to every danger imaginable to them, and they have no concept of your being there to protect them. This never even enters into their minds.
I will say that unless you have a very understanding wife you are in for a rough time if you raise one in the house. You will be digging down out of stuff for years. And they have no concerns about where they toss a mute.
I would guess that if you do raise it in a mews chamber you will not have to start leashing it until you start taking it outside, which would come after it was flying. Not hard pinned as such, but flying about. I would never feed an eyas from the fist either. Just from the lure. You can introduce the lure way early on. I laid mine in the nest box with my goshawk. And once he was able to pull his own food I would tie it on the lure and leave it laying about for him. He loved his lure. Hooding was another issue all together. No eyas likes hooding. No hawk likes it as such, but the eyas seems to resent it way more. I did the usual hooding as a large downy all the way up to when he was almost fledged. Then he started to resent it and eventually he did not want to take it at all. I waited until he was grown and hunting before I started to re introduce it to him. Once they are down to a decent flying weight they are less resistant to hooding I think.
I dedicated my den to raising my male goshawk. He would watch and at any chance would bolt out and run about the house like a puppy. Or really more like a young racoon or something. He loved to run about like that. I would chase him back to the den and play with him there. We had this little ball. It was covered like a baseball in pattern, but was sort of like flannel. Brown and white. It had a tail and ears, but no eyes, so we never knew which way it was looking. I would tie it onto a long string and sort of tug it in through the door. LB, my hawk, would see it and start Kak Kaking at it. I acted like I was afraid of it too and was trying to grab at it. He would wait until it looked like it was running away and he would drop down and foot it to death. It would always come back again and again, he was always watching for it. One day I pulled it through the door and he did not see it. I gave the Kak kak call and he immdiately turned and came running to help me kill it again. Later on when out flying I could use that call to warn him of approaching danger, as in another large hawk or whatever. I could actually verbally communicate with him to some extent.

Jack

[tumble]

COHA, I'm guessing means cooper's hawk. Jack, I have questions about your great post but I don't want to derail the thread so I'll start a new one.

[voslerdo]

Thanks for the input! I have a few questions for you.

I hacked my bird but only a couple hours a day at home and I quit as soon as she would roam extensively.

How long did you hack him for?

Did he catch anything while on tame hack?

Did you leave him unsupervised while at work etc?

What kind of habitat did you hack him in? What part of North America are you in?

What age did you start? What age did you quit?

Let me know...

I began in the house. I found I could time the mutes pretty well by placing him in his sleeping box (a giant hood without the perch and open at the top instead of side or front). As soon as he went, I could remove him and was good to go for a half hour or more. He was in a wicker nest basket with evergreen bows and a cloth "pillow" in the center to aid in cleaning. I took him in his "nest" everywhere. They loved him at work and in all the places I felt he could go (hardware store etc.). As soon as he would defecate, I would let him wander on the floor at work or home for 30 minutes or so and repeat this all day. He slept often and had food available all the time.
When he started getting out of his nest on his own, I would let him play in the yard (short periods at first) and lengthened this time slowly. By the time he could walk alot, I couldn't really let him run around at work so I left him in a fenced in yard for the half day I was gone.
When he could fly out of the yard, he was officially at "tame hack". He learned to fly and I flew him to the lure twice daily until late August. I would always put him up at night (in the house at first, but in the mew after he learned to sleep standing up). He chased everything, but never caught anything. I would call him from great distance sometimes. I intoduced baggies in August. When he got his dispersal hormones, I should have lowered his weight (he got them the first of Sept... I should have lowered his weight in late August). This lasted the whole month of September so I ended the hack then. He was just in the process of learning to hunt, and I cut his hacking time down to only a couple hours a day... usually and hour out before the lure flights. During the "crazy" time of September, if I had lowered his weight, I think I could have avoided alot of craziness and brought his hunting skills along faster.
He never bates. He only screams quietly (really just a vocalization) prior to hunting. He sits with me in the evenings and we watch TV together most evenings.
I would tame hack again. He played with the dogs. Anyone can handle him. He is a joy. He has killed over 50 head this year. I expect at least 25 to 50 more by March. I have cast him twice....once to fix two tail feathers, and once at the vet. He forgives me in a day or two. I don't hood, and I would consider doing this on the next one for times when I need to cast him... maybe.

[everetkhorton]

Jack:
Sorry for not getting back with you earlier. Yes, COHA is for Cooper's Hawk. I come from banding birds for some years. Thinks for the insight on imprinting a bird.

[Live Bait]

Have imprinted a mix of Accips and longwings [for hunting purposes only]. It's difficult to produce a totally silent young bird that still hunts with a vengence....partiqularly an Accip.

One thing to consider though, however noisey the bird during its 1st season once at moulting weight it "should" shut up. This also provides you with the opportunity to minimise any noise issue futher through increased interaction.....basically bringing the bird into the house again.

After hard penning a large % of falconers can't wait to get the thing outside due to the constant vocal irritation, by bringing the bird back in again at its moulting weight you should have a minimum amount of noise, combine this with an increasing amount of "non-food-associated-interaction" will ensure a quiet bird the following year.

When applied to a couple of imprinted Perlins it was also used to reduce their tendancy to carry through ensuring continous interaction each and every time they fed.

Pete.