Mielikki

[ikcus]

Mielikki arrived last Tuesday and I could not be happier. She is a female Finnish and a real love. Mielikki came home at 24 days. At 24 days she was exactly matched in development to my good friends 16 day old Female NA except she was a lot bigger. Her nickname right now is The Giraffe. I am glad I raised quail this year being she is putting down 2-2.5 quail a day! The food intake simply amazes me.
So far everything is going well. The only concern I have right now is her band. She currently has an RW band and I think she might have needed a bigger RX band. I am keeping a very close eye on this issue, and I do hope the RW will be big enough. Time and growth will tell.

Getting her out of the crate:


Feet:


Hello, my name is Mielikki:


I figured out how to get out 29 days:


Hi daddy:


Mommy, can I cuddle:


My daughter and Mielikki watching TV:

[JRedig]

Congrat's joe, that's awesome!

[FredFogg]

Way to go Joe!!!!

[Saluqi]

Congratulations! Quite an accomplishment! Did she incubate the egg(s)?

[ikcus]

She incubated the three eggs for 30 days before I pulled them.

[goshawkr]

She incubated the three eggs for 30 days before I pulled them.

Hey Joe,

Congratulations on the success!

After many years of not trying hard enough to make a success out of breeding goshawks, I have a female incubating what may be a fertile egg. I candled it at week 2, and it was entirely dark. Very drastically different from the known infertile goshawk eggs that I kept on hand as a control.

I have never really had to work through how to handle the hatching process before, so now I am really curious how you handled that and why.

I don't have an incubator other than mom, so artificial incubation is just not an option for me. This is just as well, because the mother is very calm, and has lived here with me since she was ~15 days old. I guess my current plan is to let her go through the entire process of hatching and raising until I decide to pull it, but I may rethink part of that.

[Rmoglich]

DNA results are in. The Gos is a female. My wish has come true. An imprint Gyr was so much fun last year, but another imprint female Gos is what I have been looking for. I have some work cut out that I am definitely looking forward to. If I lived some where cooler in climate the Gyr would have stole my soul. I am looking forward to working with a Gos again, but I definitely need to move to a colder climate so I can fly both for the rest of my life. Some day it will happen.

Congrats, Joe. Nothing beats goshawks and gyrfalcons ;-) I look forward to seeing your new gos fly this year.

[raptrlvr]

Congrats Joe.

[PeteJ]

The band should be okay. By this stage their tarsi are about as thick as they're going to get, and about all that happens from here on out is that their toes lengthen a bit more. Have fun, she looks like she's settled in. Keep that vacuum handy, cause they have loads of down!!!

[hcmcelroy]

Joe,

Delightful photo with your daughter! You will cherish that image as the years pass. Like Pete I see the band as a god fit.

Is she imprinted to people or what? At 24 days it would be interesting if she were not raised by people and suddenly taken from the parents???

Some of us estimate that the N. Am females imprint at 20 or so days and perhaps the males around 18 days.

Harry.

[ikcus]

Yes, Harry she is an imprint. She was in the breeders main living area before she arrived at our place. Mielikki is around myself or my family 24 hours a day. She is currently passed out in her nest box on my desk at work.

[FredFogg]

Joe, she looks great! Nice set of feet on her. What will be your main quarry for her?

[ikcus]

Fred, our main quarry will be jacks, pheasants and ducks.