Must read books on raising imprints

[bobpayne]

A friend of mine wants to imprint a female aplomado this season. He asks for suggested reading material. Looking the bookcase and of course first thing that comes to mind is Harry McElroy and Desert Hiawking with a little help......and his newest book Desert hawking IV.

Raising and hunting an Aplo these are must reads.


North American Falconry Beebe and Webester

The Hunting Falcon. Bruce Haak

A Merlin for me. John Loft

Imprint accipter ll Mike McDermott

Help me with others.Thanks in advance

[rkumetz]

Is A Merlin for Me still in print?

NA Falconry doesn't have a lot of info on imprinting that reflects the most recent ideas about the subject.

A hunting falcon is to the point and good info.

How about the 4 Week Window?

[Tanner]

For imprint falcons you can't beat "High Flying Gyrfalcons" by Kent Christopher and Vic Hardaswick. They discuss gyrs, but the philosophy and approach are sound for all falcons. That approach is just about identical to what I was taught/learned/absorbed/adopted and I've never flown a gyr. And they discuss the whole picture - which it's hard to cover it all do when you get someone who hasn't developed an imprint falcon before. They really did a good job covering the big picture.

[WILL HUNT]

The aplo very different that all the other falcons. Typically I fly only imprint falcons because that is my preference but the aplo in my opinion is better as a chamber bird. Very similar to a Harris which I have flown as imprints with great success but a case where the benefit is not worth it. I would not recommend them as imprints unless wanted for making hybrids.

[bobpayne]

Ron, Tanner and Troy thanks for responding!

Ron and Tanner, both great reads that I didn't think about.

Troy am interested in your response as well.

Did you imprint the Aplomado and have problems with it, or are these hand me down hawks that you were hunting?
Were they duel imprints?
Were they hawks used for abatement?

Both the Aplomado that I have gotten that were imprinted by others and given to me around penning had no issues. I have also been given a couple chamber birds that had penned weeks before, again there were no issues with their training.

In defense of your writing, I have flown for abatement, some imprints, that were vocal and possessive of their food. If they were my only experience with imprint Aplomados, I wouldn't want to dedicate the time to imprint one.

In retrospect, were the issues I was having due to the other trainers and their training methods and use of the hawks, or due to them being duel imprints as I was told?

As you elude to the similarity to the Harris's, I have found the chamber Aplomado to bond quite well with its trainer in time, and one will second guess themselves, is it worth the effort to imprint?

[rkumetz]

Bob,
I think the clear advantage of imprinting falcons (as opposed to accipiters where there are benefits to socialization) is being able to have the bird on the wing a month or two sooner developing in a time frame that is similar to a wild bird. This is something that PeteJ has mentioned in another thread and the whole idea behind "The 4 Week Window". If you live in a place with seasons where the small birds are going to start to disappear in fall getting the bird going before the quarry base thins could be helpful. If you are going to fly a bird on a short season quarry (snipe and woodcock seasons are a month long here) then getting the bird in the groove before the season starts is a nice thing.

[WILL HUNT]

I briefly flew two female dual socialized females tha I acquired for breeding. Tame as puppy dogs in fact I am making hybrids with them now. Problem is when you reduce the weight while not vocal in the field they are very noisy and vocal at home. They go nuts when shown anything more than the smallest bit of food in the field. They resented the hood to the point that it was not worth the effort to continue since they do travel so well unhooked. These birds were acquired shortly after being hard penned. A couple of years ago I raised a tiercel from hatch and imprinted. As is my normal practice I hand feed them and keep them with me for complete socialization. I tame hack just before they can fly and they learn to fly in the field, my imprints have never been on a creance, they fly as soon as they are able and I fly for at least a month before reducing weight. Birds are fed all they want twice per day until they only want to eat once per day. The little guy hooded perfectly but other than that he developed the same behaviors as the two females. It may have something to do with the fact that they do not have the voracious appetite as a peregrine... I flew an anatum x Richardson imprint raise d from the egg and he would fly at 300g deadly on small birds and he would consume twice as much food per day and he never once screamed or carried. I have had imprints thermal at thousand of feet before any weight reduction, but at some point the weight needs to be trimmed. It seems to me that the amount of weight reduction required for these birds is closer to that of a Harris or a prairie than a Merlin or peregrine. That is when the mantling, food possessiveness and screaming begins. I sold one to my Jason jones and she was tame hacked all day every day for six or seven weeks and was catching wild birds before he reduced her weight. In the end he had to reduce the weight to the point that the results were the same... Still much to be learned but thus far from what I have seen is that if the birds need to have the weight reduced as much as they appear to it does not appear than my normal procedure has had produced the perfect imprint. I do know that imprinting by another and then going to a new owner gets good results with peregrines and Gyr x peregrines... Perhaps it would work well with aplos as well, only time will tell.

Troy

Ron, Tanner and Troy thanks for responding!

Ron and Tanner, both great reads that I didn't think about.

Troy am interested in your response as well.

Did you imprint the Aplomado and have problems with it, or are these hand me down hawks that you were hunting?
Were they duel imprints?
Were they hawks used for abatement?

Both the Aplomado that I have gotten that were imprinted by others and given to me around penning had no issues. I have also been given a couple chamber birds that had penned weeks before, again there were no issues with their training.

In defense of your writing, I have flown for abatement, some imprints, that were vocal and possessive of their food. If they were my only experience with imprint Aplomados, I wouldn't want to dedicate the time to imprint one.

In retrospect, were the issues I was having due to the other trainers and their training methods and use of the hawks, or due to them being duel imprints as I was told?

As you elude to the similarity to the Harris's, I have found the chamber Aplomado to bond quite well with its trainer in time, and one will second guess themselves, is it worth the effort to imprint?