1st imprint...1st time hack???

[Falcon Boy]

Perhaps i am completely wrong in my train of thought on this, but personally i don't see a reason to imprint a bird than hack it. The main advantage i see with imprints is you mold them to hunt HOW YOU want and WHAT YOU want, not how they previously have learned from being wild. A hack, in my inexperienced opinion, completely erases this because they use the time to learn how to hunt on their own. Lets say you want to hunt jacks and she clips into a jack, gets her ass kicked, and never chases a jack with you in the field. Had you been there, perhaps you would have gotten there in time to help her out.

I've never hacked a bird and doubt i will for the above reasons. In my mind it makes a bird more like a passage, and if you're doing an imprint, i see no reason why you would want that?

[goshawks00]

Noah , you have part of the equation correct... Some reasons for hack... learning how to fly in cover /winds/landings etc. they get a bit of independence, they are quiet when brought in,almost to what you would call passage yet there is no fear as in a passage. They start to develop a hunting and eventually killing attitude.... They learn about not being able to kill little birds that will buzz them, that bugs don't taste good, and many other things that a hawk tied to a perch or left in a mews until hunting season doesn't know. Falcons I can't say what a tame hack does for them as I don't dabble in them but it is a great way to raise a hawk. The liklihood of them getting ruined by a run in with game is slight, though possible. The greatest of fears are these... predation, accidents, lost if telemetry quits, and to much independence once they learn they can effectively kill game from a perch.
Having lost my best gos ever for a month during the molt one late summer, she came back with a new understanding of how to survive, and would completely refuse to hunt from the fist , and never did really ever get over that urge to take a perch . As I said it's not for everyone, but for me, it's a great training tool to develop my hawk during it's natural training period.

Barry

[goshawks00]

BY the way Noah ... so you take it hawking after hack or not, doesn't matter, and she grabs a jack say a couple hundred yards away gets the crap taken out of her... now what ... you didn't get to her and so are you saying she won't take jacks because of that? Am I'm missing something here.
Barry

[Falcon Boy]

I will not deny the fact that she may have the same thing happen as soon as you start hawking, i'm just saying if i'm trying to make a bird to a particular quarry i'd rather at least be able to go "damnit i needed to run faster...thats my bad" rather than "i shouldn't have hacked her, i can't even get her to look at this"

Your points are well taken though, thanks for typing it out. I guess it would become a what ever makes you sleep at night better. personally i'd rather be able to blame myself for being slow.

[Saluqi]

The thing you have to consider Noah is that with a gos, or other shortwings, (and maybe hacked longwings for that matter) the birds are hog fat and not likely to really put in much effort in tackling game. They might follow a fleeing jack and try to tag it, but they are not going all out trying to catch it, they are just not hungry enough. This behavior continues into the fall when you fly them, they are out there chasing but not comitting. It's just like when they fledge from the nest and parent birds are still providing food for them, they'll chase things but hunting isn't part of their repitoire yet.

One of the huge advantages of day hacking an accip is that the post-fledge period is really critical to their mental and physical development, so as long as they have room to fly around and plenty of things to keep their minds occupied they are far better off than being tied to perch watching TV all day while you are at work. When I hacked Frieda last summer she spent the majority of the 27 days within 50 yds of my house. I'd get home from work and look for her, get all freaked out and pull out the receiver just to find the signal coming the garage where she'd be asleep on top of some paint cans or something. She also chased my homers around and always got smoked by them, until one day she pushed through the bobs and killed a squeaker

[BestBeagler]

Lee,
This thread is kind of like my “what should I do” thread. The difference is its your money were talking about here. I would say go for it. If I get a coops it is going to be hacked as soon as it can handle the cold nights without a warming device. I am going to try to spend every waking minute with it until then. I don’t think I will bring him in for the night either. I will try to get it to roost in his hack box (we will see how that works out). He will be fed on the lure as soon as he can eat by himself and I will use what they call a “cat mate.” It has two trays with a lids over them. There is a timer that pops the lid open. I will incorporate baggies in the picture as well as soon as he can kill them. Then I will set up mock hunts. These mock hunts will consist of a baggie tied somewhere in the yard or field. I will set up the baggie before hand and then walk up on it with the eyas. I want the eyas to find it himself. I other words I don’t want to be seen as a baggie provider merely a spectator. Weight reduction will happen around hard penning as usual but only very slowly. I think McD said that response in the field should not be great but just manageable at around hard penning. Then if problems start to arise indicating that the weight is to high I will drop him slowly. I just read Lee’s eyas sharp shinned thread from last year. I sounds as if he did everything right. His thread is a good refresher and model to follow. Didn’t mean to hijack your thread. Just though I would let you know what my plan was. From everything that I have read it seems that you get some of the best results if you follow the steps that would happen in the wild. I am not sure exactly how to put it but a wild eyas grows up perfect without any behavioral issues in the wild. We as falconers create issues, we screw the birds up. If we can follow a time table that is similar to mother natures time table and just be there with the eyas so that it learns that we are nothing to fear then we have become successful imprinters. Off course we want to mold them a bit at hard penning time so that they learn to be successful when hunting with humans and so they can adapt to the way we want them to hunt, but this is no big deal because they would be doing the exact same thing in the wild. The only difference is that in the wild they might find that sitting in a tree with heavy foliage waiting for a bird to get to close is the best way to success. Through our intervention at hard penning time we can teach them to be successful from the fist in different situations. Sorry, once I get going I can’t stop Isaac

[goshawks00]

Issac, I fear you may be doing irreversable harm to your hawk as far as temps go..and leaving out over night, not to mention possible fear issues.
Also there is more to it than manipulating them at penning... in fact much of the killing business will probably much past penning... at least it was for my goshawks.
Not so with the spar and sharpie, the coops will be some where in the middle I would suppose.
Barry

[BestBeagler]

Issac, I fear you may be doing irreversable harm to your hawk as far as temps go..and leaving out over night, not to mention possible fear issues.
Also there is more to it than manipulating them at penning... in fact much of the killing business will probably much past penning... at least it was for my goshawks.
Not so with the spar and sharpie, the coops will be some where in the middle I would suppose.
Barry

Barry,
Thanks for the advice. So I guess I will be bringing it in for the night. Isaac