Eyas but not imprint?

[Jack]

Jack,

This forum is to express your opinion and what works for you. To each its own. I agree with the weight issues that you address and not to leave the bird hungry. But I don't think there is only one way to raise the imprint. Hand feeding can be a dangerious proposition for one that is not confident in what their doing and not knowing when to feed the hawk. The only reason why I do it was from a long discussion from well know breeder and falconer who converted me into a believer. There is still to this day controvery whether the so called recipe method is the only method to raise a falcon or accipiter. I've tried both methods with the same results (I'm a risk taker and will continue to hand feed my next falcon/accipiter).

However, The purpose on a captive raised imprint, is to develop a bond. And despite you saying a Gos is solitary in nature has not been the case with me. My Gos greeted me is almost a mating posture when I walked into the mews. I think that it is extreemly dangerous not to socialize the bird when your raising it. Leaving it in the mews without contact defeats the purpose. You will wind up a bird that will not be calm in your presence and possibly have vocal communication issues. So whats the point in getting an imprint and putting it into solitary confinement. Your better off with a chamber or passage accipiter.

Jeff

I could be wrong, but I think the subject was about raising an eyas without imprinting it to start out with. And you can form a bond with the hawk as it grows, but it is likely to develop into an imprint. I managed to do that without hauling mine all over the place with me. You never see wild hawks hauling the young birds around like that.
The wild nature of any raptor is what can be called normal. Wild hawks tend to spend most of their lives alone in solitude. We alter them to some extent, but then there are sometimes things that we don't really appreciate about them too, once altered.

[Jack]

The very best way to do an imprint is to let it have the run of a room until it hard pins and then mew it. Cutting the weight as it becomes more aloof. If you don't want to imprint it, just place it in the mews on a nest platform and feed it there.
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Jack

Ok, let me add something to this last statement of that post. As the hawk had the run of the room, actually a couple of rooms, I also had the run of these rooms. One was my den, or man cave. TV, bed, computer, everything involving me. He had his little bed, toys, and lots of room to run around and play, and he occasionally climbed into my lap for a nap. Slept on my bed during the day as well. I can and went, he stayed until he was fully feathered and flying. He did not mount the fist until he was flying about the room. It was not until he was doing this branching that I actually took him outside on the fist and introduced him to water. So he got lots of socializing until he hard pinned. At this time he started the so called disbursal thing, which is simply explained. He actually stopped growing and his feathers stopped growing, which then left him nothing more than a fat sub adult hawk. I had to pull down the weight, and everyone said slowly, so I tried that. He started to become vocal at the sight of me, so I immediately mewed him to stay from his sight and quite feeding him for several days. The next time he seen me I had dropped food in the drop chute and as he ate I entered and took him up. No screaming, no mantling, no nasty behaviors.
When young hawks leave the nest, speaking of the coopers hawk here, they tend to move away from their siblings. They will scatter about a large area, avoiding contact with one another. They do not seem to develop that bond you speak of. They come only to the food call. Once they hard pin, they become fat young hawks and tend to lose interest completely. So, should one wish to raises an eyas yet not imprint it, there would be nothing wrong with placing this hawk alone in the mews and only let it see you on occasion. It would eat the food you drop, it would bath, it would preen, and it would sun and dust bath itself like a normal young hawk, only it would not be imprinted on you and would require manning just like a passage hawk. It was done so many times in the past almost exactly like that, and the idea was at the time not to imprint the hawk. There was few back then that had an interest in imprinted hawks.