Picco - Imprint Coopers Hawk

[rocgwp]

After releasing my female passage coops and waiting to see if the little hybrid falcon will recover fully or not, I decided to pull another coops to imprint. There is just something about those little guys I really like. I am still looking for the local sharpie nest, but that will be for down the road.

Today I pulled a ~3 day old coops. I am hoping for a tiercel, but at this age it is a crap shoot. I chose the one with the thinner legs. The plan is to imprint him with full food association (via the help of some experienced falconers) using operant conditioning methods and tame hack him.

Here are pics from the day...

[conorhawk]

Finally a Cooper's thread! Keep it updated please!

[Eragon]

Congratulations! Can't wait to see the little guy grow up! Post lots of pictures please!

[passagejack]

Congrates Jeff. Looking forward to hearing how this training turns out. I've heard good things about this training method! Hope it turns out well! Please keep us informed.

[kitana]

I'll be following this thread religiously, as this is what I want to do in the near future. Good luck!

[Mike O]

The plan is to imprint him with full food association (via the help of some experienced falconers) using operant conditioning methods and tame hack him.

Could you explain this a little more?

[rocgwp]

I am hand feeding the bird and establishing a conditioned reinforcer currently. As the bird develops I will use this to shape the behaviors I want and to cure problems as they arise. Once the bird begins to branch I'll do a day time hack with some interaction during the day and it will roost in my living room.

[rocgwp]

4 Days Old

Eating every 4 hours during the day. He's on supplemental heat to keep him warm right now. Not a lot of excitement. He eats, sleeps a lot, and poops...

[Mike O]

Jeff -

I hope you can keep posting how you are doing with your Cooper’s Hawk. I think that this kind of journal one of the best things about NAFEX. I'm particularly interested in how you do with the behavior modification strategy.


A couple of years ago a member kept a journal about his imprinting a Sharp-shinned Hawk. I found it so valuable that I edited it down into a Publisher document that I’ve kept as a reference ever since.


Though it is about a Sharpie, I thought you might like to see it to help anticipate what you might encounter with your hawk over the next couple of months. Sharpies develop faster than Cooper’s – but I think they go through all of the same stages. There are pictures of the bird every few days for the first month that I've found very useful.

http://www.netexpress.net/~okeefe/Te...r%20Minnie.pdf

[rocgwp]

Thanks Mike! There was some great reading in that sharpie journal. I kept a semi-detailed thread on my last imprint coops Bullet (http://www.nafex.net/showthread.php?t=2425) . He was a lot of fun to fly. I imprinted him with the recipe and then did a daytime hack. This time I am using oc methods instead of complete non-food association before hacking. It will be a learning experience and hopefully yall can learn from mistakes and successes. There will be a lot of blood, sweat, and tears going into making this bird. Just hopefully not too much blood (atleast mine)...

[kitana]

I'm interested in knowing at what age the bird will make the association between the CR and the food, you know, that "lightbulb" moment?

[rocgwp]

5 days old

He hasn't had that "lightbulb" moment yet. He is struggling to stay sitting up and and is learning to eat better. I have already noticed growth in him. Starting to see some pigment in his talons come in.

[rocgwp]

6 days old

It's amazing the difference a day makes. Today his eyes began changing from the hazy blue to being able to see pupils form. He was a lot easier to feed because it appeared he could somewhat focus on the food. His head control has improved greatly as well.

[frootdog]

it appeared he could somewhat focus

At least one of y'all can focus.

[goshawks00]

Jeff, Congrats on the coop, I love anything imprint accip.wise!! Mind sharing how are you supplying 'supplemental heat"?

[Takasho]

How did I miss this thread! Looking forward to following along!

[rocgwp]

Barry,

I am supplementing heat with a small brooder lamp. I have a thermometer in his nest box to make sure he isn't too hot or cold.

[rocgwp]

8 days old

[REYNALDO]

cute little bird! im looking forward to its progress. good luck

[dirthawker2004]

they are cute at that age. its the hard pen that they arent as cute lol. congrats and have fun.

[rocgwp]

10 days old

Today is the first time I have noticed Picco responding to the CR. Now I can begin shaping behaviors. I plan to begin tagging:

1. Any calm behavior
2. Moving toward me and looking for me
3. Muting
4. Hooding
5. Letting me pet and touch him

I am also beginning to change his feeding sessions. Instead of focusing on cropping him up, I will attempt to stretch a session out so I can shape behavior and increase the interaction time. If he is not interested in food, I will skip that feeding 'til later.

As he gets more mobile I will focus on shaping other things...

[tyler1998]

Excuse my ignorance, but what is the reason for tagging the muting?

[dirthawker2004]

silly boy its toilet training LOL

[tyler1998]

you mean create a command that will get the bird to go when you want? like before you go inside after flying? I didn't realize it was possible to teach a bird that!

[hawking]

I have never tried to do it with a Raptor before, but I think some caution is order when you are teaching a bird to poop on command.

There are parrots that when this is done, desire the reward so bad that if the person forgets to give the command that they will hold it and end up doing damage to themselves in the process.

Just a word of caution.

[rocgwp]

11 days old





The reason I am tagging muting is to potentially shape where the bird mutes (i.e. against the wall instead of into the room.) A falconer that imprinted a gos last year noticed that in his house, the bird would fly to a perch and mute toward the wall. We'll see...

[cllhawker]

good luck and hope to see more pics! hes a cute little guy. good luck!!!

[MrBill]

Hey Conor,

I used to live right down the road from you in Fallbrook. There was nothing but wide open fields in Temecula in those days :-)

Bill B.
Norman, OK

[rocgwp]

13 days old

A fun development tonight when feeding. I set the quail down in front of Picco as usual. He got excited and began to reach for the quail. He then stopped and sat back on his haunches anticipating the CR and being fed. It was the first time where I have seen him offer a behavior that will get him fed.

[kitana]

That's cool! How do you manage his hunger vs the clicker training? Do you always give him full crops, do you wait until he begs before feeding him, etc... Very interesting!

[rocgwp]

I had been feeding him on a 4 hour schedule with 10 pm being the last feeding until the next morning. I don't crop him at every feeding. I feed while he is interested and stop when he is done. He pretty much dictates when to stop feeding him. I try to stretch a feeding out over a period of 30 minutes or so if I can. This just gives me more time to shape things I like.

I just switched him to a 5 hour schedule to let the hunger build a little more between feedings. He has done the same thing today that he did yesterday. I just finished feeding him and it was obvious that he understands that sitting and waiting is how he makes me feed him. He sat and watched me open a quail and cut it into tidbits in front of him. Once I tagged his calm behavior he lunged for that tidbit.

[rocgwp]

14 days old

[MourneMan]

Hi Jeff
This Is shaping up to be a very very interesting thread. Good luck with the process.
Cheers
Malcolm

[FredFogg]

Hey Jeff,

Very interesting thread! Any chance you could video a feeding session so we could see how you feed him and the whole process?

Thanks,

[YARAK191]

This is an education and a half n i second the motion for a video!!