I watched the video on high level tidbitting with the aplomado falcon. That kind of training makes sense to me because I've used it a lot with my parrots. I had one bird trained so well to accept her nails getting filed that even when medical issues caused some pretty major fear based behavior problems, I could still do her nails without issue. So, my question about using that technique with a passage red tail is this: as seen on the video, would a person need to worry about associating the free hand with food? I don't like it when I need to text my hapkido instructor and say I need to miss class this week because I can't stop bleeding. Having a passage redtail bound to my free hand does not sound like a lot of fun. However, I do like that kind of training in that once you get it, it tends to pretty solid in my experience with other birds. Is there a way to do high level tid bitting without free hand association? I'm guess it would a convenient way to train the bird to accept its breast being touched to assess condition. My current bird still likes to bite, which makes that kind of handling a hassle. Would like to be able to to specifically mark and train certain behaviors without accidentally training in other behaviors like footiness toward the free hand.

Melissa