Quote Originally Posted by wingnut View Post
I get what you are saying Jacobe and I totally agree. However in this case I have to agree with Joe. We are trying to offer advice to an apprentice with what I'm assuming is his first redtail. He probably hasn't had the benefit of your years of experience and your ability to read the cues and body language of his bird. Until that skill is acquired I would always advise a new apprentice to avoid feeding with the opposing, ungloved hand. When that association is made things can go bad quite quickly and I might add, difficult to correct. I've seen it happen with more than one apprentice. One of them was me.
I understand, I was told the same thing, emphatically, when I apprenticed. No hand food association, ever. I don't know if I was just bad at it, or what but the bird always figured out where the food came from, quickly. So despite my best efforts the functional effect was the same as if I had been feeding with the hand the whole time, without learning how to do it rite, and without learning how to read the bird. I suggest using the skewer or forceps now, not to avoid association, but as a confidence booster for the falconer and the bird. The hawk, in my experience, is less averse to a skewer or forceps than an entire hand, and having the food not in the fingers makes the falconer more confident and less likely to flinch. I guess this is just a long way of saying that in my opinion there is no way to prevent the bird from knowing that food comes from the off hand, the only thing you can do is to learn to read your bird. But that could just be my shortfall.