Quote Originally Posted by Vulturesnake View Post
We don't do sponsors here. I work at this facility under a falconer, this is my experience, with flight demo birds. My application for falconry permit for home is underway.
See the thing is, he wasn't fat, we had him at his usual flying weight he has every year, even pushed to lower it as we could. He would behave well inside for weeks. Knowing the moment he's free flighted he would go along with routine, then as soon as he ate his portions he would sit and not want to go inside. We lowered his weight, but it got to a point where it was low enough that we couldn't just not give him food for a day or two. We tried fasting too for one day but he was still a smart alec... Especially being so smart, he knew we would give him food no matter what he did. I think we were rewarding it, but when is the line drawn for when you already tried fasting and have lowered weights, that you still not feed out that day? Its not good to drop weight by fasting, but then we are rewarding bad behavior.. You know what I mean?
It is tautalogicaly true that if your bird is not responding it is not at weight. That is how the proper weight is defined. It don't matter that the scale is reading the same today as yesterday, if they behaved yesterday they were at weight, if they are not behaving today they are not at weight. Weather to raise or lower the weight can be difficult to figure out, which is why Tasha's advice is good. By raising the weight first you know you have room to move downwards.