Chapter 863
Caged Eagle and Little One
In the south wing of Yuefeng Courtyard, two rooms were converted into a single room that can be opened up together.
The windows and doors were sealed with two layers of fine wire mesh. On the inside of the wire mesh, a thin, translucent veil was also placed over it to prevent the large blue dragon from getting its tail and wing tips damaged when it was startled and charged at the mesh.
Both rooms are equipped with high and low perches for birds of prey to stand and fly, and near the south-facing windows where they can easily get sunlight, there are water basins and sand basins.
Not only were the configuration standards for these traditional caged eagles raised to the highest level, but Li Fulin also put a great deal of effort into the blood food used to feed them.
Under the eaves outside the eagle house, a row of double-layered bamboo cages hangs, filled with lively sparrows.
Below the sparrow cage, near the base of the wall, was a row of finely perforated iron cages, covered with smocks. Yue Feng glanced at them but couldn't see what was inside.
"Uncle Li, you've really pushed the standards of this caged eagle to the limit! You've caught so many sparrows to feed the eagle live food every day?" Yue Feng asked in admiration after looking around the room.
Li Fulin nodded: "This big green dragon is a good eagle that you can't buy even if you have money. It's being used as a cage to pluck feathers in people's hands, so you can't be careless at all!"
These sparrows were all caught by me personally taking Songzi out every morning to release hawks!
Old Liu told me that even live birds aren't necessarily safe, and suggested I keep them in a cage for a while to observe their health before feeding them to the eagle!
He said these details were what you told him before!
Now, the live birds that are caught are kept in cages under the eaves. After feeding them, they are fed eggs and millet by hand for a week. Then, according to the date, the birds with good physical condition are selected to feed the eagles!
This spring was warm, and there were plenty of baby sparrows. We now have at least a week's worth of live food in stock. Even if we can't release the hawks for three to five days, it won't significantly affect the live food supply for our big blue dragon!
Hearing that Li Fulin was taking such good care of the big blue dragon, even more so than the standards he had mentioned to Little Eagle Liu at the meeting, Yue Feng nodded repeatedly.
He glanced again at the several covered iron cages at the base of the wall and asked, "What's in those iron cages at the base of the wall?"
"A rat! After the ice thawed in the spring, Lao Liu and I went to the wasteland outside the city to dig rat holes, fill them with water, and caught these big-eyed thieves!"
One male and three females are paired up in advance and kept in an iron cage, where they are fed and cared for well. The offspring are then separated into different cages once they grow up.
I don't know if you people in Northeast China use these things to cage eagles, but the older generation in Tianjin who care about their eagles will try their best to prepare them!
Yue Feng knew that the field mouse, the Big-Eyed Rat, was extremely nutritious for birds of prey.
However, with live birds already available for feeding the eagles, it would be a bit of a luxury to continue feeding them with big-eyed thieves on a long-term basis.
These things may sound simple, but they are actually very tedious to prepare and require a great deal of time and effort.
"Are all these cages full of big-eyed thieves? Besides sparrows and rats, do you feed them anything else?" Yue Feng continued to ask.
"Yes, there are quite a few rabbits at the club's base. The baby rabbits reproduce quite quickly, and I bring them back every now and then to give the big blue dragon some fresh food!"
Yue Feng nodded after listening.
Feeding eagles with sparrows, field mice, and rabbits provides an ample supply, eliminating any issues like a monotonous diet leading to vitamin deficiencies.
"Has the eagle turned back to life now?" Yue Feng continued to ask.
"It hasn't turned into a wild animal! Except for removing the tail bell, everything else is the same as when we release the eagles."
Every day after we come back from our relaxation period, we raise the eagles normally, and their body condition has been kept very stable, at about 90% full, and they go out on the saddle every day on time!
In other words, now that the seedlings are sprouting, it's difficult for eagles to land on the ground to work. If you want to take the eagles out to fly, in their "Great Green Dragon" form, they only need to be exposed to light for a couple of times and given extra food to stretch them out before they can land!
"No regeneration? Then I need to check out what's going on with this guy now!"
Upon hearing the reply, Yue Feng boldly began to untie the first barbed wire fence on the door.
"Look around, this eagle isn't afraid of people at all!"
Old Liu and I raise caged eagles, and we follow the same path. Since we've chosen to make cages, we certainly won't cut corners! We won't neglect anything, from the support frame to the details!
However, it's still a little early; the great blue dragon's main feathers and tail feathers haven't even started to move yet!
As he spoke, Li Fulin opened the cage door himself, then opened the original door inside, turned on the incandescent light in the room, put on the cage sleeves, and called out to the eagle standing on the bar.
"Hey!"
Upon hearing the command, the Great Azure Dragon immediately leaped with all its might, its feathers ruffled, and landed without hesitation on Li Fulin's arm sleeve.
Under the incandescent light, Yue Feng observed his precious pet, whom he hadn't seen for almost half a year, and felt a surge of emotions.
Sweetness comes from no bitterness; if you put your heart into it, you will naturally get a response. As an old hand, Li Fulin's skill in raising eagles is unparalleled!
At this moment, the large blue dragon looked as if it had just been caught in the wild, its energy and spirit in perfect condition.
Even with the most critical eye, you can't find a single flaw.
Yue Feng circled around and observed the three parts of the great blue dragon: its mouth hook, claws, and tail tip.
The beak length is normal, and there is no abnormal length caused by cage keeping or feeding the chicks.
The claws were sharp and showed no abnormal wear. The hemp rope wrapped around the low bar and the willow trunk material on the high bar had done a great job.
The eagle's tail feathers are all old feathers from last year that haven't started to move yet, and the tip of its tail doesn't even have a small fork. This shows that whether it went out to catch rabbits last winter or was moving around normally in the cage after being put in the cage, it was well protected.
Yue Feng nodded repeatedly in praise: "Not bad, not bad! The fuzz on your breasts is starting to grow! Your body condition is within this range, which is normal! If you want the molting to be more efficient, you can let it lose a little weight!"
"As the old saying goes, once a great eagle is caged, it will be covered in new feathers by mid-September at the very end! It's not time yet. I'm confident that by mid-September at the latest, it will be covered in new feathers all over its body!" Li Fulin said with great confidence.
Hearing this, Jinlong, who had been silent until now, couldn't help but ask out of curiosity, "What does 'scattered and reassembled' mean? There's so much to it about the eagle changing its feathers in its cage!"
Yue Feng smiled and nodded: "Of course! Eagles molting is a normal physiological behavior. After using old feathers for a whole year, exposed to the wind and sun, and damaged by hunting, they will start to molt continuously when the season comes!"
Uncle Li's saying "seven scattered and eight broken, nine replaced" roughly means that the small feathers will start to fall off sporadically in July, the main feathers will start to fall off intermittently in August, and by September, all the large feathers on the body should have been replaced!
If everything goes smoothly, the whole process should take about three to four months!
"Is it true that the better the living conditions, the easier it is for them to molt?" Jinlong nodded and continued to ask.
Li Fulin reached out and stroked the tail of the Great Azure Dragon sword, saying with a smile, "This is not what you think!"
Xiao Feng knew the inside story. It's true that eagles need to consider nutrition when molting, but it's not true that the fatter the better!
If a dog is too fat, it's more prone to developing reversed sex traits. This reversed sex traits cause it to be easily frightened and afraid of people, and this negative stimulation can actually hinder normal molting!
Yue Feng said, "Uncle Li is right! Molting is a big deal in the wild! Losing feathers, especially tail feathers and primary flight feathers, directly affects a bird of prey's flight performance!"
If they feel there isn't enough food, or they have difficulty finding food, some eagles won't even molt their entire plumage! Sometimes when hunting eagles in the mountains in autumn, you can occasionally catch tattered feathers that haven't finished molting!
This is different from checking molting by catching pine nuts in the spring. If a large eagle still has tattered feathers when it goes into the nets in the fall, none of them are usable. They've either survived a disease or were injured and barely made it through!
Jinlong nodded repeatedly after listening: "Alright! I've learned something new today!"
"Eagle's finished looking around. Shouldn't the three of us go sit or rest in the north room for a bit? Let's not just stand here!"
Yue Feng nodded: "Come on, let's go inside and rest for a while. I've been on the train for dozens of hours, and I'm a little hungry. Let's have some tea to catch our breath and then have a meal!"
Li Fulin nodded, reached out and touched the big blue dragon's head, then put the eagle back on the perch and closed the two cage doors.
The living room of the main house in the north was very clean, and the layout and furnishings were almost exactly the same as when Yue Feng left.
Yue Feng entered the room, put the transfer box on the ground, then took the teapot off the table and poured half a cup of cold tea from it.
"This tea is from yesterday. There's hot water in the thermos, shall we brew some fresh tea?" Li Fulin invited.
Yue Feng shook his head: "It's nothing, just giving the little one I brought some water! The train ride of over thirty hours and the high temperature in the cargo hold made the eagle a little uncomfortable!"
As he spoke, Yue Feng opened the transfer cage and took out the tiny hybrid falcon with its hat on.
As soon as he got his hands on the hybrid falcon, before he even took off his hat, Li Fulin squinted slightly.
"What kind of eagle is this? A hare-tiger? Or a peregrine falcon? I don't quite understand it. I've never seen breast markings like this before, and the skeletal structure is quite different!"
Yue Feng lowered his head slightly and used his other hand to remove the eagle hat from the little one's head. Then he said with a smile, "This is a hybrid falcon that was just bred this spring! It's the offspring of last year's grey falcon and a second-generation white gyrfalcon!"
"A hybrid falcon? Why does it look so strange!"
Logically, both the Altai falcon and the gyrfalcon are large birds, so how did they hybridize to produce such a small offspring?
When Li Fulin heard that it was a hybrid eagle chick, he immediately became interested and looked the little guy up and down.
"I don't know why! All the other chicks in the same nest are of normal size, but this one is an exception!"
This one is the smallest of the nest, and it's a male falcon.
But don't let its small size fool you, it has a single feather and a hard bone, and its flight speed is much faster than my big black eagle!
Moreover, it is quite friendly, obedient, and intelligent. It follows me wherever I go at home, and I don't need to control its diet!
Come here, little one, have some water!
Yue Feng briefly introduced the characteristics of the little creature, then gently tapped the table with his finger to invite the other person to drink water.
Upon hearing its master's command, the little one didn't hesitate at all. It leaped from the arm onto the table, lowered its head, and took a sip of tea from the cup.
"Hey, this little eagle is interesting! It's quite clever!" Jinlong couldn't help but exclaim upon seeing this scene.
"They are indeed very smart, just like a flying puppy! After the other fledglings completed their basic training courses, they were all raised in cages at the breeding farm on the mountain."
I couldn't bear to part with this little guy. We're in the capital for who knows how long, so I decided to go to the trouble of bringing him along!
While Yue Feng was talking to Jin Long, Li Fulin's attention was entirely focused on the hybrid falcon.
"Judging from its physique and build, does this eagle weigh between 1.9 and 2 jin?" Li Fulin asked curiously.
Yue Feng shook his head, reached out and lifted the little one, placing him on Li Fulin's arm.
Having been a seasoned eagle handler for years, Li Fulin's expression immediately changed when the little one took the reins.
"Goodness, it doesn't look big, but it's quite heavy. Judging by its weight, it must weigh at least two pounds and one ounce! It's got a solid build!"
The little one seemed to realize that the people in front of him were talking about him. He looked up at Li Fulin, then lowered his head and licked his tea-stained lips on the back of Li Fulin's hand. Then, with a light leap, he landed back in front of Yue Feng.
The little guy stopped drinking water and instead turned its head to look around at the square table next to Yue Feng. Not seeing the food it expected, it jumped onto Yue Feng's arm, flapping its wings and making a cawing begging sound.
The begging voice was not as loud as that of a typical fledgling eagle; it was much softer.
Both the body language and the vocalizations convey the same meaning.
Master, I'm hungry, get me something to eat!
Upon seeing the clever and intelligent hybrid falcon, Jinlong and Li Fulin were immediately impressed.
No wonder it became Yue Feng's favorite; this little eagle is definitely smart enough.
"Alright, alright, I'll make you something to eat later! Rest for a bit and have some tea!" Yue Feng comforted the little one, patting his head.
The next second, the little one, now calmed down, stopped barking and jumped from Yue Feng's arm to his thigh. There, it brazenly curled up its legs and spread its wings slightly, adopting a hen-like crouching posture.
After lying down, it stared at its owner and the other two people in the room with its bright eyes.
"Wow, this eagle seems to understand everything, it's so intelligent!" Jinlong was completely impressed when he saw this.
Yue Feng grinned: "Haha, the only downside of this little guy is that he's a bit small."
If you take it hunting in the mountains, it's definitely not strong enough!
I plan to train them well and try to make them breeding birds for our breeding farm in the future!
"If all offspring are this intelligent, then I feel raising eagles won't be difficult at all! They understand everything, you can just talk to them and communicate!"
"It's a bit of an exaggeration to say you know everything; you still need to be taught little by little!"
I feel like this guy's intelligence is about the same as our dog, Canglong! He can understand most common phrases now!
"Tsk tsk tsk, you'd better protect this thing! Maybe someday when it has offspring, I can raise one of its pups! Don't let Brother Jianjun or Brother Feng take it away!"
"Haha, no need! If you really like it, when we have kittens, we'll all get one for ourselves!"
This little one has double inscriptions, so artificial insemination is no problem!
The new batch of second-generation double-marked female breeding eagles, once they reach adulthood and enter estrus, can mate with it and produce offspring! (End of this chapter)