Chapter 866
Practical Tips
Yue Feng smiled and didn't keep them in suspense any longer. He said with a smile, "The second phase of training for these sub-adult saker falcons that have just left the nest will involve simulating real-world hunting, taking them down to the ground to learn how to hunt!"
The period when eaglets are learning to hunt is a crucial time for ending the conditioned reflex of howling for food; for some intelligent eagles, this can be done almost instantly!
"Instant results? What's the secret behind that?"
Mingkai stared intently at Yue Feng, wanting to memorize every single word he gleaned from him. This was knowledge that money couldn't buy in ordinary times.
Yue Feng continued to explain: "Whether it's training birds of prey or interacting with them daily, to do it well, you have to put yourself in their shoes. You can't just observe their surface behavior; you also have to think about the logic behind their behavior!"
Take the second phase of training I mentioned, for example. They're used to howling for food, right?
Howling for food means the animal caretaker is being treated like a mother and is begging for food from you!
This logic doesn't apply when it comes to actual hunting!
In the wild, when birds of prey hunt, their loud calls can alert other prey or predators, which negatively impacts the hunt!
To make them realize this, during hunting training, when the prey is about to flee, you should react to their howling behavior!
Their constant howling prevents the prepared prey from triggering a hunting opportunity for them!
Conversely, if you learn to keep quiet, you should increase your chances of being provoked by the hunt!
With continued training for a period of time, they will naturally give up the habit of howling for food!
"What if you can't tell them apart? Among these three broods of eaglets, some of them don't seem very clever to me!" Xiao Dong continued to ask.
Yue Feng smiled and said, "I won't be confused forever! If I don't meet the training expectations, the first thing I do is get hungry. With such a big physique, if I have enough fat, I can go hungry for a few days without any problems!"
For example, if it hasn't eaten for two days, you can lower the difficulty of the hunt on the third day! Use a pigeon with clipped wings or a slow-moving rabbit to create opportunities for it!
Hearing this, Xiao Dong scratched his head: "Ming Kai and I have also tried, but these guys don't know how to catch them!"
We put a baby rabbit in the cage, and it's been several days and nothing's happened yet. It's practically become buddies with the eaglet!
"Haha, that's what happens when they get fat! It's nothing serious. Try halving the amount of food you give them for the next few days and see!"
Eagles, like other predators, have similar habits: they won't reveal their true nature once they've eaten and drunk their fill! But if they go hungry for a few days, they'll be completely different!
By the way, when feeding them, don't do it in front of them. This will teach them that the food is provided by you, which can hinder the process of breaking their begging reflex!
"Don't feed them in front of you? What then?"
"Why can't you understand such a simple concept! If you can't feed them in person, you can prepare the food in advance and take the eagle to find it!"
From lean meat, to scraps of food with fur and tissue, to whole small prey, to half-dead, and finally to lively and jumping!
Once this process is followed, the second phase of training will naturally follow!
If you continue to feed it without changing the feeding routine, it will still be unable to break the habit of howling for food even when it reaches adulthood!
Sometimes, many core technologies are actually just a thin layer of paper.
Yue Feng pointed out the details to Xiao Dong and Ming Kai, who immediately understood the differences between the different feeding and training methods.
"I think I understand! Then let's increase the intensity of the Eagle starting today!"
Xiao Dong and Ming Kai exchanged a glance; both brothers knew what to do.
Yue Feng continued, "No rush. Have the caged eagles been fed today?"
Xiao Dong replied, "Not yet! To make training easier later, we've scheduled feeding time for noon or the afternoon! These eagles sometimes have a 'last hurrah' moment, so feeding them later ensures they can all get their 'last hurrah'!"
Yue Feng nodded. There wasn't much of a rule about the timing of feeding, but the last thing to be done was indeed a detail of feeding.
If you eat new food before vomiting the food bolus from the previous day, the bolus may be pushed to the next day. After this happens several times in a row, it can lead to the problem of the crop being full of undigested residue, which can affect your daily eating.
"What are you feeding the eagles now? Where is the food you've prepared? Take me to see it! I want to assess how well these eagles are eating!" Yue Feng continued to ask.
"We usually feed them several kinds of food: domestic rabbits bred at our base, pigeons, and some lean beef and mutton that have had their fat removed!"
"There are pigeons? Alive ones?" Upon hearing this answer, Yue Feng's brows furrowed slightly.
Xiao Dong nodded: "Yes, they're alive! They're all live pigeons bought from the market regularly! After keeping them in cages at the base for a few days to make sure they're healthy, we slaughter them to feed the eagles!"
"Starting tomorrow, no pigeons, regardless of their origin, will be fed anymore!" Yue Feng said in a very serious tone.
"Why, Brother Feng? These pigeons are all quite healthy. Don't eagles catch pigeons to eat in the wild?" Mingkai was puzzled when he heard this answer.
Yue Feng curled his lip: "Just because it looks normal doesn't mean it doesn't carry germs!"
Pigeons are among the 'dirtiest' common birds. They have high body temperatures and are prone to carrying various avian viruses and bacteria. Just because they don't get sick doesn't mean they are free of hidden dangers!
In nature, birds of prey do indeed hunt pigeons; some, like the peregrine falcon, even make pigeons their staple food.
However, captive birds of prey do not have the same level of activity as those in the wild, and their physical functions and virus resistance are also inferior to those of wild birds of prey!
Aside from using pigeons sparingly during training periods for activities like chasing, circling, and climbing, avoid using them in their regular diet to minimize risks!
"Well, that means there are far fewer sources of feed for the eagles! If we don't feed them pigeons, how will the eagles get their feed? Rabbit feathers are a bit stiff, and even if they're wet, the chicks will easily pick them out when they're eating!"
After a moment's thought, Yue Feng asked, "Are there any hatcheries around here in the capital? If you have any connections, could you get some day-old chickens or ducks?"
As mentioned earlier, day-old chickens and day-old ducks are the most ideal and safe food for birds of prey, and Yue Feng certainly didn't have that kind of opportunity back in his hometown.
The Northeast is bitterly cold, so there are few hatcheries or poultry farms. At present, hatching chicks is still a family-based activity, which is quite primitive.
But in the capital, it's a completely different story.
Xiao Dong nodded: "I'll ask my friends later! If we don't feed pigeons anymore, we'll feed chicks. The cost shouldn't be low either!"
Now I realize that raising birds of prey is incredibly taxing!
Yue Feng shook his head: "The day-old chickens in the hatchery, once they have just hatched and their feathers have dried, will be separated into males and females. The hens that lay eggs will be kept, while the roosters will mostly be killed or used as feed for other animals!"
When buying young chickens, just buy the selected roosters; to an eagle, there's no difference!
I put everything in a big freezer at home, portioned out according to my daily recipes, and froze it. Just thaw it when I need it—so convenient!
"Um, should we just kill the chicks after buying them? Or should we buy some feed and raise them? We can feed them to the eagles when they're bigger, that way we'll get more meat, right?" Mingkai asked at this point. "Try not to! Breeding takes too long, don't take on the potential risks!"
It's all about luck. If you're lucky, nothing will happen, but if you're unlucky, it's a different story! If you get chicken plague, it can also infect birds of prey!
We put so much effort into training and raising these young eagles, we can't rely on luck, we must eliminate this risk at its source!
Now, let me mention the precautions!
The reason why the eaglet enclosure area is located in the eastern area, far away from the main road and the northern camp, was also considered in advance!
Going forward, please try not to bring unrelated strangers to the enclosure area unless absolutely necessary! Nobody knows where they've been or whether they carry germs!
You and Mingkai also need to disinfect and clean the cages regularly!
Raising birds of prey is a very meticulous task. Bringing these fledglings to Beijing involved a huge amount of manpower and resources. It will take one to two years for them to mature properly through daily feeding. If they contract chicken plague, years of effort could be wasted. We must be extremely careful!
"Understood! Mingkai and I will definitely be careful, especially in front of Uncle Li and Grandpa Liu. Uncle Li and Grandpa Liu, you two should keep a close eye on things too!" Xiao Dong nodded repeatedly after hearing Yue Feng's reminder.
"Go feed it, use the method I just told you, lead the eagle to find food! Remember not to whistle, wait until the eagle stops calling before letting it find the food!"
"it is good!"
……
Soon, Xiao Dong and Ming Kai got busy.
In a separate processing room next to the cage, they did some simple post-processing on the pre-prepared meat, halving the amount of food for each eagle, and then took the feeding bowl to a clearing at the edge of the woods outside.
An eagle was taken out of its cage, weighed and its status recorded in front of the person, and then carried on an arm to the place where food was placed.
This is a female saker falcon. The little one is very friendly to people and has been calling non-stop ever since she got on Xiao Dong's arm.
Following Yue Feng's instructions, Xiao Dong sat down on the stool and waited patiently.
After the eagle had finished its howling, more than twenty minutes had passed. Only then did they slowly move the eagle to a new location to 'search' for food.
The eagle's continuous high-decibel howling is also very tiring and exhausting. After it calms down, it will start howling again if it makes the slightest movement or reacts too much. Its pair of dark eyes are fixed on the feeder and the uninvited guests next to it.
At this stage, the eagle is not very afraid of people. In its eyes, these people are the same kind as it, only with different feather colors.
The route, less than thirty meters long, took more than half an hour to walk and stop, before we finally arrived at the place where the food was placed.
Upon seeing the food bowl on the ground, the female falcon tightened its feathers, used Xiao Dong's arm for leverage, and flew directly to the food. It spread its wings completely to cover the food and then lowered its head to eat voraciously.
Xiao Dong wanted to step forward to help, but Yue Feng stopped him, saying, "Just stand a meter or two away and watch quietly!"
Don't provoke it or get too close, or it will think you're trying to steal its food! If it flies away with the meat, it'll waste time looking for it!
Minor problems are caused by neglecting to pay attention to details in daily life, which creates negative feedback.
This is the stage for developing the raptor's temperament. The conditioned reflex of whistling to feed is sufficient for now; we can strengthen it further later once the whistling for food is established!
"it is good!!"
Under the watchful eyes of six people, the first fledgling falcon finished its food for the day relatively steadily. After finishing all the meat in the food bowl, its crop was bulging, indicating that it was about 50-60% full.
In this state, the eagle was not completely full. The little guy looked at Xiao Dong pitifully, flapped its wings again, and begged for food, howling.
"Brother, the eagle isn't full. What should we do next?" Xiao Dong scratched his head, looking to Yue Feng for help, afraid of making a mistake.
"Wait until it calms down before going up to it and letting it handle you! Don't give it any feedback that might be misunderstood until it corrects its howling habit!"
"Oh!"
After another ten minutes or so, the little guy finally stopped barking when it saw that the zookeeper was not feeding it anymore.
Seeing that the condition was about right, Yue Feng said, "Put the eagle on the perch, mark it, and send it back to the eagle house! Now move on to the next one!"
Xiao Dong did as instructed, taking the eagle back to its cage, and soon took out the second one.
Having completed the entire process the first time, I gradually became familiar with the subsequent procedures.
There are only so many things to note, and it's not complicated to operate. The only problem is that it's already afternoon, and there's limited time before dark, so we won't be able to feed the remaining eagles today.
Even if they couldn't finish feeding them, it wasn't a big problem for Yue Feng. He had already taken the opportunity to observe and handle them. These fledglings were well taken care of by Xiao Dong and Ming Kai, and they were plump and strong, each one like a meaty egg.
And so, Yue Feng stayed at the club's residence until it was almost dark before turning back with Jin Long and the others.
Yue Feng's on-site teaching trip was very rewarding for Mingkai and Xiaodong, two beginners in raptor breeding. Even Li Fulin and Grandpa Liu learned a lot of details they had previously overlooked.
In the evening, Jinlong found a restaurant, and the six of them had dinner together. They didn't disperse until after nine o'clock.
After the event ended, Yue Feng and Li Fulin returned home.
Both of them had some alcohol, but neither of them got drunk. As soon as Old Li came in, he started making tea.
"Xiaofeng, who did you learn all this knowledge about taking care of fledglings from during the day?"
Having held it in all day, Li Fulin finally asked out of curiosity now that he wasn't in front of outsiders.
Yue Feng grinned: "I figured it all out little by little! My first brood of gyrfalcon chicks also cried out for food like this! Back then, they not only cried out for food, but they also tried to catch people!"
Xiao Dong and Ming Kai have done enough! At least these fledglings haven't shown any aggressive tendencies to grab people!
"A fledgling eagle can catch people? What's going on here? I didn't hear you mention this during the day?" Li Fulin continued to ask.
"A fledgling eagle raised by humans from a young age, like a single eagle, will consider itself to be of the same kind as its master! If there is a conflict of interest, it will trigger an attack!"
What's the benefit for a fledgling eagle? Food, of course!
Even among eagles from the same nest, there's no brotherly affection; the strongest eats first! (End of Chapter)