Ensuring the school and birds are kept to the highest standards is a big part of the job, so today was mostly about cleaning and maintenance.

Despite there being a lot to get done, Tom and I managed to sneak out for an hour this afternoon with two of our hunting hawks (Caine and Cobalt) and a ferret. It seems like a lifetime since Cobalt and I were sharing so much time together as I took him through his training. He is now an integral part of the hunting team, doing a great job entertaining guests and chasing the local wildlife.

Cobalt has had a few pheasants so far this season, but had yet to bring down a rabbit. Despite a few opportunities, he has been a little hesitant. Well, you would be too - they’re twice the size of him and can fairly shift!

Well, today was to be the little man’s day. Having tried a few warrens, with no joy, we were starting to think the local rabbit population had moved on. Then the ferret bolted a rabbit right in front of the hawks. Both boys were off instantly - Cobalt bound; but was kicked off. You would have put money on the very experienced Caine taking the rabbit within seconds, but this one gave him the run-around, turning very quickly and making for cover. Unluckily for the bunny, Cobalt was back up and moments later bound to the rabbit with no hesitation.

Cobalt on his first rabbit

We were right there to share in the little man’s success. He has a bite to his foot for his trouble, which will be a lesson well learned - he won’t be making that mistake again. Of course, it’s all still a learning curve for young Cobalt, as it is for me.

To see the bird I trained taking his first rabbit was a fantastic moment - he’s growing up. I may have had a lump in my throat, but I don’t think Tom noticed! It’s amazing to think that this first season is coming to an end already - only a month to go for Cobalt. But there are many more rabbits out there and - based on today’s performance - a few more of them will be coming his way before then.

Ross

Today brings us egg no 4 of our Inseminated hybrid eggs and a quick inspection of the natural pairs chambers reveals that we have a few Harris eggs and a couple of Hybrids too.
In the normal scheme of things a parent bird will not start to incubate her eggs until nearing the end of her clutch, so that ultimately there wont be a vast difference in the ages and appetites of her offspring. The female decides before she even starts to lay her eggs how big her clutch will be, a decision based on her environment and more importantly the availability of prey in the area on which she must eventually rear her family.
In avi-culture we are able to manipulate the amount of offspring we produce in a number of different ways, for a number of different reasons. The chosen species may be rare or endangered or simply in high demand on the commercial market.
Egg production is easy, fertility and incubation are not so…
The male bird is often in great danger during the breeding season as his sexual advances may be spurned and as the female is always larger; he might just end up as another meal!! (another reason we do a lot of A.I)
Natural incubation by a good pair of birds is always preferable to artificial as the hatch rate and successes are always higher, but for us this sin’t always an option, although we will endeavour to allow all of our birds to rear their own young after hatching in completed.
There is one method which we employ to increase our hatch rate which we call “weighing down”
The principle is fairly straight forwards, involving the weighing off eggs every 5 days or so.
Over the total incubation period, the average raptor egg must lose between 12 and 15% of its total weight in order that the foetus is of the correct size and strength to hatch successfully. This is achieved naturally by the parents through adding weight to the eggs by bathing more often or even increasing their body temperatures to promote weight loss, fascinating stuff!
We manipulate these figures by running three incubators, one with an average humidity, one with a very wet humidity and finally one filled with silica crystals (very dry).
We plot on a graph an ideal weight loss, and if the egg weight at any time deviates from this path, we manipulate the weigh loss/gain using the other incubators.
This is a more accurate technique than just putting them in a machine and crossing our fingers and we get on average above a 95% success rate.
If I sit here a think real hard I’m sure I can come up with yet more ideas to create yet even more work!