Home | Community | Message Board
You are not signed in.
Sign In New Account
Forum Index Search Posts Trusted Vendors Highlights Galleries FAQ User List Chat Store Random Growery


This site includes paid links. Please support our sponsors.

Community > The Pub
Threaded Mode Threaded  Previous topic Previous  View all topics Index  Next topic Next 

Welcome to the Shroomery Message Board! You are experiencing a small sample of what the site has to offer. Please login or register to post messages and view our exclusive members-only content. You'll gain access to additional forums, file attachments, board customizations, encrypted private messages, and much more!

Shop: North Spore North Spore Mushroom Grow Kits & Cultivation Supplies   Unfolding Nature Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order   Original Sensible Seeds Feminized Cannabis Seeds

Jump to first unread post Pages: 1
Falconery
    #2786967 -

I am interested in getting my own falcon, but don't really know about them that much. And rightly i decided to ask you guys if you had any knowledge of them, raising them, and training them?

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Falconery [Re: funkymonk]
    #2786975 -

gloves, newspaper and a first-aid kit.


--------------------
Happiness is a warm gun...

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Falconery [Re: funkymonk]
    #2786981 -

wierd, i was just thinking of this the other day. how it would be cool to have a pet falcon or hawk.


--------------------
Real botanists laugh at HPS systems, we do however use high pressure sodium in the parking lot. - artthug

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Falconery [Re: felix]
    #2786983 -

it would be awesome. You can hunt with them if one was so inclined. they come to you when you whistle. ah man i gotta get one

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Falconery [Re: funkymonk]
    #2787020 -

I've always been fascinated by falconry. When I first moved here to the Dominican Republic, I bought a pair of fledglings (male and female) some little kid on the beach was selling for next to nothing. Unfortunately, he had clipped the primaries on the left wing of each, and falcons regrow their primary feathers just once a year. I had to keep the birds for an entire year before I could free them.

My plan was to teach them to hunt and finally become a real falconer. Since they couldn't fly, the plan was pretty much scotched, but they were interesting to have around for a year. They ate lizards, mostly. Catching lizards for them to eat became pretty tedious after a few months, I have to admit. When they moulted and regrew their primaries the following year, I was so sick of scrounging for lizards far and wide (having pretty much depleted the natural population on my own property) that I was relieved to see them learn to fly on their own, and eventually fly off and leave me. One of them (the female) hung around for the free food for a day or two, then bailed and I never saw her again. The male stuck around a week or two longer, and even a few months later he used to drop by now and then to see if he could scrounge a lizard off me (impressing the hell out of my customers in the process) but after six months or so I never saw him again either.

Becoming a falconer is not a casual undertaking. The birds require constant attention -- it's not like just taking your dog out for a walk twice a day. There are several excellent books on the subject, but I'm damned if I can remember the titles of any of the ones I read so many years ago.

The point is, it's not something you can do unless you have a lot of free time, a lot of patience, and dedication to the task. Also, once you have them, you're responsible for them for the rest of their lives. If you change your mind about it a year or so down the road, you are morally responsible for providing for those birds -- your training will have blunted their natural instincts to the point of harming their chances of survival on their own.

Think long and hard about whether or not you really want to involve yourself in it.

If you do want to go with it, I've read that red-tailed hawks make a good first choice for those living in the States for a few reasons:

1) They're fairly common -- not endangered
2) They're robust birds that suffer few health problems
3) They'll eat just about anything
4) They seem to adjust to being released back into the wild (if you do ever decide to bag the whole project) better than other species

There are probably other points to add to this list I've forgotten over the years, but I do remember those ones.

pinky


--------------------

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Falconery [Re: Phred]
    #2787027 -

Wow thanks man, I live in Canada by the way.

That's alot of info, I appreciate it. I dunno if i'd be getting one anytime soon, but sooner or later i'm pretty sure it is something i would want to do. You can hunt with them and everything right? so if they can do that, and always come back to the one spot, can't they be somewhat self sufficient?

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Falconery [Re: funkymonk]
    #2787040 -

I'm positive there are red tailed hawks in Saskatchewan. They're pretty widespread.

The thing about training them to hunt is that the training involves conditioning them to accept food only from you -- they are never allowed to eat directly from the kill. They kill the mouse (or pigeon or hare or whatever), bring it back to you, and you feed them. It's just like giving a dog a milkbone as a reward for doing some trick. And the food you give them is never from the target they just brought back. In other words, you don't slice off an ear or a head or whatever from the retrieved hare and give it to them, you give them a slice of meat from the bag you brought along with you on the hunt.

Because of this, they don't really see the prey as food -- it never occurs to them that they can actually eat what they caught. To them, the critter they just caught and deposited at your feet is "currency" -- they're buying a meal from you. If this continues long enough, then if they ever are released into the wild, they will kill stuff just as they have been doing all along, but once they've killed it, they won't eat it. Instead they'll go looking for someone so they can trade their kill for "real" food.

If they get hungry enough, eventually their natural instinct will resurface and they will start eating their kill, but if it takes too long for this to occur, they are of course in a weakened state and vulnerable to disease and outright starvation.

There is a way to "recondition" them for eventual release into the wild, but it takes a while to accomplish. The procedure is to start "rewarding" them from their kills. In other words, start slicing some bits off the kills they bring and feed it to them directly rather than feeding them from the food bag. Next step would be to give them some bits, then bigger bits, then eventually the whole carcass. The hardest part is persuading them that it's okay for them to eat from the carcass themselves rather than having you "give" them the carcass first -- in other words they have to realize that you are giving them permission to eat from a source other than your own hand.

I'm sure there must be some good books available on the subject from Amazon.com. Might be worth reading a few to see if it's really what you want to involve yourself in. There's no denying it has a certain appeal, but there really is a lot of commitment that goes along with it.

pinky


--------------------

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Falconery [Re: funkymonk]
    #2787077 -

i lost his e-mail, bu tcontact steeve blain or bain, cant remember.

They are a TON of work and money. IMO its a lifestyle, or it is your life, not a pet.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Falconery [Re: Phred]
    #2787188 -

Yeah you realy become their partner/soulmate. If you choose to get one you must know that this bird could live as long as you and if you stop giving it attention and love it will slowly go crazy. It will get depressed, stop eating and so on. I have also wanted to become a falconer its just to much for me to take on right now. Maybe when I am close to retireing I might. But untill then I will just be happy enough to see them fly.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Falconery [Re: kadakuda]
    #2787369 -

kadakuda and SHEIKof SHIITAKE are right.

It's not at all like having a pet, it's a lifestyle -- a partnership. While they are not necessarily a TON of money (presuming you can snarf a fledgling of a common species from a nest) they are for sure a ton of work.

Certainly it's not a task to be undertaken lightly and not one to be undertaken at all by someone living in an urban setting. It's pretty much a necessity that you live in a rural area (and I guess pretty much all of Saskatchewan qualifies if I remember Saskatchewan correctly -- have travelled through it many years ago).

SHEIKofSHEITAKE's comment about waiting till retirement is a valid one, too. When one is young there are all kinds of hobbies that sound fascinating, but it is the nature of youth to be inconstant. What fascinated two years ago pales three years down the road. I know this from personal experience. This is not necessarily a big deal if the hobby happens to be conjuring or breeding tropical fish, but falconry is different. The amount of personal interaction required can make it pretty darn difficult to handle a career and the falcon both, for example. If one is already financially set, different story. But few young people are. Inevitably, the time required to keep the falcon satisfied (or even alive) usurps time required for the things important to youth -- relationships with friends and lovers, job training and career responsibilities, raising a family, providing for the future.

This is not to say it cannot be done by someone young who is also possessed of an unusual amount of patience, time, and money, just that it is a very unusual young person who finds himself in a position where he not only can commit to such a longterm undertaking but also has the emotional makeup to both sincerely wish to (as opposed to doing it on a whim because it sounds like an interesting thing to do) give it a go and the empathy, patience, determination and gentleness to be successful at it.

Most definitely one of the trickier things a human can do. The reason there are so few falconers is not just because the birds are rare or expensive (as I point out, some species are neither) but because of the gigantic investment in time that is required as well as the emotional mindset one must have. It's impossible to over-emphasize these points.

I really do recommend reading a book or two on the subject.

Here is a list of articles geared towards beginning falconers, from American Falconry magazine:

http://www.americanfalconry.com/BeginnersCircle.html

Note some of the titles:

?In Praise of Apprenticeship
?Bill Oakes
?Vol. 4, Summer 1996
?64 - 65

?Falconry is Not...
?Bill Oakes
?Vol. 5, December 1996
?65

?Redtail Hawk or Kestrel
?Bill Oakes
?Vol. 6, March 1997
?67

?Your Hawk's Best Friend Too
?Bill Oakes
?Vol. 11, June 1998
?68 - 69

?The Key to Enlightenment
?Bill Oakes
?Vol. 14, March 1999
?64 - 65

?Thoughts on Losing a Hawk
?Bill Oakes
?Vol. 15, June 1999
?66 - 67

?The Right Stuff
?Bill Oakes
?Vol. 16, September 1999
?74 - 75

?Repetition, Again!
?Bill Oakes
?Vol. 17, December 1999
?72 - 73

?How Do You Measure Up?
?Bill Oakes
?Vol. 18, March 2000
?64 - 65

?Even a Great Sponsor is not Enough
?Bill Oakes
?Vol. 19, June 2000
?66 - 67

?Are You Old Enough?
?Bill Oakes
?Vol. 20, September 2000
?64 - 65

?A Rare and Precious Privilege
?Bill Oakes
?Vol. 21, December 2000
?68 - 69

?Getting Ready for Year Three
?Bill Oakes
?Vol. 23, June 2001
?64 - 65

?Getting Ready for Year Three - Part 2
?Bill Oakes
?Vol. 24, September 2001
?64 - 65

?Can You Handle the Truth?
?Bill Oakes
?Vol. 25, December 2001
?64-65

?Showing the Proper Respect
?Bill Oakes
?Vol. 26, March 2002
?66-67

Do you spot a common theme or two here? "Getting ready for year three?" WTF? Three years of this and we're not there yet?

Unfortunately, not all these articles are online, but here's one that is: http://www.americanfalconry.com/Apprenticeship.html

This was written by a guy who started his apprenticeship young -- he was still in high school. But he was lucky enough to have a good sponsor. Read the article -- it's short but informative.

Here's a longer but fascinating article from an apprentice -- http://www.americanfalconry.com/FirstYear.html

Read it, re-read it, and re-read it again. A lot of the terms and references won't make sense to you. Don't worry about that -- you'll still begin to catch a glimmer of the path ahead of you. Sounds like a hell of a lot, doesn't it? And this is just the first year he's talking about here!

I don't wish to be discouraging by posting these comments and links, but I know I didn't grasp the full nature of this hobby in the beginning either -- that's why I ended up freeing my two when they were finally capable of flight rather than undertaking the task of training them. In my case, it was the right thing to do. In the case of most people, the right thing to do is not to get involved even to that extent. It's a daunting (though undeniably rewarding) lifestyle indeed.

pinky


--------------------

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Falconery [Re: Phred]
    #2787423 -

If you're interested, here's a picture of what my Dominican falcons looked like. They are very small birds -- smaller than a crow. I unfortunately don't have any pictures of my own birds here, and no scanner in any event.

This pic is of an American Kestrel. http://www.americanfalconry.com/appKestrels.html

The Dominican species is called by the locals "Cujaja", but it is for sure a Falco sparverius or maybe a subvariant of the species. Very pretty little birds -- like a miniature version of a Peregrine falcon. They weigh no more than six to eight ounces. They just love lizards!

pinky


--------------------

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Falconery [Re: Phred]
    #2787732 -

yea i don't think I'd actualy be getting one anytime soon, I knew this before I posted. I'm a student, I live in a basement suite and i work.

It's awesome just thinking about having one though, going for walks out into the forest..

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Falconery [Re: funkymonk]
    #2788209 -

agreed, not much compares to watching these majestic birds in the wild. I cannot get enough of them. but i would never keep them myself, ill live bicariously through friends and experts.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Jump to top Pages: 1

Shop: North Spore North Spore Mushroom Grow Kits & Cultivation Supplies   Unfolding Nature Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order   Original Sensible Seeds Feminized Cannabis Seeds

Community > The Pub
Threaded Mode Threaded  Previous topic Previous  View all topics Index  Next topic Next 

Similar ThreadsPosterViewsRepliesLast post
* What type of falcon is this? Maverick 1,768 19 02/08/08 04:13 AM
by Acidic_Sloth
* Anyone been to Dominican Republic? desant 1,592 19 03/02/15 09:29 AM
by desant
* Any Dominican shroomerites? EM455 682 12 11/22/08 05:02 PM
by EM455
* falconing looner2 723 2 10/18/05 10:05 AM
by Cowgold
* Falcons are the most bad ass animals ever.... Patlal 311 4 10/07/15 05:58 PM
by Tantrika
* Why does everyone think that the millenium falcon sucked?
( 1 2 all )		 KillerSpores 2,817 26 05/25/10 01:09 PM
by MisterMuscaria
* Millennium Falcon made entirely of hash oil
( 1 2 all )		 my3rdeye 2,422 24 10/19/14 01:44 PM
by Amphetamine Viper
* I saw a falcon snatch a smaller bird in mid air today FeedingMyDreams 1,331 17 09/21/11 09:17 PM
by Prisoner#1

Extra information
You cannot start new topics / You cannot reply to topics
HTML is disabled / BBCode is enabled
Moderator: Entire Staff
643 topic views. 1 members, 169 guests and 95 web crawlers are browsing this forum.
[ Show Images Only | Sort by Score | Print Topic ]
Search this thread:

Copyright 1997-2026 Mind Media. Some rights reserved.

Generated in 0.031 seconds spending 0.008 seconds on 16 queries.