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Last night was COLD! It got down to 22 degrees with a wind-chill of 14. In the spirit of bringing Musket’s weight down, I did not feed her and let her spend the night in the cold. When I came out to check on her and the rabbits this morning, she was not on her perch. Worried, I hurried over to the mew and found her perching on the ground… hmm… not a good sign.
I grabbed my falconry glove and went into the cage to collect Musket. She was fluffed up and freezing. Her eyelashes had droplets of frozen water on them. Eesh! I weighed her and she had lost 30g in a day an a half, that’s quite a lot! Well, I thought she’d had enough of the cold so I brought her to work with me to keep her warm.
Generally at work she just sits and keeps to herself, but I think this cold weather and no food has put her close to yarak. Yarak is a falconry term that describes a bird that is in a condition that it is most keen to hunt. The whole world then revolves around how to get a meal… NOW! It’s probably natures way of making the hawk aggressive enough to catch it’s next meal when it’s gone for a few days without food, the second wind. Musket was sitting calmly in her box this morning with the heater on her to get her warmed up. I guess she got warm enough because she waited until I stepped out of the office for 1 minute to hop out of the box and search for food. I came back from bringing out the garbage to find her reaching at the end of her leash for the tidbits I brought in a bag. Without thinking, I reached down and snatched them. I probably shouldn’t have done that because she was not happy about it. I tried to pick her up and she footed my glove… hmm. I hid the tidbits best I could and got a couple on my glove, then tried again. This time she came willingly. I put her back in the box and turned around to put the tidbits away, and she came walking out of the box again. Sigh. I went through the same procedure, but she was getting pretty upset with me by this point. When I put her in the box the second time and she footed my glove hard a few times. Double sigh. I’ve been trying to disassociate her aggression from my glove, but until we can get out and slaughter some things, I think she’ll still be fist-bound. So I thought, I bet she’s upset because this glove has taken food from her, so I let her have a couple of pea-sized tidbits. The first she took nicely, the second she leapt from her perch in her box and footed the glove with both feet. Triple sigh…just making it worse. So, I took her out and let her just sit on the glove for 20 minutes, eventually she calmed down and stopped footing the glove.
Just to be clear, the aggression is something I definitely want… it will make her a better hunter. I just need to direct that aggression away from my glove to the lure or the prey. I’m sure that in this situation today she was looking for any source of food and the glove was the only thing she could find. Not that big of a deal, I guess, but it feels discouraging.
As far as getting more food, I’m going to stick to my guns and not feed her anything more than the washed beef tidbits I’ve prepared for her. She’ll stay inside tonight though. Careful what you wish for.
I grabbed my falconry glove and went into the cage to collect Musket. She was fluffed up and freezing. Her eyelashes had droplets of frozen water on them. Eesh! I weighed her and she had lost 30g in a day an a half, that’s quite a lot! Well, I thought she’d had enough of the cold so I brought her to work with me to keep her warm.
Generally at work she just sits and keeps to herself, but I think this cold weather and no food has put her close to yarak. Yarak is a falconry term that describes a bird that is in a condition that it is most keen to hunt. The whole world then revolves around how to get a meal… NOW! It’s probably natures way of making the hawk aggressive enough to catch it’s next meal when it’s gone for a few days without food, the second wind. Musket was sitting calmly in her box this morning with the heater on her to get her warmed up. I guess she got warm enough because she waited until I stepped out of the office for 1 minute to hop out of the box and search for food. I came back from bringing out the garbage to find her reaching at the end of her leash for the tidbits I brought in a bag. Without thinking, I reached down and snatched them. I probably shouldn’t have done that because she was not happy about it. I tried to pick her up and she footed my glove… hmm. I hid the tidbits best I could and got a couple on my glove, then tried again. This time she came willingly. I put her back in the box and turned around to put the tidbits away, and she came walking out of the box again. Sigh. I went through the same procedure, but she was getting pretty upset with me by this point. When I put her in the box the second time and she footed my glove hard a few times. Double sigh. I’ve been trying to disassociate her aggression from my glove, but until we can get out and slaughter some things, I think she’ll still be fist-bound. So I thought, I bet she’s upset because this glove has taken food from her, so I let her have a couple of pea-sized tidbits. The first she took nicely, the second she leapt from her perch in her box and footed the glove with both feet. Triple sigh…just making it worse. So, I took her out and let her just sit on the glove for 20 minutes, eventually she calmed down and stopped footing the glove.
Just to be clear, the aggression is something I definitely want… it will make her a better hunter. I just need to direct that aggression away from my glove to the lure or the prey. I’m sure that in this situation today she was looking for any source of food and the glove was the only thing she could find. Not that big of a deal, I guess, but it feels discouraging.
As far as getting more food, I’m going to stick to my guns and not feed her anything more than the washed beef tidbits I’ve prepared for her. She’ll stay inside tonight though. Careful what you wish for.
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