Fat and Happy

Goblin is doing much better now. It's taken about 5 days of constant feeding, but he has finally reached a point where is is gaining weight!

It's been a process. I was told that it is almost as hard to put weight back on them when they get low as it is to take weight off of them when they're fat. Well, as usual, the experts were right. I managed to get him to eat fairly easily and I gave him 2-3 feedings per day. Basically, when he'd put over his crop, I'd feed him more. After 3 days of loading him down with food and after his energy level appeared to be improving, I finally weighed him. To my utter shock, he weighed the same if not less than when I pulled him soaking wet out of the mew that horrible day! Wow! At least this time he had energy and he seemed to be more eager about taking food and he was definately taking larger quantities.

Monday he started futzing around with his bells and jesses again, so I knew he was really starting to feel like his old self. When I weighed him, he'd put on a significat load of weight. Yesterday he spent the day in the mew and Hazen stayed home and was able to watch him. I took him in to spend a warm night indoors and when I picked him up this morning, he was noticably heafty. I've gotten him back up to a good weight. For good measure though, I am going to give him a few more gorgings and then start bringing his weight back down.

I feel much better now that I know that he is feeling good. Even at this higher weight and with all the food he can handle, he is still allowing me to handle him with minimal resistance. It is interesting though how closely our relationship ties around food. Even though he does let me handle him, he couldn't care to give me a second glance right now where I could hardly keep him off of me when he was lower.

In the picture, he has on a hood that I made this weekend. I spent a whole day on it, so of course he doesn't like it! Even though it doesn't touch his eyes, I think it's a little on the small side, so I'm going to try again this weekend to make him another one.

I still think that we'll have time to get a few hunts in this season. I hope to free-fly him before we take the trip to Texas. When we get back, I'll have to manage his weight again to get him in the right condition and hope for a few good hunts before the season is over. Whatever happens, we'll knock-em dead next fall.