Diet
There are different schools of thought when it comes to feeding falconry birds. Some Europeans feed meat based on its nutritional value to control how hungry the bird is. They feed additional roughage, such as fur, so the bird can digest properly. Most raptors need to have fur and/or feathers in their diet. It cleans out the crop, and is regurgitated in a football shaped pellet called a casting. Some Americans feed their birds whole food such as mouse or quail, reducing the need for supplements and additional roughage. All birds of prey eat a strictly carnivorous diet.
In all cases, a bird's diet is carefully measured to control its weight. Weight determines how hungry the bird is and how lazy it will act. A bird that is overweight will be more likely to fly away or not hunt. A bird that is somewhat underweight will act aggressively, and a bird that is severely underweight will have health problems.
Read more about this topic: Falconry Training And Technique
Famous quotes containing the word diet:
“Literary tradition is full of lies about poverty—the jolly beggar, the poor but happy milkmaid, the wholesome diet of porridge, etc.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Newsmen believe that news is a tacitly acknowledged fourth branch of the federal system. This is why most news about government sounds as if it were federally mandated—serious, bulky and blandly worthwhile, like a high-fiber diet set in type.”
—P.J. (Patrick Jake)
“I learned from my two years’ experience that it would cost incredibly little trouble to obtain one’s necessary food, even in this latitude; that a man may use as simple a diet as the animals, and yet retain health and strength.... Yet men have come to such a pass that they frequently starve, not for want of necessaries, but for want of luxuries.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)