Post by strixvaria on Jul 29, 2005 22:22:13 GMT -5
The only problem that I've ever had with feeding DOCs to a Kestrel is that after about 13 years of nothing else, a mouse made him awfully sick for about 12 hours. The bird is an education bird, not flown on game, but healthy as a mule.
I recently spoke with a woman who runs a rehab clinic exclusively for Kestrels and Roadrunners. She swears by crickets, mealworms, and waxworms. In my opinion, an insect diet would be more trouble than it would be worth although it probably mimics their natural diet more accurately. Perhaps they would be useful as a supplement. Thoughts?
I believe I read something that research had been put into a kestrels wild diet and I want to say it was in Mullenix's book.....wait.....yes here it is:
"Smith and Murphy (1973) estimate the kestrel's diet in Utah to consist of 38 percent mammals (compared to 26 percent numerically), 57 percent birds (compared to 16 percent numerically), and 2 percent invertebrates (compared to 52 percent numerically). The most important vertebrate prey were starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) and deer mice (Peronmyscus maniculatus), these two species contributing over 60 percent total biomass intake." (Johnsgard, 1990)
The key here is the difference between "numerical" percentages and "biomass" percentages. Out of ten hunts nine may be insects and one may be a mouse but think of the weight difference between the two. Like Mullenix says, ten nickels are still less than a dollar.
Post by strixvaria on Jul 31, 2005 20:52:31 GMT -5
Mullenix's book is wonderful, but this is only one example that he's used for the purpose of making a case for Kestrels as bird hunters. Prey bases vary considerably between populations and seasonally. A.C. Bent's "Life Histories of North American Birds of Prey" is a really neat reference for this type of data. It's old, but still a great resource.
Post by redtailnut on Dec 29, 2005 19:43:31 GMT -5
Studies involving the top food supplier in the UK and one of the top avian vets have confirmed DOC Day old Chicks as a very nutritional food source for raptors supplemented with whole carcass foods IE. rat, Rabbit mouse Etc, as an occasional addition DOC can be the mainstay for all BOP,
DOC complete with the yolk sac compared very favorably with a wide variety of other foods inc prime Quail.
I'll try and find the detail and if I can get permission post it here.
Was that Neil Forbes and Honeybrook? Cause they said that day old chicks are the best for kestrels, and they also did a study on American kestrels which proved that they fared best on a diet ocnsisting of nothing but DOC.
The only problem I've had with day old chicks with yolk sac is the mess on the glove. Kind of like cracking an egg on your glove. Otherwise they're great. Cheap or free for me as I live 3 mi. from large hatchery and they will give away 10 or 12 cockerel chicks. Not much money in them. They feed them for 5 or 6 weeks, then ship them off to make chicken noodle soup. Don't need to worry about what trashy poison the sparrow or starling has been feeding on.
Was that Neil Forbes and Honeybrook? Cause they said that day old chicks are the best for kestrels, and they also did a study on American kestrels which proved that they fared best on a diet ocnsisting of nothing but DOC.
Thats the one I was with Neil beginning of December for a Avian management seminar and he went through the pro's and cons of feeding different foods and maintains properly sourced DOC makes for excellent food.
I've read more than once that a sudden change in diet can cause any raptor to be off for 12 to 48 hours.
My RT is 95+% DOC. I know if my RT goes without rabbit for a couple weeks then gets some as a result of success or as a suppliment to is regular food, his casting will be much slower in coming and his mute will have a little green that will go away in a 1/2 a day.
Only thing I can think of is like us they need to keep the stomach bugs going for what they eat. Perhaps with high DOC (good food!) percentage the 'other' bugs used to digest things other than DOC are lost/reduce. Anyone have any thoughts along those lines?
I feed my kestrel on chicken liver and hearts when she doesn't catch a bird. Can I keep feeding her like this, or should I mix it up with DOCs and maybe Quail?
This is a massive necrothread, but for what it's worth I have some insight on a side-subject discussed in this thread:
Aside from my falconry pursuits, I have been a fairly avid herpetologist for some years raising many reptiles. As such, I can relate to the desire from a falconer's perspective on the ease of feeding insects to a Kestrel as a staple. They are easy to raise, disease free, can be gut-loaded, and you know they aren't poisoned, etc. Someone on this thread asked about raising crickets, and I would highly discourage that, unless you really want to pull your hair out.
Regarding crickets: Crickets can be the most disgusting, foul smelling, annoying insect on the planet to "raise." They do fairly poorly in captivity (fairly poorly in ALL situations, really), and they have some of highest mortality rates out of any feeder insects. You could go to the local pet store and buy 10 crickets and take PRISTINE care of them, and 8 will be dead in the morning. They just "die" with no explanation. As I said, they have a foul odor associated with them, they chirp -- which will likely drive your Kestrel insane if she hears it but can't see it. They live fast and die fast. They are a good "variety" insect, but that's about it.
That being said, there ARE good insects that are easy to breed and feed. The blaptica dubia for example, a roach, is the "go-to" insect used by reptile owners. They are easy to breed, they are clean, have no odor, cannot climb clear glass or plastic...and they reproduce well, like roaches. They have the least amount of indigestible chitin and shell, and the most amount of protein, with the least amount of fat. Best of all, they are THE easiest to gut-load. You can feed them virtually anything healthy, and they will gobble it up. Feed them extremely healthy vitamin rich foods, and they become extremely vitamin rich foods for your target critter.
All that being said, challenge in this particular discussion is that just because something CAN be fed to a raptor, doesn't mean it's the best choice for that raptor's diet. Kestrels are widely known for their wide pallet. But is that because they WANT to eat insects like grasshoppers and crickets (or roaches)? Or is it because they have evolved to NEED to eat these insects, because they need food to stay alive and it is more readily available than twenty mice she is unlikely to see in the field.
I tend to agree with with some of the falconers on this board when they mention a staple of DOC or mice, with the occasional "candy cricket" or invertebrate. At any rate, I would be wary of hunting a kestrel in an urban setting where the use of pesticides and poisons are so commonly used to deal with ants/crickets/spiders/scorpions, etc. But if you're out in an open field. I'd say...game on for invertebrates.
Last Edit: Sept 1, 2014 1:42:24 GMT -5 by MFalconry
There were a few context clues in my paragraphs, but I appreciate your curiosity and I like feeding that, so I will indulge.
Gut-Loading is a practice in which that old saying of, "You are what you eat" becomes true. It means that you are feeding specially selected healthy food to the PREY items that you will be feeding to your PREDATOR target animal so that the PREDATOR target animal receives the benefits from what the PREY animal ate. I will use the example in the case of what many herpetologists do:
Let's say you want your reptile to eat a healthy, high-protein, vitamin rich food without slathering it vitamin powder (which is also sometimes advised to keep our animals in top physical care). You first, select the PREY food. In this case, dubia roaches are perfect. They have high protein, low fat, and low "casting" material (known as ash in the reptile world).
The goal is to feed these roaches extremely healthy foods because, well, they aren't picky. Give them things that have lots of vitamins and minerals -- you can even spray vitamin spray ON their food. Their metabolisms are extremely good at managing a variety of materials.
They eat the healthy food, and they become healthy. Then, you feed them to your reptile (or raptor). Then, viola, you have fed your target the "gut-loaded" insect. On the flip-side of this coin is, if you feed your feeder insects garbage food, then they will be unhealthy and not very nutritious for your target animal. Example: It doesn't take a lot of convincing to get an aquarium full of hungry dubias to eat through a McDonalds Happy Meal, but that doesn't mean I want my raptors or roaches eating the dubias that fed so poorly.
There are also some cool tricks you can do here though that I have observed with *fascinating* results! For example, I have a feeder tank full of dubias that I set aside one day and fed them healthy, but sugary breakfast cereals. Stuff like Special-K and Corn Flakes. I fed one of these "cereal" raised roaches to my bearded dragon for a day. The next day, I fed him another. By the third day, she was *freaking out* with excitement when she saw me approaching with the dubias. I finally made the connection that the roaches who had been feeding on sugary cereal likely tasted sweeter than their healthier counter-parts. I obviously lack the courage to test that theory personally... At any rate, I still maintain a small plastic tub of "cereal and candy" fed roaches, that I feed to my reptiles once a month. It gives them a secret treat. I have never fed this type of "candy" invertebrate to my raptor, though.
This practice can be done with almost any animal considered a "feeder" animal. I know some falconers that breed small brown mice and other small game for their smaller dirt-hawks.
To expand on the topic a bit, there are some questionable morality issues regarding feeders: Despite what people personally believe about using "feeder" animals, they tend to have fairly good lives in humane setups. For example, my dubias are in a very large glass aquarium. They get high-protein water crystals fresh daily, fresh fruits and vegetables, and plenty of housing (in their preferred darkness) in the form of egg-crates. They even have a heater (to encourage breeding). Sure, I select some of them to feed to my reptiles or raptors, but that would have happened in the wild anyway, right? Here, they are cared for and safe -- allowed to live their lives free of pesticides and poisons, and encouraged to breed and eat..and do...whatever it is roaches do in the dark...which from what I have observed is limited to either beating up territorial males and biting their wings, or making eating/sleeping/making babies.
One final note I thought I would mention...
Somewhere in this thread, someone mentioned something about feeding a kestrel a wax worm. I would highly discourage this. Wax worms are not going to be common game for a kestrel in the wild and even in the reptile community we rarely feed these to our reptiles. They are very unhealthy (like 80% fat) and they don't really add any nutrition to the diet. If you want to feed your raptor "fat" just stick to pigeon from time to time.