Beef heart for training tidbits, whole carcass natural diet the rest of the time. That being said, I know a lot of folks use quail but in reality redtails don't eat many quail in the wild. Rats are good food but a pain in the arse when you try to cut them up into smaller pieces. and during hunting season your bird will seldom need a whole rat for a meal. (not the large ones anyway) I use the large, adult mice form Rodent Pro. They average 30 g's and are easy to manage. This year for when I'm out hunting I am going to try the smaller mice. I forget which ones I have but they are 10 grams each. Last year I used the 30 g mice to recall the bird at times during the hunt so sometimes she would end up getting too much food. Occasionally I would pull just the head off one and she would come to that, but again that gets messy.
so when i start thinking about buying food for my hawk. i should look into 6 week old quail? sounds good to me . what ever pleases and makes the bird comfortable i'll get it. thanks