I use deer scraps every time I go hunting. The little pieces off a deer carcass that most people throw out make excellent tidbits! I get little plastic cups and freeze 30g of tidbits into them. I try to make enough cups to last me all season and so the only tidbit meat that I have to buy is in the fall before deer season opens again.
Although deer is excellent (in my opinion) for tidbits, you wouldn't want to make an exclusive diet out of it. Variety and whole prey diets will keep your bird healthy. They need to eat guts and hair and feathers and to scrape their beak on the bones. Hopefully most of that they'll catch on their own, but if not you can always buy a feeder rat or quail.
Post by echotadog on Sept 11, 2012 15:34:36 GMT -5
I use Venison for tidbits as well . I keep the hearts for weight mgmt and training , and use the scraps as chigger said for glove garnish and molt staple . Its a very dense protein source and not one I would suggest using while trying to figure out the weight of a hawk . It has a tendency to stick on them more than other natural sources of their diet.
Red Tailed Hawks will eat from the carcasses of dead deer in the wild , pretty regularly when available. They are feeders of opportunity , like most raptors. My hawk Stooped on a dog carcass , repeatedly much to my irritation , in the woods this past season. It was long since gone too but she didn't seem to mind.
As mentioned before, a Varied diet is the most important part . They need the fur, rumen and bone for healthy castings and for the uptake of Macro and Micro nutrients for their optimal health . Any freezer meat , especially cut meats , become dehydrated fairly fast and devoid of balanced useable nutrition . If your hawks diet is free of feather, skin, intestine , fur , etc... you will need to supplement their diet with raptor supplements and chelated vitamins .
It is good to have an end to Journey towards, but it is the journey that matters in the End. - Ernest Hemingway
i know ur soppose to feed ur hawk food it would eat in the wild but do u think u could feed it deer it is low in fat
I use deer meat for my RT, but of course I rotate the meat products on a daily level so they can get a variety. I never use deer meat if the deer has been shot. Minor pieces of lead could spread into areas of the meat that one would not think it to be. In cleaning the deer I make sure that ALL fat is removed as well as any sinyou or other grainy tuff meat. The hawks have a hard time digesting ruff and course meat as well as large portion of hard fat. I pretty much fillet the meat down and then cut it into 2lb bags and then freeze it. another tip, meat that is butchered in hot weather doesn't cure right and will have a smelly odor to it when taken out of the freezer. So, I don't take deer until the outside weather has cooled down into the 30's. Hope this is helpful.
IF your Deer smells coming out of the freezer , its not the warm weather doing it. Many things cause odorous meat , improper handling while butchering is one . A bad shot on the deer ( arrows especially ) that causes them to run frantically for hundreds of yards causes lactic acid build up and FEAR pheromones and enzymes to stock up in the meat. I agree totally on Non lead harvested meat for my hawks. PARAMOUNT actually .
A deer that drops quickly after being shot will not have the burnt aluminum foil taste to the meat if it has good forage for its diet and if its bled out properly during the hanging process. I routinely take deer in the warm southern fall 60-80 degrees and do not find my steaks to come out of the freezer smelly. i usually take the meat scraps off the bone that usually feed coyote on my farm. I do all my own processing from field to freezer and my wife and I only eat red meat thats game meat , leaving little good cuts for my hawk.
One step that can work for smelly meat is to soak it Immediately after butchering , quartered up , in a cooler filled with Spring water and a few palm fulls of Kosher salt. let soak for a few hours , then remove from water and towel dry. Allowing a 4-8 day dry cure in your fridge ( or secondary fridge in the basement to avoid irrational responses from your wife ) will make for the best tasting and textured venison going... Not sure the hawk will care if its been dry aged , but I sure do.
Last Edit: Sept 17, 2012 9:27:04 GMT -5 by echotadog
It is good to have an end to Journey towards, but it is the journey that matters in the End. - Ernest Hemingway
Yes that makes a lot of sense. The deer that had that smell was hit by a motor vehicle and I'm not sure if it laid there for fifteen minutes or not. Thanks for the tip on the meat process I'll try it the next time I get one in the summer months...