tail feather damage

[kurt]

Scarlett's tail is in bad shape again. The original tail was ruined by mid December due in part to my handling of her on kills but largely due to the ground cover in the areas I hunt. I just couldn't make in before she had bent feathers no matter how fast I moved.
Lately I've noticed feather damage thats occured while she was in the mews so today I spent some time watching from a distance.
I've covered her perches with the long blade turf and as she turns on the perches her feathers are hanging in the turf.
Tomorrow I'll redo everything with a shorter loft, Hopefully this will solve the problem.
Now I have to find another tail for imping. Kurt

[CATLIN]

Hi Kurt,

My RT is missing one primary and two and a half tail feathers due to his aggression in the field. I had asked my Sponsor if imping was in line - I was told that if the bird is still flying good and catching prey do not worry about looks this late in the season - the molt starts shortly and let nature take care of things.

-Jerry

[morganf]

well yeah, some breakage i would assume would be fine, after all, wild raptors don't get their tails and wings imped you know? they go through breakage i'm sure. good luck!

[alex2]

Wild raptors do not oftenly get a chance to flush rabbits everyday either. A wild bird does not oftenly get a broken feather..

When a feather breaks, it puts more stress on the rest of them making them more likely to break themselves. The more broken feathers.. the less manuverable in flight they are, more energy they have to expell to compensate. Remember that Mother nature isnt very kind to "weaker" flying birds.

When they're protected by us, we have a responsibility to keep that bird flying at tip top shape.