Was wondering if it would be healthy to have a couple ground hogs chopped up in the freezer for a RT. Wouldn't make it a continous diet of course, but was wondering if it would be unhealthy due to them being so fatty. Also, anything else that would be ok to feed once or twice a week? (Raccoons/opossoms)?
ground hog is good food just remeberthat as you said they can be fatty and will have a different effect on weight gain. As for raccoon and opossom I don't know.
I have a theory........I feed my birds every single possible thing that they would take naturally in the wild......yes, incluidng skunks. I think my nose is broken or something because to me skunks do not stink. I actually think they smell like an opened box of Sugar Crisp cereal! LOL However, I do limit white meats to only 2 days a week as birds, especially red-tails, can become enemic quickly if given a lot of white meats in their diet! I'm also a big fan of feeding all my birds pigeons that I raise or get from a friend because they are given a medicated diet which makes them safe so you don't get frounce. A very short list of foods I feed my birds is pigeon, quail, pheasant, mice, rats, rabbits, lean beef steak and liver, groundhogs, squirrels, skunks, badger, porcupine, snakes, lizards, sparrows, starlings and all other song birds.
Everyone laughs when they see my fridge and freezer. They always say the birds eat better than I do or they do. Just like with the parrots, they eat a ton of fresh food like fruits, veggies, pastas, wheat bread, etc. It costs me about $3,200 a month to feed 36 parrots. But, the birds are in our care and need that care since they cannot get it for themselves when they want it!
wow....thats a lot of bird food. Also, would a groundhog head be good for an RT to file down her beak/talons and to give her something to chew on? I don't think they would eat the whole thing would they? more like a chew toy for a dog.
I feed groundhog to my RT during summer moult. I'm always amazed by what they can eat. Yes they will eat the head, typically everything except the skull plate and jaw bones with teeth. They love eyeballs and brains. As an added note, I find it easier to fully skin the chuck in the field while still warm. Their hide is tuffer than squirrel. I leave the hide with most of the fat and entrails behind for the scavengers. Gosh I'm gett'n hungry, better go get a snack. LOL
lol hawk! cool....what else is good to use for hawks to mess with to keep their beaks/talons filed down? When i was younger we would keep raccoon heads when we would coon hunt with dogs; some organization with the state would pay i dont know how much money per head to check for diseases. That kind of worries me to be feeding that to my hawk, are raccoon heads ok to give to them? I read that giving pigeon wings are good for a hawk to rip at with the sinew in the wings.
Post by birdguy888 on Jul 10, 2006 21:33:52 GMT -5
No matter what we feed our bird, from the wild, we always run the risk of our bird getting some type of disease. Fortunately, their stomach acids and the enzimes in the mouth and esophagus do not make a hospitable host to most diseases so our birds do well with whatever they eat. Tirings are good to keep a bird from becomming too bored.
is there a ground hog season or could i just drop one. can you kill one with a pellet rifle. If my mom says yes to falconry I'm going to start up a mouse breeding program and maybe some, but I'm also going to be Harvesting any game i can get my sights on that a hawk can eat.
rats would be better to breed and also you need to be careful about shooting game for the bird because of the lead. I do shoot jacks to feed to the birds but only head shots and cut those affected parts off way below the wound
OK. i was plaining on buying steel pellet of my BB gun. I'm plaining on breeding mice they are essayer to house and i could also feed them to my snakes.
rats are cleaner and if you have any decent sized snakes they can eat the pinkie rats. I found rats to be easier to do and smell less like ammonia all the time. as for the ground hogs with the BB gun you better have a good one to get good killing penetration.
my plan be was to trap a ground hog with a have a heart trap and kill it using the co2 gas method. i have corn snakes i know they can eat pinking rats put to are still kinda small i the one out the three witch is my girl is the only one to ever eat a pinkie rat.
i was also plaining on rats because i would have a limited space for a set up my plain is two aquariums with three mice each.two females one male. i was also plaining on getting two to four smaller tanks for when the mice give birth to ether remove the male or the female. if there to females in the tank and no male will the females kill the other females litter.