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So what went wrong? The new owner had never kept a barn owl before. Some of his mates had, and told him it was easy. The question of why these mates didn't have their owls anymore never occurred to him. The diet sheet was followed to the letter and the baby matured and grew feathers. Now was the time the new owner had been waiting for. To train his bird to fly free. It wasn't hard to do. Young imprinted owls are very easy to train and are guided by their stomachs. Within a fortnight he was flying the bird competently every day, and his mates were suitably impressed! So what did go wrong? He was given good advice and information sheets by the breeder. However the owner was a complete novice, and backed by his mates 'good advice' he chose to dismiss the information as insignificant. He was doing well and his ego booster was a complete success. Why should he follow other people's guidelines when it was plainly obvious he didn't need to? So why is the bird dead? In order to train and fly a bird successfully you need to have a reason for the bird to return to you. That reason is food. The bird must be hungry enough to fly for a reward- a small piece of meat or chick. Once the bird has sated his hunger he no longer feels the urge to fly. However to check a bird is in the correct condition a 'flying weight' must be established. To do this the bird must be weighed every day. At a correct flying weight, the bird is hungry and willing to fly for the handler. Flying weights differ for each bird which is why it is important to establish just what that weight is for your particular bird. The new owner never weighed his bird. He probably thought it wasn't necessary and too complicated to be bothered with. His owl was flying and he was happy with that. The truth was he was so happy with it and basking in the glory of his mates- because his owl did better than any of theirs had done- that he was flying 4 and 5 times a day instead of just once, and only giving tiny pieces of chick as a reward. But because he wasn't weighing the bird he didn't realise that the energy resources his owl was using during flying sessions was more than energy gained with the daily food intake. Despite flying and feeding well this young owl was slowly starving to death! The thinner and hungrier it became, the more desperate it became to fly to the handler. And the more successful his flying seemed, the more his handler flew him. One afternoon, during a session the bird dropped with exhaustion onto the grass. His admittance sheet at Wild-Life-Line records just 3 letters- DOA - Dead on arrival! |
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