Reply To: Ambassador Raptor Feeding Schedule?

[Heather Natola]

Hi Stephanie, this is a huge topic that may be bigger than this forum. I know it’s something that I have been struggling with for the birds at my facility. Do you have an IAATE mentor? They can help you come up with a diet that works for your team and your bird. Is it possible for her to do the informal training sessions you mentioned every day? For the animals that are in training, we feed them based on their behavior for the day. Instead of always giving the bird, for example, 100g of food no matter what, we cut that food into pieces and once they learn that they are fed based on their behavior, they mostly are all working for the same diet we were prescribing before we started using it to train. I want to throw the huge caveat on this that you should absolutely work with an expert on this topic, and not just take my word for it as the animal’s welfare is too important.