Good afternoon Alkonost; Thank you for visiting the channel - its great to hear from other practitioners on these topics. You're right, there's a bit of a messy aspect to leaving the wings on, however if your Feathered-one is enjoying herself with plucking the feathers from the quail-wings, that's all that really matters. Best, Jo

Lovely to hear from you! Most definitely! It's important to weigh your feathered companions everyday and monitor how much food they're getting. How has your feathered companion been? Almost through her molt? :) -Leah

Good afternoon papaleria; I'm so glad the information is useful to you, thank you for watching today. When adding vitamins to your Feathered-one's meals, its important to remember to do so only once in a while. As with human beings, its *is* possible to "overdose" a raptor with vitamins, so as long as you're giving your companion a good, varied diet, they'll be getting most of the vitamins and minerals they require to stay healthy. During the moult, I add vitamin powder once, or _maybe_ twice a week, just to give them a bit of extra support - it takes significant reserves of energy to push down strong, flight-worthy feathers, after all! Best, Jo

Thank you so much for your support, Vwolt! Looking forward to bringing you some awesome episodes, please let us know if you have any requests or suggestions :) -Leah

Good afternoon Vwolt; Thank you so much for your enthusiasm & support - Leah and I genuinely appreciate knowing we're adding to the knowledge and understanding of others. Please share us with your friends and family! Best, Jo

I'm so glad you were able to hopefully find this informative and educational! Do you have a feathered companion yourself? Please let us know if you have any questions or suggestions! :) -Leah

Good afternoon Laura; You're entirely welcome - we hoped this information would be helpful. :0) Best, Jo

Great questions Scarlett! I know Jo will know a little bit more about the biology side of things, but from my understanding it really depends on the quail's living situation. In the wild prey could definitely come across diseases and infections that humans could not be aware of and/or control, and the same can certainly happen in farm environments. I know there are some things that you definitely want to avoid feeding to your feathered companion, like pigeon crops and wild mice/rats. Ultimately at the end of the day, it's really important to know where your food source for your companions is coming from and the nutrition value of that food source. I hope that gives you a little explanation and I'm sure Jo will jump in with her knowledge! :) -Leah

Wow I never knew how interesting falcon food is! Thanks 😊-scarlet 🐺

Good afternoon Scarlet - great to hear from you! To the best of my knowledge, wild quail (like any wild quarry your Feathered-one might catch) are an awesome source of protein. I'm not aware of any specific diseases associated with wild-caught quail, like Frounce (which typically originates in wild pigeons), but it never hurts to be a little cautious. You could always dispose of the heads and necks of wild quail by burying them _deeply_ so your pets or neighbour's pets won't find them, (for example). I'd still trim off the lower legs and wings of quail and compost (or bury) them too, as there' not a lot of meat or nutritional value in them. I'll pass your question along to Dr. Collis, and see if he has any thoughts to add to our reply - thanks again for the thoughtful question, Scarlet! Best, Jo

@@TheFalconLady thanks! Cant wait to hear from the Doc😁 -scarlet 🐺

Yes! Thanks for your input, Ron! Jo definitely cuts off the knees onwards, as well as cut off the "poop shoot" aka butt area, and I know for a fact she does not feed pigeons - what I'm saying is, we totally agree with you!! :) -Leah

Hi there Ron; Yes - pigeon (or "squab" as its sometimes referred-to) is problematic in many ways...they're flying rats in my opinion, carrying diseases, and often feeding off completely unnatural "food" sources (like discarded cigarette butts, or who-knows-what else!). Were one of my Feathered-ones to take one - accidentally or otherwise, I'd be doing my utmost to entice them with something _much_ more attractive, (this is why its *so* important to have fresh, reliable back-up food in your falconry bag when you go out for exercise _or_ hunting workouts...beautiful fresh-and-bloody quail-meat, some slices of grass-fed beef, even hard-organs from a duck or turkey to persuade your companion to give up the pigeon for the "easy" treat on your gauntlet). Its good practice to cut off the feet and cloaca of any bird your offering as food, as well as tossing away the viscera (intestines), so keep up the good work. :0) Best, Jo

In the past that's all we fed both hawks and falcon, cleaned pigeon. Times have changed, but I know some who feed pigeon, With $$$ birds its not worth it.

Hello there Adam, thank you for stopping by. I'd planned on taking a short break from the channel, and time has just sped by. We're thinking about how to start things up again right now, so do stay tuned - and please get the word out about our content to help light a fire under us to start posting again! Best, Jo

Thats good news. I am planning on getting my 1st falcon next fall, so any help from manning to free flight would be great. I have only done red tails.

Hello Jim! Thank you for your comment and watching our episode! That's very interesting to note, but we actually prefer to keep the skin and feathers attached to the body and feed it for a couple of health-related reasons. One, the skin adds vital nutrition to our feathered Companion's meal - the skin is fatty so it helps them build up good muscle and fat tissue themselves during workouts. Two, the quail feathers themselves actually help "clean" out their crop - which promotes healthy digestion, good breath (bad breath is an indication of something going very wrong) and overall increase in of their general health. In the wild, birds of prey would naturally pick off some feathers of their prey, but it would be fair to suggest that they would usually eat most of it so it would be unnatural to _not_ feed them something that they would encounter in the wild. I hope that gives you a little insight, and please give our best wishes to your scale-y companions! Have a wonderful day! :) -Leah

Good evening Jim; Thank you for sharing your experience with preparing quail for your Feathered ones. We don't have any lizards to feed the viscera (intestines) to, however I often feed this and the other "trimmings" (or leftovers cast aside by "Team Feathers") into the larger of the two ponds in my front yard for the young trout living there. Eating the skin and feathers, (or fur from rabbits, squirrels, etc.), is actually good for a raptor owing to the benefit they derive from the light scouring action the fur, or feathers, impart to the lining of the crop. Skin is just protein, after all, so I'm not that picky about the Feathered eating it too. Thanks again for stopping by - I hope the rest of the week treats you well. Best, Jo

We most certainly do! The fish get big and strong :) - Leah

Good morning TheHawkNerd; Well...I've never _considered_ using a baseball bat or dropping a car on a quail, but I suppose you _could_ ...??? 😉😁 Seriously though, I've seen a couple of variations on the way I do it - slicing up along the angle of the rib-cage, for example, which exposes the viscera, and basically halves the quail in a similar fashion to my 'technique'. The main thing is to minimize the risk of perforating the viscera as much as possible, and to cut away bits your Feathered one really won't derive much - if any - benefit from "nutritionally speaking", (like the wings and lower-legs). I hope this offers you another option you'll find useful - keep the great questions coming. Jo

@@TheFalconLady , LOL. thanks!

Hello again atif zeb; This is a great question - thank you for asking. Strictly speaking...feeding chicken is *not* a good idea. The reason for this is connected to the handling practices factory-farmed chicken is exposed to when its being processed. The truth is, meat-processing plants are a breeding ground for some seriously toxic microbial life-forms - this is why its so important to prepare and cook meat properly. Chicken in particular is a vector for salmonella poisoning, this is why its *so* important to thoroughly cook chicken before eating it, and why you must *thoroughly* wash your hands any time you handle chicken at home. There _is_ a bit of an exception, where choosing to feed young chickens (or poulets - these are hens which are around 20 weeks old) is concerned. If you're raising free-range chickens on your property - most importantly, chickens living on a largely "natural" diet (worms, seeds, bugs), which are free to run around in an environment devoid of pesticides and herbicides, and you're *not* injecting them with hormones or antibiotics, and you're employing a *trusted* professional butcher to slaughter them for you, you _could_ - theoretically - feed _some_ of this to a falcon/hawk on an intermittent basis. I personally do *not* encourage feeding chicken to raptors, but you _could_ if you're absolutely certain where it came from, the conditions in which it was raised, and how it was handled during the butchering process. Hopefully this answers your question - have a great week. Jo

I am about to question exactly like that, and highly appreciated your answer is the best of all time.

It's a family run farm in the Coquitlam area of British Columbia, I will ask Jo if she can provide the exact farm details if you like :) -leah

Good afternoon David; Our provider is Fir Crest farms, located in Aldergrove, BC. Its a CFIA inspected facility, which gives one _considerable_ peace of mind. Coincidentally, we actually did a "quail run" yesterday as I was down to my last couple of bags in the freezer! :0) The folks at Fir Crest used to raise quail for the high-end restaurant industry in the Greater Vancouver area a couple of decades ago, (they still provide a select number of restaurants today), in addition to raising harness-racing horses. The quail side of their business contracted during the financial crisis of 2008, but they kept it ticking over for the raptor-breeders and some of the raptor-stewards both on the Mainland and on Vancouver Island as there remained a need for a readily available vendor of this great food-source. Hope this answers your question - have a great Thursday! Best, Jo

Hello, thank you very much for your question and request for advice. Everyone is different, and I can only provide my personal experience related to this. Like yourself, I am pretty squeamish, I don't like cooking with raw meat, I hate the sight of blood - basically the whole 9 yards. However, I look at preparing a meal for the feathered ones as an honour; I am preparing a meal for someone that I admire, love and care for dearly. Under "our" (I mean generally, not me personally) stewardship, they depend on us to take care of them, provide baths, housing, attention, activities and food for them. I believe firmly that because they are actively giving up or trading their freedom to be with you, then it is your utmost responsibility to provide the very best meal that you can in that situation. That means taking care to attend to the preparation of their food, sourcing it from the most reputable place you can, an understanding the benefits of each of the parts of the meal for your companion. When you educate yourself and give yourself permission to look beyond the individual parts of the meat to understand that this is your companions meal then I hope you will find peace with it as I have. It's very traditional for the falconer to prepare their meal for their companion, so don't be surprised if you receive a lot of push back on approaching others for help on preparing meals. Whether not tradition is the way to go is always up for debate, however I'm of the form believer that it never hurts to try something once. I hope this helps! Please don't hesitate to reach out if you have more questions! :) -Leah

The Falcon Lady thanks so much! I kind figured you’d give me that advice, as I try to tell myself that, but hearing it from you helps a lot, so thank you! ((And yeah, I see where you’re coming from, I’m big on tradition myself-but yes, I too don’t mind a little new every now and again so I’ll see if or when I fully get into falconry to see what I do. But for now, thanks so much!!))