More training

The Baron is taming down very nicely but he's not moving along in some parts of his training as much as I'd like. He will let you touch him on his legs, feet, belly, chest, and beak. But don't try to touch his wings or back. He won't try to bite very often but he turns circles to avoid being touched and then will just fly off to get away from it if you insist. But normally he's just a fat puffball of a bird and fairly content to sit on his perch and rip at his jesses like mad.

I have taught him to tolerate the hood a little better. I put a piece of food in the hood and he ducks his head in to grab it and eats it. Then I (try to) put the hood on him and he doesn't fight it as much as he did initially; doesn't bite it, just tries to avoid it. If I miss, I put the food in again and give it another go. When I get it on him I don't tighten it up. I just leave it on a couple of seconds, tell him Good and take it off and hand feed him another tidbit. Did that 4-5 times in a row and it went easier and easier each time.

Today I got him used to a couple of new things. From day one I've been feeding him cut up bits of meat. It helps me to know how much nutritious food he eats versus filler (skin, feathers, bone, etc.). I have been trying to get him to eat a starling head for a few days now because I want him to get back to grabbing onto his food with his feet and taking bites of it, just like he was doing before we met. Not that I'm going to feed him that way often, but I want him to keep his natural eating method and not just expect to be hand fed tidbits every time. The other reason is that he's probably just been eating mice and grasshoppers all summer and may not "know" that birds are food. Today he finally latched on to the head and got the hang of it and gave his beak and neck muscles a good workout; one of the other benefits. Letting them work on tougher bits of food helps keep their beak, neck, and back in good shape. It's kind of like giving a dog a bone to occupy them but without over feeding. It's called a tiring.

The other new thing he finally caught on to was eating off the lure. I've been calling him to the glove each feeding and the last couple of days have put the lure on the glove with meat on the glove. Then moving to meat attached to the lure held out on the glove, and finally tonight I put meat on the lure and laid it on the ground just under his perch. He jumped down and ate from the lure, grabbing it in his talons and ripping at the meat just like he did the tiring earlier.

The one thing he's not doing so hot on is coming very far to me. The furthest I've gotten him to fly to me is about 6 feet. And after 3-4 flights he quits. It's kind of frustrating because I'm using feeding time to train him to fly to me and after 4 bites, he still has a ways to go on his meal. But I can't cave in and move closer just so he'll eat or he'll end up training me. I called my sponsor and asked what to do and he said after he eats that little bit he may be full enough to feel fairly independent and to just stop at that point and feed him up or find other things to have him learn while he's eating. Like eating from the lure, getting used to the hood; anything I can reward him for.

Lastly, he finally found his voice. I was hooking him to the perch today and was having a little trouble attaching the clip to the jesses. One of the jesses was free and the other I was trying to clip. He realized the one foot was free and was trying to pull the other away but it was held tight in my fingers. The mismatch kinda threw him off and he was really upset about it and he let us know with a high pitched call. Later in the day Bella (the dog) walked up to sniff at him and she was being very brave to do so because she's terrified of him. The Baron wanted none of it and let her know with his alarm call again.