Chapter 143: Hat-off and Food
When Yue Feng came to the yard with the eagle, the big black eagle, as black as ink, faced the sunlight. Only then did everyone have a relatively clear understanding of its handsomeness.

This perfect creature seemed not to be alive. Even the smallest feathers exuded a metallic beauty similar to that of higher life forms.

There is a color called colorful black, and the big black eagle is like that at this moment.

Apart from the fact that its expression could not be seen clearly due to the popfish-eye eagle hat on its head, it looked majestic when standing on a person’s hand, and the aura of a top predator came through its sharp claws and pointed beak.

Xiaowen and Xiaowu circled the big black eagle for several times and didn’t say anything for a long time. Yue Feng looked at the brothers with a smile and asked, “What are you two looking at?”

“This eagle is different from all the eagles in our house! Tsk tsk, I don’t know what abilities it has! I heard from Xiao Tao that you are going to train it to hunt, when are we going to start?” Xiao Wen asked.

Yue Feng casually touched the eagle’s back. Feeling the touch, the big black eagle breathed out reflexively, and its feathers, which had been relaxed, immediately tightened.

Yue Feng didn’t care about the big black eagle’s breathing, he touched the back of its claws with his salty hands and continued, “Isn’t this already a training?

Training a falcon is not the same as training an eagle. It takes time and effort, and you can’t rush it! Let it starve for a few days, and then consider the rest after it has started eating!”

“If this thing is brought to the market, it will cause a sensation! It’s big, looks handsome, and has such long claws!” Xiaowu also expressed his admiration.

“Although training a falcon is tiring, there’s no need to go to a big market! This thing can’t be explained in a few words, so let’s play with it for a few days and let it relax before we do anything else!”

“Just water?”

Yue Feng nodded: “Well, just give it water. This eagle is tougher than I thought. I’ve been home for almost a day and I haven’t beaten a single strip yet!”

“Fuck!”

“Could it be that it’s injured or something? It’s been a whole day, and it hasn’t been beaten one by one, how is it possible! It’s such a big eagle!”

Yue Feng touched the big black eagle’s short and thick tail again: “It’s normal. The harder the eagle’s body is and the more stable its temperament is, the less it will fight! I’ve been giving it water all the time. As long as the eagle’s chest doesn’t dry out, there won’t be any problems!”

The guys were just chatting here when the big black eagle flicked its tail and a large pile of black and white poop fell to the ground with a thud.

There is a clear difference between the poop of falcons and that of eagles. When they are chicks, they poop in jets, but when they become adults, falcons no longer poop in strips, but in dots.

That is to say, it has no ability to spray out, but falls directly under the buttocks.

“Just finished talking, and it pooped! Judging from the color and condition of the feces, the eagle is fine and in good condition!”

Yue Feng casually broke off a small branch from the broom, leaned over and dug out the black eagle’s droppings, then said with satisfaction.

“This isn’t right. The eagles in our house, no matter whether they are big eagles or kites, can spray birds quite far away! How can such a big black eagle poop and hit my heels without any strength at all! Brother, are you sure the eagle is okay?” Xiaowu asked again when he saw this.

“It’s okay. The scientific name of this Saker Falcon is the Gyrfalcon, a raptor of the falcon family. They all poop like this, like a big eagle hitting the bar, a falcon hitting the spot!

Look at the ingredients in this poop! Black, white, and uric acid! Very healthy, and judging from the texture, this eagle is not too dehydrated! Wait a minute, I’ll go get the scale!”

Yue Feng greeted him while holding the eagle, then turned around and went to the warehouse to get the scale.

Yue Feng is quite capable in training eagles, but training falcons requires a higher level of control over the raptor’s state, so Yue Feng would not dare to make such a rough estimate.

If you want to keep falcons and other birds of prey well, daily weighing is essential.

When the eagle just arrived home yesterday, it weighed 4.12 jin. After deducting the weight of the eagle’s coat, the net weight of the big black eagle was about 4.12 jin.

Today, Yue Feng waited for the big black eagle to poop and then weighed the eagle immediately. The total weight of the eagle with the goldfish-eye eagle hat and the whole set of falconry including the two-opening, swivel, and toad five-foot eagle equipment was about four pounds, one ounce, and seven cents.

The weight of the Big Black Hawk’s entire body of equipment is about one tael and five cents.

By this calculation, the big black eagle only drank a small amount of water throughout the whole day, and its overall weight only dropped by a pitiful one penny.

To be more precise, I lost 5g of weight!

Of course, there is a certain error in the accuracy of weighing the eagle with a manual scale, but even with the error, the weight is solid enough.

The stronger the body of an animal, the stronger its ability to withstand various extreme environments. For example, an adult tiger can go without food for seven to ten days at a time because its body’s metabolism and energy conversion efficiency are high enough.

This big black eagle is worthy of being the top falcon presented to the ancient emperors. It does not eat anything for a day and only drinks a little water, but it hardly loses any weight.

“Damn, if it keeps losing weight at this rate, it will be hard for it to walk in the ground in a month! No, I have to think of something. I have to make it wear a hat to light up the night!” After weighing the eagle, Yue Feng couldn’t help shaking his head.

The lamp flower is to train the hawk at night, except that the adult hawk does not wear a hat. While for training falcons, especially for new falcons that have just been netted, it is best to wear a hat.

Although eagles have a fierce temper, their intelligence is limited. After getting used to the presence of humans, even if the lifting process is simple and rough, it will not leave too many obvious stress sequelae.

The same cannot be said for falcons, which are much smarter than eagles. If they are still in the stage of being very afraid of people, forcing them to undergo all kinds of physical contact and other reactions that are required to train a falcon will not only fail to eliminate their wildness, but will easily leave them with stress sequelae.

However, whether training eagles or falcons, the first step is definitely to reduce the weight as much as possible while ensuring the health of the raptor.

Only when the raptors’ physical reserves have been almost exhausted will they feel hungry enough. At this time, the falconer can establish positive conditioned reflexes and obtain positive feedback by providing food.

Having made up his mind, Yue Feng said hello to his father Yue Lei, and the two of them began to prepare to work on the big Black Hawk 24 hours a day, taking turns to work on the big Black Hawk.

The next five days were almost exactly the same as when they had collected the iron-backed red eagle. The only difference was that the big black eagle held in the man’s arm wore a hat from beginning to end.

After 120 hours of continuous lifting, the black eagle’s weight dropped by an average of about one or two pounds every day. The black eagle, which used to weigh about four pounds, successfully dropped its weight to three pounds and five ounces.

After drinking only water and not eating anything for six consecutive days, the big black eagle soon reacted.

Although it couldn’t see anything because of the eagle cap, it was very sensitive to any sound and vibration due to hunger. When it was really hungry, it would lower its head to gnaw the two pieces tied to its legs. The tire wire eagle tripping hook made by Yue Feng himself was made of oil and split buttocks. It was so strong that it could not hurt it at all even with the sharp eagle beak biting back and forth.

Seeing the eagle start to gnaw at the stumbling blocks, Yue Feng knew that the time was almost right, so after dinner that day, he personally prepared the first meal of meat for the eagle.

The meat was cut from the breast of a sand chicken. It contained only pure meat, without any tendons, bones, fat, etc. Yue Feng used a kitchen knife to cut it into small pieces along the texture of the muscle. The bright red muscle had not been soaked in water in advance, and from time to time, faint beads of blood oozed out of the meat slices.

In the first few days, Yue Feng fed the eagle water by wiping its mouth with clean cotton cloth and water. The water would seep into the eagle’s mouth, and the big black eagle would smack its lips and swallow the water. As the eagle continued to feed water for a long time, it no longer resisted and would smack its lips and drink as long as it felt water at the tip of its mouth.

The method of feeding eagles today is similar.

Yue Feng picked up a piece of fresh meat with chopsticks, dipped it in the water, and then rubbed the tip of the eagle’s beak.

The big black eagle smacked its lips habitually and soon tasted blood.

Birds of prey are naturally carnivorous, and are very sensitive to the smell of blood. After being lifted up and tossed around day and night for a week, they were already starving. Suddenly, they noticed the smell of blood, and immediately smacked their lips to try to drink the blood.

However, the blood was just an inducement, how could he continue to let it drink it like this? Yue Feng took advantage of the big black eagle’s smacking beak and directly stuffed the thin slice of meat into the sharp gap of the eagle’s beak.

The big black eagle’s beak sensed the presence of a foreign object, and the tip of its tongue felt the taste of blood, and its first reaction was to bite.

As a result, a quarter of the meat piece was bitten by the big black eagle.

With such a sharp mouth, it can easily bite the tip of a person’s finger, let alone a thin slice of meat, which can be bitten off in one bite.

The eagle smacked its lips, realizing that it had swallowed a piece of meat, so it swallowed it quickly.

When he saw the first bite of meat go down his throat, Yue Feng’s tense nerves finally relaxed.

It is said that all things are difficult at the beginning. Feeding the black eagle with a hat on in the dark is similar in principle to feeding the big eagle, but the difficulty is at least one level higher.

A few days ago, when Big Black Hawk’s weight had not dropped so low, Yue Feng had also tried it, but he only bit off a piece of meat, shook his head and spit it out, without swallowing it at all.

But it doesn’t matter now. As long as you eat the first piece of meat, the rest will be easy.

Yue Feng used the same trick again. He dipped the fresh meat in clean water and transitioned to feeding the meat by feeding water. The big black eagle grabbed the piece of red meat again.

Yue Feng let go and let the big black eagle hold the whole piece of meat in its mouth.

The big black eagle tried to raise its claws and lower its head to help tear the meat, but its two claws were tightly grasped by Yue Feng. In desperation, it could only choose to raise its head repeatedly and swallow the almost complete piece of thin meat.

After eating this piece of meat, Yue Feng had passed the test of feeding the hooded black eagle.

Next, Yue Feng repeated the same trick and fed the falcon piece after piece of red meat soaked in water. Every time he fed the falcon meat, Yue Feng began to whistle consciously.

This whistle will be the signal to call the eagle in the future. From a scientific point of view, by providing food, the whistle is established – a conditioned reflex of food. When the eagle is trained in the future, it will respond to the whistle of the eagle handler.

Yue Feng fed the eagle one or two ounces of chicken breast meat for a meal and then ended it hastily. Now the main focus is to reduce the weight of the eagle. As for the start of feeding, on the one hand, it is to maintain the health of the bird of prey, and on the other hand, it is mainly to make advance preparations for the lower axis.

The training progress of the day was that the black eagle was successful in eating with the hat on. The conditioned reflex of eating to the whistle was initially established. When it ate the last two pieces of meat and heard the whistle, it had gradually learned to move around to try to find meat to eat.

In the next two days, Yue Feng and the old man continued to lift the big black hawk in two shifts, changing people but not the hawk. Because the big black hawk had started eating meat, its weight loss slowed down, but in two days, its weight dropped to about three and a half kilograms.

According to Yue Feng’s experience in training falcons in his previous life, the falcon’s lower body fat can be reduced to about 80% of its full body fat weight at a healthy weight. In other words, for a falcon weighing three kilograms, the weight can be reduced to about two kilograms and four ounces.

If we calculate according to this ratio, the fat of a big black eagle fish after it goes into the net should be over 4 jin, and it should be able to be reduced to about 3.23 jin.

However, Yue Feng did not dare to lose weight so seriously. Instead, he observed the black eagle’s reaction to food and feeding whistle every day.

On the eighth day, the black eagle’s weight dropped to three and a half kilograms. When it heard the feeding whistle and began to shake its head around eagerly, Yue Feng knew that it was about time.

So, the next subject begins.

Take off your hat and start eating!
Yue Feng continued to feed the baby after dinner. There was only an oil lamp lit in the room. In the dim environment, one could only see the surrounding objects vaguely.

Yue Feng prepared the meat for the evening feed in advance, and also prepared a spare rough hat of the same color as the one he was currently wearing.

Yue Feng whistled to call the eagle. Upon hearing the call, the big black eagle immediately looked around for food. Yue Feng leaned over slightly, bit the fixed drawstring behind the big eagle’s head with his mouth, and gently pulled to loosen the contraction part of the eagle’s cap at the back of the head.

The next second, Yue Feng pinched the tassel on the top of the eagle hat and took off the hat for the first time after wearing it for many days.

For a moment, the four looked at each other in wide eyes.

Yue Feng held his hands steady and remained motionless. After the big black eagle briefly adapted to the surrounding light environment, it saw Yue Feng again, and its feathers stuck together again, and it entered a state of stress.

The man and the eagle stared at each other for about five minutes, and the fear in the eagle’s eyes subsided a little.

The person in front of him who had captured him didn’t seem to have any ill intentions to attack him.

Only then did Yue Feng slowly move his left hand, pick up a thin slice of bloody meat with chopsticks, and hand it to Big Black Eagle.

Blow the whistle! Give the signal to eat!
The conditioned reflex of continuously feeding food by wearing a hat and blowing a whistle had already become very strong. When the big black eagle heard the whistle, he immediately relaxed a little and took the piece of meat into his mouth.

According to his eating habits, he still wanted to use his claws to step on the meat and tear it into pieces, but Liangkai was still tightly grasped in Yue Feng’s hand. He wanted to lift his feet, but sorry, he couldn’t lift them.

(End of this chapter)