Opinions seem to differ among falconers as to whether day old cockerels are a suitable food source for captive raptors. Having used day old chicks for over thirty years and as we now have a good source for them in the North East I have decided to put my thoughts down so that others can make a more informed decision on whether to use them for their own hawks. Day old cockerels are a bi-product of the egg laying business. The male line of egg layer birds are inefficient to raise for meat. They are sexed at hatching and euthanized using humane methods. Falconers were using day old chicks when I entered the sport in England in the mid 1970's. I began using them at that time and I continue to do so whenever I have been able to get a good source for them. I still use them today. I would like to share my own experience. I use chicks for several reasons but primarily because they provide a good basic diet at most times of the year for most species of raptors. I think it easier if I give some specific examples, so here goes. In the 1980's I flew an exceptional male Harris Hawk named Scruff. He took a wide range of quarry under many varied conditions of terrain and weather. During the hawking season his diet consisted entirely of day old chicks. I do not feed my hawks what they have caught in the field for two reasons. Firstly, I have no way of knowing if it was diseased when the hawk caught it and secondly, as I fly my hawks every day when possible, I find it almost impossible to judge weight control unless the food is either of a uniform size or I have had the chance to weigh it before feeding it to the hawk so I know how much she is getting. My practice when Scruff made a kill was to make in, dispatch the quarry if it wasn't already dead, drop a day old chick just out of his reach and he would leave the kill for a chick. I would pick the kill up, put it in my jacket or bag and step back a little to give him some room so that there was less likelihood he would mantle. Once he finished the chick, he would check under each foot to make sure he hadn't missed anything. Then I'd call him up to the fist for the rest of his food. If we were going for a second or third kill I would transfer him off for a chick body (i.e. minus the head and legs) and call him up for a leg and after settling down we'd carry on hawking. It is very easy by dividing chicks into heads, legs and bodies, to accurately control a hawk's weight. Scruff stayed level at the start of the season on one whole chick and four legs, or in other words, one body, one head and six legs. As winter set in so his food take increased until he was eating three whole chicks a day. It is not at all difficult keeping a hawk within 5 grams of its flying weight on a daily basis just by dividing the food in such a way and working out through practice how much keeps the hawk level. If she needs her weight increased by 5 grams just add a head or two. If she needs to be brought down a bit just reduce the intake by one or two legs. I do not like having a hawk's weight going up and down all the time, it makes for too many variables in the field and can lead to disaster if you are not careful. For six and a half years before I left England to come to the U.S. in 1993, I worked at a falconry school teaching people how to train and fly hawks. We had a team of 10 or so Harris Hawks that went out hawking almost every week of the year. They were fed entirely a diet of day old chicks. Their treatment on a kill was the same as outlined for Scruff. And it's not just Harris Hawks. This past enormous score because my time was very limited this season, but she took 19 squirrels and 1 rabbit. On every kill she was transferred of to a chick and fed up with more chicks on the fist. The only time we killed a double I transferred off for one chick and we flew her again and she took her first fox squirrel (it was also the first one I'd ever seen). I could go on to list Goshawks, my Black Sparrow Hawk, Lanner Falcons, Saker Falcons, Peregrines and many other species that I have flown and treated in this same way, but the point I'm trying to get across is that I have, to my satisfaction, tested day old chicks and found them to be a good diet. My practice now is to feed chicks six day a week with quail on the seventh. I don't worry unduly if the quail gets missed for a week or two and I certainly don't see any side effects. So much for flying hawks. For breeding hawks my program is slightly different. Outside the breeding season, when hawks are not getting ready to lay or feeding young, I feed the same six days of chicks and one day of quail. From January onwards as the birds start to come into breeding condition I increase the amount of quail so the they are fed a diet of about 75% quail and 25% chicks. I find this more important for Peregrines than for other species. I have bred Sakers, Lanners, Red-tails and other species using only day old chicks, but Peregrines do seem to need a higher whole bird diet than the other species which is perhaps not surprising given that they prey almost entirely on birds in the wild whereas most other species will take other prey as well. To show that day old chicks are not the bogeyman many falconers believe them to be perhaps I can relate a story of a pair of Merlins I had while in England. I obtained the Merlins, which were said to be a breeding pair, in exchange for a male Harris Hawk at a time when Harris's were very hard to come by in England. When I collected them from the breeder I asked what sort of diet he fed them expecting him to say quail and/or small birds. He told me he fed them exclusively day old chicks and my reaction was "what, even during the breeding season?" He swore that was all he fed them. I left with the pair thinking I was being lied to and that this was not a breeding_ pair at all and I'd be lucky if they ever did anything. He was adamant however, told me the dates they would probably lay and even gave me the nest box he claimed they used. Following his advice I fed the pair nothing but day old chicks and they hatched two young out of four eggs. The other two were infertile. So, day old chicks are, in my experience a perfectly good diet for birds of prey. For hawks that are being flown they can be used at least 90% of the time. For breeding hawks, many species will breed successfully on the same ratio, but I tend to use 75% whole food in the form of quail and 25% chicks during the run up to the breeding season and while the pairs are raising babies I use 100% quail, at least nowadays. But there is another side to the story that I must mention. Many falconers who frown upon day old chicks do so without any valid reason or proof. They do so not form their own negative experience, but because they have heard something bad or read something bad about chicks. I think this is a shame. For not only are chicks a good diet, there are valid risks with feeding other diets. Many falconers will know, either personally or through word of mouth of hawks which have died having eaten poisoned or diseased prey. We had a female Harris Hawk that caught a mallard and although she only took a few bites before she was traded off, within a week she was dead, poisoned by the worms she contracted from just the few pieces she ate. By using chicks such deaths can be avoided. So be careful when you hear a falconer bemoan day old chicks and ask him for proof. I hope I have offered enough proof here that I for one use chicks and I have found them to be more than adequate.