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Training Your First Kit - Clay Hoyle |
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Take
the young birds from the nest when they are young.
24 to 28 days old. Put
them in a kit box with a solid bottom.
(If your kit box has a wire bottom, put some thin plywood over the
wire. This is temporary and
will be removed after a
few days.) Have a bench or
table that is the same height as the floor of the kit box. If you have an
old hen that is very tame, put her in with the babies.
Get a plastic or glass-measuring cup that you can see through.
This will make measuring easier.
One measuring cup holds 16 tablespoons of food.
If you use anything else to measure, make sure you know how many
level tablespoons full it will hold.
You must measure the food every day, forever.
You have only one way to control the birds and that is food.
I recommend wheat for the initial training.
Do your training at the same time each day.
Do not feed the birds the day you put them in the box and never
leave uneaten food in the box. Dip
each bird’s beak in the water as you are putting him or her in the box. You do not have to worry about them not eating, but you do
have to make sure they know where the water is.
On the next day, put a small handful of wheat in the kit box.
The old hen will be hungry from not eating the day before and she
will start to eat. Some of
the babies may start to eat. Wait
for five minutes and take the food away. Decide
on a noise that you will use to call the birds to eat and make the noise
every time you feed the birds. (This
can be a whistle or a small bell or rocks in a can...etc.)
The next day all will come to eat.
Keep adding food up to a maximum of one tablespoon for each bird
that is actually eating. When
this is gone or after ten minutes, take the food away and watch to make
sure they drink. Any who do
not drink, stick their beak in the water.
Repeat this the next day. They
should all be eating and not afraid of your hand in the box.
Be careful not to feed more than one tablespoon per bird.
The next day, place your table in front of the kit box door.
Open the kit box door and place about a teaspoonful of wheat on the
table. Some of the birds will come out and eat this wheat.
Toss about a teaspoonful inside the kit box.
They will all run back in and eat.
Wait a few minutes and repeat.
Just use a small amount of wheat.
Make them go in and out several times.
They should all be coming out and going in.
Do this again the next day. The
day after this you just open the door and do not give them any food.
Just stand around for about ten minutes and let them go in and out
of the kit box. Some of them
may get on top of the kit box or on the ground.
Do not let them on the ground.
I use a fishing cane to touch them to make them get off the ground.
After a while you give them a little wheat on the table and then
throw some in the kit box. When all are in the kit box you can give them the rest of the
food. You can now start to
increase the food by ten percent each day.
After a couple of days you can move your table away from the door a
foot or so each day and when you open the kit box door they will go to the
table. Wait about ten minutes
before you feed them and some of them will fly a little.
You will know when you have fed them too much the day before
because a couple of them will sit on top of the kit box and look at you
like you are stupid and not come and get in the box.
They must be a little on the hungry side while you are training
them. Do not worry if some
are not flying. Just wait a
while before you feed them and do not feed them until the ones who are
flying have come down. They
will all soon be flying. Clay
Hoyle
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