So for those wanting a more in depth look on falconry/raptor management, this is my logbook for Nel. I used to keep notes on paper, but then I’d have to calculate out g/hr and that got really old. A friend sent me a spreadsheet template he uses, and it calculates out the g/hr burn rate for you, which is really nice. I modified it some to suit my needs. I like to know g/hr burn rate on falcons because it will tell you exactly what their metabolism is doing. If I feel smaller meals, the burn rate drops. Larger meals, it increases. If the bird’s weight gets too low and they start crashing, their burn rate shoots up, and allows you to see it first hand. This is a nice surefire way to know you aren’t bringing a bird too low. I’ve not calculated g/hr on larger hawks. Their metabolism is much slower than a falcon’s. It is important to know how much your bird can eat of X food item though, to be at weight when you want them to be. So knowing g/hr of various food types can be really important. For the large birds I worked more in amounts than grams, so I knew Tyr could eat two mice and lose 10g or eat 3 mice and be at the exact same weight. With the smaller birds (and especially with the variety of food I feed (rabbit, squirrel, dove, pigeon, starling, quail, DOC) it’s important to know their burn rates in g/hr for each food type.