Why do captive raptor diets need nutritional supplementation?
For various reasons raptors in captivity can only obtain a fraction of many of the essential nutrients, they ideally require from an un-supplemented diet when compared with wild free-living raptors obtaining natural diets. These essential nutrients are needed so that they can be metabolised by the raptor's body to produce energy, and build and sustain tissue for growth and maintenance.

Many captive raptor diets are significantly different from the diets their wild, free-living counterparts obtain... day-old chicks, quail, and other domestically reared food items are not the same nutritionally, as the food items the wild raptor obtains in its natural environment, and for which, incidentally, the raptor has naturally evolved to hunt, kill and eat. "We are what we eat" is an adage that applies as much to captive raptors as it does to humans and all other animals. Raptors did not evolve to feed upon the "humanised" bland foods they are expected to survive upon in captivity... for instance; wild peregrines can overhaul, catch, kill, and eat wild pigeons and other fast-flying birds because they eat wild pigeons. A falconry peregrine fed upon a typical low-energy, nutrient deficient, captive raptor diet of day-old chicks or domestic quail cannot fly fast enough for long enough to catch wild pigeons and other fast-flying birds with anything like the same success rate as the wild peregrine feeding daily upon the high energy, nutrient rich wild pigeons.

Domestically produced food items normally fed to captive raptors are usually deficient in many essential raptor nutrients, borderline in some, and may have excesses in others. They are only as good as a raptor food, as the food that they, in turn, have been fed upon, and the manner in which they have been reared... and in most cases, this is beyond the control of the captive raptor keeper.

In the case of commercially produced raptor food items such as day old chicks, domestic quail, etc., they have generally been produced in the most cost effective way. Which usually means careful regulation and control of dietary nutrient intake and consequently there is unlikely to be any carry through of significance of any excess of many of the expensive, essential nutrients to the captive raptor at the end of the food chain. Commercially produced foods that are commonly fed to captive raptors have just been fed enough of the various limiting nutrients to produce the bland, anaemic-looking, food items typical of this class of captive raptor food. Producing a more nutrient-rich end product is not commercially viable for producers of these types of food animals... not only is the adding of extra nutrients to the diets used to rear these food animals an additional, normally non-recoverable expense. The rearing periods for these types of food animals also need to be extended to allow the food animals time to assimilate and store the extra nutrients within their bodies, therefore decreasing food animal turnover for a given rearing/housing capacity... and increasing production expenses still further.

Even captive raptors fed upon wild-sourced foods identical to their wild counterparts' diets such as wild pigeon and game birds cannot obtain many essential nutrients in the correct quantities and relative proportions that their bodies require for efficient function. Because of a captive raptor's lesser energy requirements (when compared to their wild counterparts), they simply do not eat enough to get the same throughput of essential nutrients that the wild raptor has access to at every meal.

Return to the Raptor Nutrition FAQ's index.