Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ncar!unmvax!nmtsun!john
From: john@nmtsun.nmt.edu (John Shipman)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: Re: Great Horned Owl
Message-ID: <3336@nmtsun.nmt.edu>
Date: 17 Oct 89 08:46:15 GMT
References: <1812@pbhyg.PacBell.COM>
Reply-To: john@nmtsun.nmt.edu (John Shipman)
Organization: Zoological Data Processing
Lines: 38

Elizabeth A. Dykstra (ead@PacBell.COM) writes:
+---
| ...[of finding a recently deceased Great Horned Owl]...
| ...another Great Horned Owl...will be receiving feather
| grafts...Does anyone know anything about such operations,
| and their rate of success?
+---

The replacement of damaged feathers is called ``imping,''
and has probably been done for hundreds of years.  It is a
standard technique in falconry.  The term ``graft'' is
probably not appropriate; that term, to me, implies some
kind of regrowth.  Imping is strictly a mechanical
operation, and involves only dead tissue.

Here is a reference from ``The Art of Falconry,'' by
Wood and Fyfe, p. 426:

  The operation of ``imping'' (_imponere_), by means
  of which a broken feather is restored to its former
  usefulness, is important.  The shaft of an injured
  quill should never be pulled out....  In imping,
  the injured feather is cut obliquely with a razor
  near its center so as to fit exactly part of a
  previously chosen plume...cut at the same angle.
  A small metal ``imping needle,'' first dipped in
  brine, is now carefully adjusted within the shafts
  of the fragments until a firm union is made of the
  two....

As I understand it, some wrapping and gluing may also be
involved.  A good imp should last until the next regular
molt, and that will replace the whole works.
-- 
John Shipman/Zoological Data Processing/Socorro, New Mexico
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