Flying weight
Setting a flying range, and understanding GPH, trends and predictions.
Setting a flying range
Open a raptor's profile and tap Set flying weight (or Edit flying weight if one is already set). This is the weight at which your bird is responsive and ready to fly.
FalconryScale suggests a typical range for the bird's species, and, once you have a few weigh-ins logged, a suggested target based on your own recent weights. Under Tolerance (advanced) you can adjust how tight the "ready zone" around that target is. The default is about 2.5% of body weight, or 15 g, whichever is larger.
Once a flying weight is set, your bird's readiness card shows one of:
- Ready to fly, weight is inside the range.
- Above range or Below range, with how far off.
- Needs weight, no weigh-in logged yet today.
- Health alert, when a weight alert has fired, see Weight alerts.
GPH: grams per hour
Every raptor is continuously losing weight between feeds, converting food into heat, mutes and water vapour. GPH (grams per hour) measures that average rate of loss:
AVG GPH = grams lost ÷ hours between weightsFor example, a peregrine tiercel weighed 620 g at 8am and 608 g at 8pm, 12 hours later: 12 g lost over 12 hours is 1.0 g/hr.
Falconers use GPH the other way round too, to work out how much to feed:
Feed amount = AVG GPH × hours until next huntA 600 g flying-weight peregrine losing 2 g/hr, hunted at 7am and fed at 9am (22 hours until the next hunt), needs about 44 g.
GPH varies with food quality, air temperature, and how active the bird has been, so treat it as a guide and watch the trend rather than a single reading.
7-day trend and weight prediction
The 7-day weight trend shows the net change over the past week, useful for spotting a longer drift that a single day's GPH might miss. A drop of more than 5% of body weight in a week is worth a closer look at feeding and activity.
The weight prediction uses the bird's current GPH to project when it will reach flying weight, shown as a dashed line on the weight chart. Confidence is High with 3 or more weigh-ins that day, Medium with 2, and Low with only 1 (based on the historical average GPH instead of today's actual rate). Take 2 to 3 weights through the morning for the most reliable prediction.
Weighing streak
Your weighing streak counts consecutive days with at least one weight logged. Regular weighing builds the dataset that makes GPH and predictions reliable, consistency matters more than any single reading.