How often must an adult Peregrine kill to support its young?

Question

How often must an adult Peregrine kill to support its young?

Answer 1

This is a complex question whose answer depends on many factors.

How many young do they have? What sorts of prey are they offering? Are these small birds, like swifts and starlings, or are these larger, more substantial birds like pigeons? Peregrines are typically hunters of other birds, and in many nutritional studies of captive raptors, they tend to gain more weight from eating an equivalent poundage of bird meat than they do mammalian meat- this means that a peregrine would need to kill much more often to support its young if its preferred prey of smaller bird species was not available.

Now, given all this information, and the huge number of variables in this question, I would wager a substantial sum that the answer is actually listed specifically in your reading material somewhere, and this question is merely a test by your teacher to ensure you're paying close attention to the text.