Young Birds

[Paul Tavares]

Hi everyone,

The young bird races are only a few days away, I have heard that losses are a lot higher than other years, one of the things that might be causing people to loose so many young pigeons could be this hot weather that we haven`t had in a few years, I also been hearing that a lot of people are jumping the birds to far to soon that also could be causing some of the losses that people are experiencing, anyways good luck with your training and your Young Bird Season.


Paul Tavares;

[David Ottaway]

Hi Paul,

I believe you are on to something re jumping the birds.I am one that gives a lot of short tosses ,like 10 tosses at .5 to 5 kms to start ,then 10 more to get to 25 kms.After that i can move them out to 40 -50- kms with no prob or losses. I to used to have probes by starting too late and pushing too hard to catch up.The other thing is perfect health.Many guys try to train sick birds .That does not work either.Having patience is the key and to start early.I train with my obs if i fly 2 seasons.Not necessarily to teach the ybs ,but i just start training ybs early to give them confidence for when the longer tosses come along.I drop the off and carry on up the road with the obs.Training with the obs teaches them nothing for the most part .They need to learn by themselves i believe.

[Paul Tavares]

Hi Dave,

I agree that a lot of guys try to play catch up and thats when they get into trouble, like you say patience is the key when it comes to training young birds, but thats easier said than done with most people. I have no problem training my young birds up to 40 km and sending them straight to 180 km race or 280 km race or further , the key to me is multiple tosses at 25 to 40km, some people think that they have to train them to 100 or 150 km before the first race, I don`t believe in that.
I don`t believe in training young birds with old birds, if your young birds are ranging for an hour or more around the loft chances are they already know what they are doing and you should not loose many when you start road training them. I make sure my young birds are ranging good before I start their road training, by then I`ve lost most of the dummies around the loft, and I start at 12 km ( 99.5% of the time I don`t lose a pigeon ) and stay there for about 3-5 tosses, then I jump them to 26 km and I stay there for about 5-7 tosses, etc, etc....................


Paul Tavares;

[stanley]

Hello Paul,

Stanley here. I am responding to you message under Young Birds. I just wanted to know how early (at what age) I should be taking young pigeons out for training. I lost one recently. He only flew around the coup a couple of times but had been outside several times and knew how to come in etc. and was very tame. It was now 4 months old and so I took it out for the first time approx. 1km away to a park nearby. I let him loose with a gentle toss and instead of flying away like I thought he would, he just flew right back to me, landing on my shoulder. I made the decision that if I am to train him to fly home I should toss him again and I did so only to have him fly up into a tree. He looked at me as if to say "why are you leaving me here" and just stayed there. I made the decision to drive home with the hope that he would be home soon, barely 5 minutes away. I waited for him and also kept calling, that he might hear my voice but he never returned. I went back to the park where I left him and he was not there. It has been over a week now and he has never returned. Do you have any suggestions for me as to what I may have done wrong. Most of my young birds have not really flown around the coup yet after some four months ( and I do let them out early so that they become familiar with the area ) but they just want to stay on the coup, flying to and from my house. They are good in that they stay on my property but they don't seem to be going for the sky much. Hope you can be of some help and nice talking to you. Hope to hear back....thanks, Stan

[Paul Tavares]

Hi Stanley,

I am not an expert on pigeon racing/keeping but I will give you a brief description of what I do with my young birds and hopefully you might be able to use some of this information with your young birds, good luck.

I have 2 sections for young birds, one section is for the 1st round and the other is for the 2nd & 3rd rounds. I loft fly them separate until the pigeons in both sections are loft flying for almost the same amount of time ( about 30-45 minutes ) and then I release both sections at the same time.

I usually wait until my young birds are about 2 months old before I let them out for the first time, but I would not recommend that to a new fancier entering the sport as it is nerve wrecking to watch because the birds are usually all over the place for the 1st couple of days and most of the time I lose 1-2 pigeons or more as they are too strong on the wing, to be on the safe side it is best to start letting them out at 25-30 days old.

After they been out for a couple of weeks I start showing them that they have wings and that they can use them to fly , I use a swimming pool net to remove them from the landing board (slowly as to not scared them that they don`t want to come back to loft again) several times until they start to fly for 20 minutes or more, then when I am ready to have them ranging I watch them closely for about 10-14 days, and I remove any pigeons from the team that are injured or are coming back to the loft too earlier when they should still be flying, because those pigeons keep bringing the other pigeons down and in my opinion they never become good pigeons anyways, so I just remove them from the team.
Many people say that their pigeons don`t range because they are on the dark or that they let them out too late in the afternoon ,etc, etc, what I have learned about getting pigeons to range is that they have to be around the same age and you have to remove the injured pigeons and the trouble makers from the team ( the ones that come down when they should still be flying) to get your pigeons to range, but thats easier said then done with most people as most people are not willing to remove pigeons from the team because of who the parents are or how much money they paid for them, etc, etc.
I have seen people ship pigeons that were smashed up so bad that I would not even have that bird in my loft, and their answer was that, oh this pigeon is from so and so , or it`s only a broken leg, etc, etc, I never see an injured athlete win a major competition, unless it is a competition for special athletes.

I start training my young birds most of the time 2-3 weeks before their races start because I am concentrating more on the old bird and their races, but you can start training your young birds at anytime that you feel comfortable that they are ready to start their road training.

There are many differente ways of doing things, all you have to do is find a way that works for you, a very important thing that you have to watch is their health, you can have the best pigeons in the world, but if they are not healty you will never accomplish much in the races, and a very important rule about young birds is that you should always keep your young birds a little hungry, like that it is easier for you to control them as they will listen to you much better.


Paul Tavares;

[stanley]

Paul,
Thank you very much for your reply. I found it very informative

regards, Stanley

[Paul Tavares]

You are welcome Stanley,

I don`t know if are new to the pigeon hobby/sport, but 2 people in the pigeon sport/hobby that I love to read their articles are Bert Braspenning and Ad Schaerlaeckens, their common sense and methods towards the sport/hobby of pigeon racing are much simpler and cheaper than most of the big name fanciers out there, so they might be able to safe you time and money when it comes to the basics of the sport/hobby.


Paul Tavares;