Pigeonbasics.com

Quoted from karl adams

would you say  young bird losses could be put down to the way we  feed them

no,,,as we all feed differently ,,, there is no doubt about it , the modern day yb   definately lacks the constitution of many years ago,, probably due to many things in this modern age , one is, years of mollycoddling and treating for this,  that, and the next thing .the  over use of anti-biotics through the years [the real avian vets will tell you this ] breeding quantity rather than quality is another reason ,,,,, but this is the modern day  age , we cant adjust that, mores the pity  

Quoted from mark

i can never understand why people push ybs so hard.  they are only babies its the future you want them for not one season yb racing.

Yep true , when others send 2/3 weeks on the trot y/b's 400 miles and over, I've scored with 12 week old youngsters from nearly 500 miles... Think it is time to get down to brass roots and reality again.
Natural, contented, and not bred from incestualmatings would be a great few steps forward!
YEP why one says I have to breed a 200 to couter - balance my losses'
What when 20 was a big team f youngsters, and 3/4 year olds were having to make way for them as they wanted their' yearling perches. use to say 'Don't add perches ... make them make their mark and earn it'!
How very true! So let's forget the silly myths  that are 'Lame crutches' for bad managerment. Let's forget about 'Know all' braggngs rights and his tall stories' Rather note him up the corner say nowt!
Birds want home, they come home. Let them make the decision and stick to YOUR managerment system. Yes one loses some, less each year till one has contented birds that like the managerment and the system.

Quoted from Roland

Yep true , when others send 2/3 weeks on the trot y/b's 400 miles and over, I've scored with 12 week old youngsters from nearly 500 miles... Think it is time to get down to brass roots and reality again.
Natural, contented, and not bred from incestualmatings would be a great few steps forward!
YEP why one says I have to breed a 200 to couter - balance my losses'
What when 20 was a big team f youngsters, and 3/4 year olds were having to make way for them as they wanted their' yearling perches. use to say 'Don't add perches ... make them make their mark and earn it'!
How very true! So let's forget the silly myths  that are 'Lame crutches' for bad managerment. Let's forget about 'Know all' braggngs rights and his tall stories' Rather note him up the corner say nowt!
Birds want home, they come home. Let them make the decision and stick to YOUR managerment system. Yes one loses some, less each year till one has contented birds that like the managerment and the system.

agreed

I think we will never know the reason for the losses ,other wise some bright spark would have found it by now ,so get used to it how ever many you breed.ATB les.

the reason i asked this is i reared 2 rounds of young birds 46 in all but with in 6 weeks i lost 35  i was told to feed them 1oz of food  per bird a day which i was doing after loosing so many i changed the way i feed them and put my 3rd round of young birds with them and started to feed them 1 oz of corn per 4 bird  first thing in the morning an hour later all are sent training birds come back 4 hours later all trap well to a bit of light feed in tray 3 hours later they get a main feed as much as they want for 1 hour then freshwater then locked up till next day      and Ive not lost a bird scenes doing so

Quoted from karl adams

the reason i asked this is i reared 2 rounds of young birds 46 in all but with in 6 weeks i lost 35  i was told to feed them 1oz of food  per bird a day which i was doing after loosing so many i changed the way i feed them and put my 3rd round of young birds with them and started to feed them 1 oz of corn per 4 bird  first thing in the morning an hour later all are sent training birds come back 4 hours later all trap well to a bit of light feed in tray 3 hours later they get a main feed as much as they want for 1 hour then freshwater then locked up till next day      and Ive not lost a bird scenes doing so

you changed your system of feed , and it has worked for you , stick with it

come on vic , hurry up and get the post on

Quoted from mickb

So when a stray YB (or any stray) enters your loft what is the first thing it usually does? Have to say that the last sentence is the worse quote i have seen on any pigeon forum.

C'mone Sunshine, get your act together. If a bird can't find water in the wilds at any time . it has no future whatsoever. Are you a member of the RSPB or what? You are listening to a man who has raced pigeons for 55 years, and  when I talk, I don't talk sh**! You Say;_
"Worse quote on any pigeon forum"  Indeed! I, like my birds, have been there and back many , many times. How many have you  won from 500 miles?  

Quoted from Vic

As regarding drinking training, all birds and animals will find water IF it's there, when thirsty. Basket water training is bunkum as far as I am concerned.

Totally agree with this post Vic, I used to dip all ybs that were just weaned, head in water to teach them to drink, morning and night.What a waste of time!!Only the daft ones dont find the drinker and they are the first to go in training.

when stray young birds drop at my loft with my birds from training they just want corn and run through my traps this is happening a lot like today i had 1 go in it was put on the same transporter as mine and only lived a mile and half away the owner says it was a December reared young  bird and has had loads of training

Yes, I went through the same procedure myself. I literally spent a lot of years  (all added up) mollycoddling ybs. Looking at their half closed eyes, depicting thirst. A load of crap! The same goes with basket training as far as I'm concerned. Please! Some of you guys, Don't take Vic as anybodys fool. I only log in, to try help the novices from making  the long journey shorter. Cheers,. Vic.

The bottom line in my opinion,is they have it or they havent,possible reason for losses,too many youngsters being bred,there are now only half the fanciers there were 40 years ago,yet we are breeding twice as many youngsters,point being too much crap being bred,with every egg being hatched,charge £2 each for rings,and overnight your losses will drop alarmingly,draw a line through your young birds at end of season ,you will find that most of your good youngsters are from parents that performed well,and not these so called paper pigeons ,breed less and look after them better.

I would say yes in some instances

1. To heavy a feed ( lots of protein ) will result in ybs going fat thus resulting in lack of condition & out of shape birds which will have a reluctance to fly for long periods of time .

2. To light a feed ( low protein ) is the one i perfer but the birds will fly for longer periods of time but with the feed being low protein the ybs don't put on any weight & have no build up of reserves and if they go missing they don't return

It is a fine balance between the 2 feeding methods what is required something only the fancier can decide !!!!!

Quoted Text

How many have you  won from 500 miles?

I see this quote all the time on this forum , I take it you are nothing in the pigeon game till you win from 500 miles, yet i see" sprint champions" every week in the pigeon press selling birds for   large amounts of cash & nowhere does it say they have won x amount of 500 mile races.Or is this just a way of telling everyone on the forum that you have won from 500 miles?.

This is not directed at the member who used this saying on this thread but more an observation of an increasing trend on this forum , if I can't win the argument just post the 500 mile winner question & hopefully they will go away.

sorry for the move of subject.

My own personal opinion is that there are alot more hazards for birds to over come now than when I started 30 odd years ago  mobile phone signals being only one

Have to agree with J.Bambling  pigeons need the correct amount of fuel to do the job too much then there too slow , not enough then they fail. Racing pigeons all have homing ability it's either poor , good , or excelent. Breeding from proven birds doesnt decrease the amount of loses because they breed just as many duffers . I suppose with the price of buying pigeons now and the high price they demand , most go straight to stock untested because of the high prices they go for. As for pigeons finding food and water in a basket , they dont need training to do this it's natural .

Quoted from Vic

C'mone Sunshine, get your act together. If a bird can't find water in the wilds at any time . it has no future whatsoever. Are you a member of the RSPB or what? You are listening to a man who has raced pigeons for 55 years, and  when I talk, I don't talk sh**! You Say;_
"Worse quote on any pigeon forum"  Indeed! I, like my birds, have been there and back many , many times. How many have you  won from 500 miles?  

Sorry Vic i did not realise i was in the company of a fancier that knew everything!! Lets see, 500 mile races ermm, hold on on i will try to remember. Oh yes, last time i raced in UK in 2003 bergerac only bird on day in Oxford 2nd fed, but only the BBO fed!!!! erm year before i did not send, year before that only 3 birds in race time i had two both next morn, first one was in fed cant remember where............. shall i carry on??? In fact i think in 15 year of racing on my own i think there is only one occasion i never timed in, i even had day birds in the dreaded 97 centenary race, only 3 in the town, and well up in the open! Also years in this sport mean nothing, i know guys 50 years in still could'nt fly a kite and other new starters who win from day one. As the thread is about YB losses, would be more apt to ask how many Ybs i lost every year, well if i ever lost more than 5 if was a bad year, usually would be 2 or 3, in 2002 i lost 1 from 27, all raced and thats a fact!!!

I would say that most birds that die from being lost die of de-hydration. What chance a bird in a crate of between 30 and 40 birds of getting a substantial enough drink to allow it to home properly? A bird would need to drink within an hour of it being released, that means every bird should drink, do you think that really happens? Some of the water systems i have seen on a transporter would be lucky if half the birds got a drink at all. A bird that is de-hydrated on release has less chances, and if it makes a mistake the chances lessen, and if it becomes so flown out that it can hardly fly how is it supposed to find water then?

Back to thread of course feeding is also very important, but then again feeding is always the key!

I would say feeding can be the difference between 1st fed and 5th fed but to say it is responsible for yb losses i am not so sure unless you mean fanciers hammering youngsters down the road every day then feeding them a low protien(gerry plus) type mixture on return and then probably  only at one ounce per bird. youngsters on these systems will never mature to their full capabilities, no chance to build muscle or repair fatigued muscle from races.

Now as a beginner where do i begin.
Ok my first young bird season i had 40 youngsters finished with 5 at the end of the racing season
my second season had 40 youngsters finished with 30 at the end of the racing season
this season ive bred 30 i'm on 25 at the beginning of the racing season.
Most of my losses came BEFORE racing even started .And Most of my losses where second round younsters the last two years(the first year they were all bought or gift birds also on a side note i dont have any of the first seasons bird left at all now i lost the last two from tarbes due to inexperiance on my behalf).Now the only thing i blame is myself the first season my birds where fat and over fed and in poor condition due to inexperience on my behalf.
Last years youngsters where fed all the could eat once a day for half an hour till the first race then put on 1 1/2 hounces of young bird mix(i think it was bamfords) mixed with 50% barley.
Not only did the birds come well i could have taken a few first if i couldve trapped them but thats a different story(maybe to much food on friday).I also moved house and missed two races them broke my birds and raced the last two races and took two fed cards.
Now make from this what you will but i put the majority of young bird losses down to to MUCH feed.
I agree with Vic about the basket training ive not basket trained the this year or last yet the first year i basket trained .Also this year i havnt dipped a single young bird.
And allthough i havnt won a 500 miler yet i did get the only bird on the day from Niort last weekend with a yearling thats 480 mile to me does that count?

I agree with the water bit. Stopped that dipping in the drinker bit a while back. Haven't had any die of thirst on me since - yet   Saw an unusual sight the other day there - a stray came down on the roof in light rain, just a hint of water running down the roof tiles - just enough to make them shiny - the bird was sipping water from the tile egde.

Think you oversimplify water / basket training tho. Not just a matter of 'there's the drinker, I'll away over for a scoop'  - every time a bird moves in the basket it starts a reaction in the rest of the birds in the basket, and that can lead to all sorts of squabbles. The bird might never get near the drinker, and get a sore head & face for its efforts if it tries.

I give them an overnight once a week for 4/5 weeks, mixed sexes, to get them used to this, and to show them that there's food and water there - and eventual liberation so nothing to worry about - learn the score sort of thing.

On marking night you can tell the birds which have been basket ' trained' as they appear to settle down quicker than others,  ennyhoo I think its a good idea to at least get them used to the basket so less stress and use of energy.