Flagging

[hooky]

sounds like they may be going to the fields lol

[jacksafc]

Almost certainly fielding slugmonkey, thats where they're bringing the other birds from, theyre bored.

[swilcox]

I flag my cocks for the first 3 weeks so that they understand that flying time is exactly that, flying time. But once they have been 200 miles + they can do what they like and ive found that when the birds put really big performances they dont over fly the week before hence storing more energy. In fact i know when they are spot on as they are all over the roof tops. I had the birds ranging for hours like comandos in the sky but for middle to long distance flying they are burning to much fat!

 

I noticed the following over the years. that smaller widowhood cocks fly and exercise alot harder around the loft than the big sprint cocks.

 

Try seperating your young birds and letting the young cocks out with your widowhoods, they will love it.

 

Stuart

 

[Guest slugmonkey]

I am sure they are fielding as they go down reguraly in the yards here I live in an agricultural area so they have food readily avaible all around

[celtic]

I've been watching this topic with interest as my yb's have only been flying for about twenty minutes or so then coming down again as well.

Yesterday , rightly or wrongly i decided to bite the bullet and took then approx 7 miles for their first training toss...got them all back in one batch after about 15 or 20 minutes no problem, i let them out an hour ago this afternoon and they are still up and bombing about, that toss has hopefully brought them on that little bit and will get them ranging all the more.

[Beanz]

when I first flew widowhood and heard everyone saying their birds did an hour I wondered why mine only did 12-15 mins, couldn't flag them or they would just go on the houses, went to the fed presentation and spoke with top flyer who told me his birds did same as mine but he said when they drop get them in no matter how long they did, this I did and they have flown well in racing ever since, on the flying for a hour statement he said don't beleive everything you are told as most people actually let them out for a hour they did not fly for a hour.

[Pigeondoll]

We have flagged our birds as we do like them to have an hours exercise, but we find it more beneficial on hard races. We tend to get better results than most by doing this. A friend of ours says if his pigeons do more than 20 mins then they are not dedicated to their nest box, so there's no definitive answer.(shrug)

[Guest chrisss]

i  flagged when they first started flying around as they tried to settle on the house roof,but i found that once they got fit they did not need to be flagged or disturbed in any way as fit birds tended to want to fly they loved it!!!