best young bird system

[Guest]

Hi, i have raced both natural and darkness y/b,s and am convinced the natural's if flown on the same system as the darky's are equal except for the last few race's when the natural's are moulting .

 

YB 'specialist' in our club flies natural early bred (January) ... absolutely tanks the darkness flyers too, in club & fed. 50 mile toss, 4.45am, 3 days a week. Birds handle like yearlings.

[hooky]

all birds here are flown celebate

[Mike Lycett]

Bruno

 

If they are bred at that time he effectively IS on the darkness though.  There's precious few hours of sunlight.  Also, granted the more work you give a baby the more you'll delay his moult.   Maybe the other dakness fliers haven't got the system spot on?  Maybe he's the best operator with YBs anyway?   I know we'll give anybody a race with YBs on the dark.

 

William - We've raced natural pigeons v darkness pigeons in the same year - same way bred, same management, training, feed, supplements etc.  Get to beginning of August and the dark just take over compltely - absolutely GUARANTEE it at our lofts

 

Mike

[Guest]

A lad who used to fly in our club flew his on natural (early bred, so they were prob. on a kind of darkness system) and he tried darkness along side his naturals, and the natural light pigeons used to hammer everyone in the club, I have never seen pigeons come and trap like his YBs they would fold their wings back from miles away and just not appear to stop, I often had to go in his loft to make sure they were actually alive and not smahed against the back wall. On a lot of occasions they would be flying so fast no one new he had anything back. He has shown me how to do it, but his YBs were generally worn out by the end of the YB season and didnt fly to well as yearlings.

[CREBAG]

sbelin, sounds like he either had them too hungry or on a nest, ive tried both these and yes  they fly and trap there hearts out but i too found they were never quite as good as yrlings, but well fed fit darkness youngsters will win and win well and still be just as good as yrlings.

[Guest]

Yep, they were kept very hungry and B4 he would take them training he would basket them up and line the baskets up in the section and put the corn down, so they could see it but not get to it, he would also feed them like most feed widowhood cocks, with depurative in the early part of the week and then build them up with widowhood corn for the race. The strange thing was they were always big built and didnt feel although they had been kept hungry, and up until recently he wouldn't tell me why, but thats the only thing I will keep to myself LOL.

[Guest]

Has anyone tried the Power Moult system as described in the Articles section of PigeonBasics by Bob Rowland - under Pulling Flights??

[Chatrace]

I used to cut and pull 9th and 10th flights,but if you have early birds,like Jan they will have dropped them before the season starts. with a light on for 26 to 18 hrs till june the whole wing and body will be done by Aug.

[schouwman71]

young bird racing is a specialist thing now ,not like it use to be,we tend to follow our dutch friends with systems,breeds are getting faster putting up some unbelievable velocities with all the new systems there is,when i started racing i was the youngest member in the club only being 16 at the time and being last every week that was two seasons running,after that i was really fed up but was keen to get there,it takes time to get there but put the work in get a good system and birds and you will get there,you see it in the B.H.W novices topping the fed so its just a matter of trying harder with ur birds.Now if i get 4-5 together i do time them in as no body thought of me when i was young and i still fly against same people.

[jimmy white]

YES, FITNESS, CONDITION, AND KEENESS .AND IN MY EXPERIENCE THE DARKNESS SYSTEM IS BEST FOR THIS.[ HAVING TRIED BOTH SYSTEMS]

[Guest]

young bird racing is a specialist thing now ,not like it use to be.

 

Agree that YB racing used to be the time when the young fancier / new start was on a level footing with the old hand / experienced flyer.

 

But things are a lot different now. A new start needs to know that there may be a few 'storms' that might need weathering, and not to lose heart. For example, there can be few things worse for a new start than putting time and effort into a team of young birds ... and lose them after a couple of week's racing.  

[Guest slugmonkey]

I pair the 1st round on Feburary 14 I think the darkness system does have its merits but I still think day in and out I will stick to natural we have a flyer who uses darkness and has had some good results he has already warned me that he is out to win it all this year although I have started purchasing frames to put my new diplomas in though   LOL  what I have noticed though is his inconsistency in performances give me a quality bird who loves home, is well fed and healthy and I will be in the top regardless of lights

[slatey]

Hi all

darkness ybs race parted on semi w/hood there,s no better system????????????????

tomo

[jim]

darkness

               can any one advise me how to put the y/birds on darkness it is awkward as i work ileave for work 6-30am do not return till 4 40 pm i am on my own no one to alter the blinds any suggetions please

                                                                     thank you

                                                                  good flying to you all

[ribble]

maybe put them on when you get home,and take them of when its gone dark so they wake up as normal.you could loft train before you leave for work.???????

[Guest marvin]

lightness every time for me suits me for work ect besides they mature quicker gets all the stupidness over with before you start racing

[JAS]

WE USE THE DARKNESS BUT FLY Y\BIRDS  ON THE DOOR SYSTEM ONLY LETTING THEM RUN TOGETHER ON FRIDAY AFTERNOONS.

 

                                    

[jimmy white]

i used to do as jas[ above ] did, but put boards against the wall   , maybe some bricks with a board on top, put some straw in , and let them get on with it, it was easy taken out and replaced the following week

[rockinrick]

i dont race ybs heavy , jus use them as trainners for the yearling stage ,

 

cheers rockinrick

[mO]

jim, darkness and working. do you have an electrical supply to your loft?

If you do, put your blinds up and fit a timer to your y/bird section lights, you can then control to the second how much light/darkness they get each day.

just a thought. mO.

[Guest Paulo]

Here's an article on darkness I have been reading food for thought? Not knocking the system as it seems to work for lots of people and they win well on it its just everything has its down side as well. It certainly seems to work for some of the people in our club.

 

The darkness system has become very fashionable for youngbird racing. It has been widely practiced on the continent for some time, and now it is being used more frequently over here in the UK. The system works to retard the moult by limiting the hours of daylight. Youngbird lofts are given extended periods of darkness from early in the year, up to, at most, June 21st, to limit the amount of daylight entering the loft. Lofts are darkened, for example, up to 9:00 am and after 4:00pm, but the absolute times can vary, usually to suit the fancier. Darkening the loft prevents the natural rays of the sun from stimulating the production of moulting hormone, and the feathers are held.

 

Under normal circumstances, when the exposure to sunlight is not reduced, moulting hormone is released into the blood stream, and the feathers are shed. Darkness management involves the creation of an artificial loft environment. This can be achieved by using a dark curtain, or by housing the youngbirds in a totally enclosed youngbird loft with no windows. It is essential, that additional ventilation is provided, often by the use of electric fans, to prevent the build up of stale air and airborne pathogens. The logic of using the darkness system relies on its ability to produce youngbirds with a full wing. This is thought to be especially useful in the longer youngbird races at the end of the youngbird season.

 

It has also been suggested that youngbirds kept under darkness mature faster, presumably because protein, designated for growing feathers, becomes available for other uses.

 

However, the darkness system is not the magical solution to winning youngbird races as it was first thought. In fact it can have detrimental effects, and when compared to youngbirds prepared properly on the natural light system, it can be disadvantageous in many ways. Sometimes variations on the darkness system are devised to suite individual fliers, but this can cause problems. In their quest to stay ahead by using modern fashionable management techniques, they lose sight of what the darkness system is actually trying to achieve.

 

They think that as long as they go through the motions and put the loft into darkness, that this is all that is needed. This situation arises partly because some fanciers are simply not around to close and open the youngbird loft at the appropriate times.

 

They have to leave for work early, and perhaps return late, so they close up the loft when they leave, and open it up again when they come home in the evening. The loft is left predominantly in darkness for most of the day. This can drastically affect the pigeons.

 

The pigeons, and loft, get little or no sun at all. This creates a good environment for bacteria and fungi to thrive and the pigeon's feathers fail to hold any condition. Also the circadian cycles that regulate the pigeon's metabolism and normal behavior, particularly its sleep/wake cycle, gets completely thrown out, and the pigeons simply do not know whether they are coming or going. It is essential that the daylight hours be centered around midday.

 

The point of the darkness system is for the pigeons metabolism and hormonal cycles to be tricked into thinking that it is earlier in the year than it really is, and not just for them to get hopelessly disturbed. One problem with the darkness system, whether it's carried out properly or not, is that it prevents the replacement of feathers that are flawed or damaged.

 

When the youngbird first makes it's way from the cramped nest, which it usually shares with a nest-mate and an attentive mother, it has to master the power of flight. As the youngbird learns to fly, it has to learn to take off and land in confined spaces, it has to learn not to collide with others from the same loft, and it has to negotiate obstacles like wires and trees.

 

During this learning period the young pigeon will make mistakes and the feathers take a bit of a battering, especially those on the wings. In addition, basket training will also take its toll on feather integrity. Nature has allowed for this early battering. It is thought that these early nest feathers are more flexible and not quite as rigid as the ones that replace them. They are thought to be the pigeons equivalent of the milk teeth of a human baby compared to the stronger secondary teeth of the older juvenile.

 

The purpose of the youngbird moult is to replace these damaged weakened feathers so that the birds can fly more efficiently over greater distances throughout the coming months, and in addition, be well insulated against the cold during the winter. Darkness birds do not achieve this state of feather quality in good time, they can carry flawed and damaged feathering right throughout the full racing program. These feathers might not be fully replaced until next spring.

 

 

 

Let's consider the natural or light system.

 

During the systematic shedding of the feathers, you can imagine that the efficiency in flight is dramatically reduced. In nature, you would have thought that this loss of feathering would be detrimental to the survival of the youngbird, but this reduction in flying efficiency is compensated by an increase in metabolism, prompted by the release of hormones, that bring the youngbirds to a peak of fitness. (In old birds this phenomenon can be seen in a sudden increase in form, once for example, a widowhood cock drops his first flight).

 

Darkness pigeons do not get this hormone-stimulated up regulation in metabolism. Furthermore, youngbirds that are kept in a normal loft environment, lose feathers throughout the moult. Now if they are flagged to fly regularly, trained hard, and are fed well, their muscles and cardiovascular system will compensate, and build up, to cope with the increased workload of the less efficient wings. It's a bit like an aero plane with a hole in it's wing the engines have to work harder to maintain height and speed.

 

The benefits from these bodybuilding exercises are reaped when the peak of the moult is over, or when regrowing feathers are up to, or over, three-quarters grown, just before the next flight is dropped. For suddenly you have a pigeon with muscles and heart built to cope with inadequately feathered wings, now working with an almost full wing. Race results can improve dramatically when this condition occurs, and can explain why youngsters can suddenly pull a spectacular race result out of the bag.

 

Another disadvantage with the darkness system is that it denies the pigeons access to a full days exposure to the sun's rays. Sunlight is a great sexual stimulator. So birds that are denied the full days exposure to the sun, can have a reduced sexual drive. This will have a detrimental effect on the racing performance of some of the older youngbirds, in particular those youngbird cocks that are raced on a semi widowhood system, in which they are allowed to mix with the hens prior to sending. Their sexual drive and homing motivation will not have fully reached it's peak.

In addition to all this, when fliers change to the darkness system they frequently just darken their existing loft, with little or no modifications, except for a curtain or shutter. Little regard is paid to the sudden change in airflow, in and out of the loft. Lofts become stuffy, the oxygen levels inside can drop and exhaled carbon dioxide will increase. In addition, the humidity within the loft will go up, and stale air from the droppings will hang around.

 

This damp still air is ideal for the growth of bacteria and fungi and as a consequence airborne pathogens will increase. This environment will compromise the health of the pigeons and they won't perform at their best.

 

Another drawback to limiting the amount of natural sunlight in the loft, is that the it reduces the amount of ultraviolet rays and these are a great antibacterial. The ultraviolet quickly destroys any bacteria that are lying dormant in the loft or carried in the air. Furthermore, lofts that are kept darkened in the morning, miss the early sun, which usually warms and dries out the loft.

 

Pathogens therefore have an ideal environment in which to breed. It is interesting to speculate that the rise in youngbird sickness appears to correlate with a rise in the use of the darkness system for youngbirds. Another function that the sun provides for youngbirds, is to stimulate the production of vitamins, and growth hormone.

 

In a normal youngbird loft you will see youngbirds taking advantage of the suns rays. They will often be seen sitting in the sun with a wing outstretched to catch the most sun they can. Lofts that are darkened during early morning, or during part of the day, miss a large proportion of this important stimulus.

 

Another disadvantage of darkness lofts is that they are often cooler than open lofts, or lofts with glass or clear perspex windows, that have full access to the sun's rays. They especially miss the warming effect of the sun, first thing in the morning. A cool loft causes the youngbirds to have to burn more fuel to maintain a stable body temperature. Form and condition is harder to maintain, because fats and glucose are used up, to maintain body temperature, which depletes the energy reserves.

 

This fuel is needed for those important training sessions, particularly when training distances are increased. Another important function of the sun to youngbirds, is to help them maintain a fix on the location of their home. Youngbirds watch the sun climb from the East and correlate this arc with an internal biological clock. This helps them maintain a fix on their loft location.

 

Experiments have been done comparing youngbird teams that could view the sun from sunrise up to midday with youngbirds kept in the dark for this period. Youngbird losses were much greater with the pigeons held in the darkened environment. Again it is tempting to correlate increasing youngbird losses with an increase in the use of the darkness system.

 

Another aspect of darkness that can be detrimental to the youngbirds is the way darkness lofts are reopened in the afternoon usually so the youngbirds can exercise. Under normal circumstances changes in lighting experienced by the youngbirds is gradual, for example sunrise and sunset occurs slowly. But many darkness fliers come home from work and suddenly pull back the curtain or open up the shutters, before letting the youngbirds out. Can you imagine the effects on the youngbird's eyes. It's like how we feel when we emerge from a darkened cinema, after having seen a film in the afternoon. For a while we are temporarily blinded. Imagine how the youngbirds feel when they experience this every day for three months.

 

Similarly, fanciers often darken the loft up to and around mid June. They then suddenly open up the loft to the full effect of the sun. The birds are suddenly plunged from experiencing only 7-8 hours of daylight during the darkness regime, to over 14 hours, under the now natural conditions. For about one week their bodies think it's still early spring rather than summer. They end up experiencing the human equivalent of jet-lag. Their circadian cycles require time to catch up. It takes at least a week for their circadian rhythms to reset, however darkness fliers continue to train their youngsters during this resettling period. It would be interesting to know whether youngbird losses sustained by darkness fliers become greater at this critical time, or if the stress produced by this sudden change in the loft environment can lead to a susceptibility to disease.

 

One direct way to assess the effectiveness of the darkness system on the racing performance of youngbirds is to look at the results. If darkness was as effective as it has been claimed you would have thought that the first 100 places, in the longer youngbird races, particularly the Combines, would all be taken up by darkness youngsters. This is far from the reality. Pigeons raised under normal lighting conditions still fare extremely well regarding race positions. In fact top Combine positions are more frequently taken by youngbirds raised under normal light. Only time will tell if this ratio will change with the increased use of darkness, but in absolute terms, the use of darkness certainly does not guarantee success.

 

So in summary, the darkness system can have it's drawbacks. Increased youngbird losses and increased prevalence of youngbird disease may be the result of this relatively new system, but this remains to be proven.

 

The unnatural environment of the darkened loft can have immediate detrimental effects on the development and health of the youngbirds, and perhaps more worrying, is the potential long term effects on their performance as yearlings and old birds. Controlled experiments to assess the full effects of the darkness system on youngbird performances, or on these pigeons as yearlings, have not been carried out.

 

Fanciers who claim that their pigeons fly well using the darkness system have no way of telling if these pigeons would have flown better, or indeed been less prone to illness, using the system of natural lighting. There are many examples of youngbirds that win races, even the longer youngbird races, without having to resort to using darkness.

 

 

 

[Guest CS]

Darkness youngsters - mix cocks and hens in the yb lofts.

[WulDon]

darkness yb's seems to be the more successful system for flying youngsters especially when we get further down the country.

 

lets not forget it is only healthy & fit pigeons that will win races regardless of any system flown on, if a fancier can have sixteen of a drop then i take my hat of to such fanciers as it is only sheer dedication that can achieve success like this.

 

it is then upto clubs to place restrictions on positions, my own club award the first ten positions and then any poolers...this seems to keep everybody happy.

 

up here in scotland i can see these type of restrictions actually tightening now that more lofts will be flying to an ets system next year.

 

once again as long as most fanciers are happy with restrictions imposed then that is the way forward.

[Guest]

what is the point on putting restrictions on our hobby/sport people keep and race pigeons to suit themselves if someone can time in 20 or more pigeons in the one race and take all the positions then that is good flying after all thats what its all about aint it ,maybe people should concentrate on what they are doing themselves with their own pigeons and stop moaning about what such and such are doing with theirs   and they themselves would be able to do such great things with their own birds ,and as for ets lat them that want to use this system use it ,it wont make their pigeons any better than what they already have ,i was brought up with the old conventional method of timing in pigeons i am happy with that and will finish using that method and all i ask is when ets takes over dont force the issue on me and take my happyness away .

[Guest]

Drakness YB'S

On Roundabout   For Us

 

We belive you have to find a system that suits you.

Have tried a few differant systems the last few years and found

the above worked better for us.

 

RAY