yb racing

[jimmy white]

do pigeon fanciers put too much importance on yb racing?

 

each year b4 yb racing starts ive often posted here we are nearing the" annual slaughter of the young  birds" which for some reason has gotten far worse over the last 20 years ,, year by year, moreso in the last 5 years ,, in scotland , most of the clubs normally have about 7 yb club  races , im often now of the opinion , that young birds trained privately , even up to 50 miles well. are as good as the ones that have raced the whole season ,in fact , sometimes better , having a better moult ,, during the first 4 races the transporters are full and obviously , this takes in revenue,, after these races its very easy to see the drop in birdage, and the now, usual stories ,of horrific losses,,   fanciers  never seem to welcome change or even try change,,,,,,,,could it just not be possible for  more old bird racing [do without yb racing] there are 10 ob races in most scottish clubs inland,, would it, or could, it be feasable to have 2 sets of ob racing , sprint type racing where birds are bred earlier , then moult earlier say 10 races ,up to 250 miles ,,then 10 races of say over 250 miles where bred later would moult later ,, my thoughts would be ,, it would be fairer to the young birds and produce even more revenue for transporters , if you think deeper into this b4 you leap,, could we ever change ? or would we ever change? or go on untill there are no yb,s left as it has been heading in the last few years,, just worth a thought anyway

[Wiley]

Jimmy one conversation i bring up for major losses is that most people train there young birds too late. Nowdays most people breed in December-January, but they dont train till 3 weeks before the first young bird race. Now a pigeon i do not know its ageing but they grow at an unbelieveable rate, if they say a dog is 8 years to a year i believe a pigeon would be double or even triple that. Now those later bred youngster bred in April, these ybs are pushed up in the air, and are forced to go through the paces, so by end of July they can get into the first young bird races at around 12 -14 weeks old, while those bred in decemeber are now 6 months old before they are being trained, when in fact they should have been trained around march time, but because everyone concentrates on there ob racing the early bred young birds are given the backseat, untill the old bird racing comes to a close. just my personal opinion and have personally found that through the years ive kept onto my later rounds then the 1st round, its just like a 40 yr old man with no education, being chucked into school, the saying old dog dnt learn new tricks is a fallicy, but old dogs find it harder to learn new tricks is absolutely TRUE!

[jimmy white]

hope your not calling mean old dog ;D ;D ;D   no i completely agree with you ,, most of these very early breds are in fact , really late late latebreds of the previous year being rung asap in the currant year ,, these birds are in fact just like late breds ,,, and go down ten a penny ,, like you , i beleave a youngsters should be trained in fact from birth,, i,e in first normal flying then ranging then basket trained then tossed at approx10 weeks old,, i think the situation may be slightly different in scotland [as i think you have more races down your way] i think what im trying to say is up her as far as club races inland are concerned in the whole season we have approx [normally] 17 races , whereas this way ive said we would have 20 races plus any specialist races ,,,,thousands of yb,s are thrown away, with each year getting worse,, ,, these will never be on the transporter again , whereas this way the normal club racer would have more birds ,transporters would be more regular birdage wise,, and any club racer would have an extra three races ,,plus his specialist races if he so wished ,,,,,but i agree entirely what you say in these early bred yb,s ,,its like trying to potty train a 40 yearold man [my age ;D] [dont even try and answer the "potty" one  ;D ;D ;D]

[peterpau]

Bloody cheek calling us 40 somethings old dogs. The rest of what you say Wiley is dead right though. Tiz why i don't pair till mid March.

[trevor]

my personal opinion is to have three or four races if the weather is ok .then stop

[OLDYELLOW]

I like my birds to complete the programme all my best birds have always been the ones that have been to every race to the coast

[jimmy white]

I like my birds to complete the programme all my best birds have always been the ones that have been to every race to the coast

 

i had allways been an advocate of this also,, untill i heard of a fancier who didnt race yb,s only trained them up to 50 miles  , the folowing year this fancier " cleaned up" and did do for some years , so in following this up i trained half my yb,s to 100 mile stage [well trained and singled up]] sent the rest on to the yb nat, about 280 miles roughly, i was obviously left with less yb,s after the yb nat,, but the following year found these birds that went to the 100 mile stage and were singled up [when ready off course] flew much better

[OLDYELLOW]

i suppose alot depends on the birds , some familys like work and mature better than others where others are slow developing both mentaly and physicaly , i also have heard of 3 races then stop ectra got do what suits your birds at the end of the day . If i had a family of birds that didnt like yb racing i would try the 3 races then stop , at least they would know whats expected of them for the future

[jimmy white]

i think you could well be right old yellow

[The Game Keeper]

years ago fancier paired up feb or march if you orderd 36 rings you were  amob flier you only bred for quality not quantity no darkness yb  if youngsters missed on sat they generaly turned in on sunday no mod cons concerning weather convoyers had no mobile phones etc .now every thing at finger tips and colosal losses if convoyers did give a hard race they took plenty of stick of work coleagues now  not all but most are just wagon drivers  who want to just get home?

[jimmy white]

years ago fancier paired up feb or march if you orderd 36 rings you were  amob flier you only bred for quality not quantity no darkness yb  if youngsters missed on sat they generaly turned in on sunday no mod cons concerning weather convoyers had no mobile phones etc .now every thing at finger tips and colosal losses if convoyers did give a hard race they took plenty of stick of work coleagues now  not all but most are just wagon drivers  who want to just get home?

 

allthough i agree with most you have said [being of the old school myself ;D] i think its a little unfair to blame convoyers for yb losses , as the race controllers are really the ones in charge , but , again , convoyers are only human,and can make a mistake ,,,,,,,,,

but to the thousands of yb,s lost each year in recent years , i honestly think theres a lot more to it,,  my main concern is now growing to the side of immunity , with all the modern day treatments methods etc, as i have said in previous threads , were now breeding pigeons pf a poor costitution , with little inbred immunity,,,,,,,,,,,,i would wonder ,if by allowing their immunity to grow, along with the pigeon , say to the yearling stage by training [if you preferred] privately, as yb,s ,,,not just simply throwing away many a good prospect pigeons ,by the thousands !! in packed transporters only to find the number has dropped by half after the 4th race or so,, then the out come of this, is blame , then blame causes split ups of clubs , then the members  are few , the old birds are few,,whether we like it or not , and for whatever reason  pigeon racing is going downhill fast ,, is it now we should at least be thinking of some re-vamping of the pigeon game , god allmighty when any national can resort to sending jusy over 100 birds against  sending  7,000 birds some years ago , this to me is ludicrous [and this is not meant to be political, just plain common sense] in my opinion we need to look at these yb losses first,, find out how where why and what , as im sure there could be many reasons,,find some way to re-vamp these yb races to cut down losses , as with less yb,s [after breeding more] we obviosly will have less old birds,where,  if we leave things standing as they are , the very same expansion of losses will continue and in fact carry on getting worse,, maybe need vic on the case but im sure vic would agree its becomming no joke, in fact a farce   

[The Game Keeper]

yes your.e right in what you say ino of people that are privatly training young birds putting them in drop back  races to have a team for following year leaving them onnatural moulting without any stress   our organisation has againe this year had near 100 percent returns quit.e afew fanciers on this  forum across avery wide area who race with the same transport burlingham sports   miane convoyer jack readman could clarrify this ransom 50 afine example  our convoyer his worth his weight in gold

[Tony C]

do pigeon fanciers put too much importance on yb racing?

 

Yes. These days I believe if you strive to become the highest prize winner in your club you’ll not do it on the strength on old bird results alone. Pre the darkness system y/bird results pretty much went around. It became the case that those racing a team of darkness y/birds could become the highest prize winner on their results alone.

Now lets get on the system of racing darkness y/birds, is that to blame for losses? Those that race a team of darkness pigeons are now armed with a team unlike natural y/birds. These darkness pigeons are sexually mature come racing and many exploit this but to what end. Much is said about sending yearling cocks driving or old hens being sent eggy, even some will hold back on yearling w/hood cocks if a tail wind is forecast, how many follow these basic things with a darkness team? Not many I bet. You hear fanciers saying darkness youngsters have a child’s brain in an adult body so to speak, the same could be said about yearlings but the poor y/birds are expected to do it. I don’t think its the case of can these darkness pigeons handle racing I think it more the case of can the fancier handle a team of darkness y/birds!

 

 

 

[Guest Paulo]

Yes. These days I believe if you strive to become the highest prize winner in your club you’ll not do it on the strength on old bird results alone. Pre the darkness system y/bird results pretty much went around. It became the case that those racing a team of darkness y/birds could become the highest prize winner on their results alone.

Now lets get on the system of racing darkness y/birds, is that to blame for losses? Those that race a team of darkness pigeons are now armed with a team unlike natural y/birds. These darkness pigeons are sexually mature come racing and many exploit this but to what end. Much is said about sending yearling cocks driving or old hens being sent eggy, even some will hold back on yearling w/hood cocks if a tail wind is forecast, how many follow these basic things with a darkness team? Not many I bet. You hear fanciers saying darkness youngsters have a child’s brain in an adult body so to speak, the same could be said about yearlings but the poor y/birds are expected to do it. I don’t think its the case of can these darkness pigeons handle racing I think it more the case of can the fancier handle a team of darkness y/birds!

 

 

 

Well said

[Guest]

;)some very interesting points raised here , well worth the novice reading before the new season starts !                         andy

[Ronnie]

The other side of the coin is darkness system can make a bad bird good so its no help in choosing next years yearling's.

[just ask me]

i could be a 100 percent wrong but im back into pigeons after 10 years and it seems to me its the same pll with big loses as it was back then i was very young ok 10 years ago but still it the same pll that lose  3 4 5 young pigeons and its the same pll that have 3 4 5 left in there loft  this of course im working out on average over the last few year since my comeback anyone can have a bad year where young ones get busted by a hawk and lose 10 12 pigeons or more i do belive what wiley says is 100 percent correct too about training but to me its the same pll every year that have this face ??) his is just around my area i noticed this  cant speak of anywhere else

 

one thing where i will say is gone where a bad race and waking up the next morning thinking they will be one on the loft or 2 dont see this as often  

 

just my point of view on this

[peterpau]

Well I've certainly had more than eneough losses witth my young birds, but I think this is mostly because, I asked them to do what my own young birds would have done, in privious years. New stock heavy losses. No probs. Weed 'em out as soon as you can.  

[PIGEON_MAN]

The other side of the coin is darkness system can make a bad bird good so its no help in choosing next years yearling's.

 

A young bird as either got it or it hasn,t I certainly cant believe that a certain system will make a bad bird good.

[jimmy white]

 

A young bird as either got it or it hasn,t I certainly cant believe that a certain system will make a bad bird good.

 

many very interesting veiws, but on the above quote, which to a certain extent in my opinion is true,, but for the fact ,,,that a darkness yb fully feathered will beat a natural yb heavy in the moult , but the natural yb heavy in the moult , really should not go to a race,,, but could proove a far better bird in the future than the darkness yb winning the race :-/i.e a  fully  feathered pigeon will fly faster than a non fully feathered pigeon , but to me wouldnt tell me which one was the best pigeon,,,or capable of becomming  the best pigeon.

 

but going back to the original post ,, why are most fanciers breeding more y,birds only to lose more y,birds ?? why have the losses in the main, have worsened each year,?,, steadily getting worse each year,, even a bad pigeon should home from these first short races or at worst come the next day,,, we dont seem to even  get that now,, what can be the reason that so many yb,s are lost ,never to be seen again   i,e,, still have loft book 1958 started with 9 yb,s at the first toss,, flew to , yb national ,,,then it was 300 miles ended up with 7 , the velocities were the same as todays [we certainly had better summers ;D] but at this time,, this was of the norm , if " mob"fliers then [racing 50 say] would shock everyone when saying "ive dropped 5 today" then the likelyhood would be that 3 returned sunday, this just doesnt happen these days ,,,i would like just like to know why ???

[Guest cloudview]

i think a lot of losse,s pre racing are down to the fancier himself , they cant wait till the weather is right

sending in cold easterly winds ,  a recipe for disater, send ing when thers thunder in the air

the got to go brigade because so and so,s sending frightened to death of missing atoss

if there not ready for first race , so what , ive jumped some of mine straight into 144 miles

and had no problems

losing them in fed races is sometimes out of yur control bad decisions . unpredited weather on route , clashing  etc etc

quality of birds , 50 per cent of strays that have dropped here should never have been ringed

in first place ,

age of some them is next to cruelety , some not having thrown one flight .

sorry if ive upset anyone but this is what ive noticed yearin and year out

[jimmy white]

i think a lot of losse,s pre racing are down to the fancier himself , they cant wait till the weather is right

sending in cold easterly winds ,  a recipe for disater, send ing when thers thunder in the air

the got to go brigade because so and so,s sending frightened to death of missing atoss

if there not ready for first race , so what , ive jumped some of mine straight into 144 miles

and had no problems

losing them in fed races is sometimes out of yur control bad decisions . unpredited weather on route , clashing  etc etc

quality of birds , 50 per cent of strays that have dropped here should never have been ringed

in first place ,

age of some them is next to cruelety , some not having thrown one flight .

sorry if ive upset anyone but this is what ive noticed yearin and year out

 

once again we have as said above more pointers which are probably true,,, i cant say you could upset someone when it is in fact true, by sending squeekers as it is obvious this is often heard  from yb baskets, [to my mind a basketing committee should oust this practise] one bit a might disagree on,  is that" 50 pc shouldnt have been ringed in the first place ", i would reckon it would be more of," many yb,s should be culled that do not leave the nest in a perfect condition" i,e just because its bred from this or that well try and" bring it on" ,,,doesnt work.,, but for the rest of the post is spot on , in my opinion,,, good, healthy, well reared , well trained [basket trained too] yb,s , that have had time to range well  SHOULD  be able to do 144 miles no prob , but for some unknown reason , this does not happen much nowadays , the strange thing being they could do it one week, then for no apparent reason take a hammering the next,, this has happened to very experienced fanciers , left scratching their heads ,,,wondering,,,, as i have said b4 , just like a big jig-saw puzzle ,,,we have fitted in all the previous posts peices of this jig-saw,, but again , to my mind there is still one great big chunk missing ,,all these lost yb,s are not bad , some have in fact been reported and the new owner has won a national with the bird as an old bird ,, there is something nowadays [i dont know what] that is contributing to these massive losses [and unpredictable losses]  but what that something is ?, and we  dont find out , i just wonder what the losses will be like in ten years time

[jimmy white]

on the poll post ,, i think you could allmost pick every one ,,as to some degree or other,, but on my last post on that" certain something" we dont yet know about , i sincerely beleive this to be true,, on the poll vote , weve had most of these troubles for years ,,,even at that losses were not as bad ,, it seems a pattern now if you dont get your young birds , say within an hour of the winners ,,, you dont seem to see many at all , maybe the odd one or two ,, but nowadays it just seems to" dry up" after an hour or so,, very seldom ,now do you see half a dozen ybs on your loft the next morning after a hard race,,, you just dont see them,, so i still say theres a certain" something" were not aware of ,,, as even on good days we can now have very erratic racing , which really just shouldnt be   so im now looking for something ;D ;D ;D

[jimmy white]

do pigeon fanciers put too much importance on yb racing?

 

each year b4 yb racing starts ive often posted here we are nearing the" annual slaughter of the young  birds" which for some reason has gotten far worse over the last 20 years ,, year by year, moreso in the last 5 years ,, in scotland , most of the clubs normally have about 7 yb club  races , im often now of the opinion , that young birds trained privately , even up to 50 miles well. are as good as the ones that have raced the whole season ,in fact , sometimes better , having a better moult ,, during the first 4 races the transporters are full and obviously , this takes in revenue,, after these races its very easy to see the drop in birdage, and the now, usual stories ,of horrific losses,,   fanciers  never seem to welcome change or even try change,,,,,,,,could it just not be possible for  more old bird racing [do without yb racing] there are 10 ob races in most scottish clubs inland,, would it, or could, it be feasable to have 2 sets of ob racing , sprint type racing where birds are bred earlier , then moult earlier say 10 races ,up to 250 miles ,,then 10 races of say over 250 miles where bred later would moult later ,, my thoughts would be ,, it would be fairer to the young birds and produce even more revenue for transporters , if you think deeper into this b4 you leap,, could we ever change ? or would we ever change? or go on untill there are no yb,s left as it has been heading in the last few years,, just worth a thought anyway

 

as said in my post,, we now lose more yb,s year by year with the situation getting worse,, it has been said on many occasions ,mainly by the old school ;D[my school was the best,,it was approved ;D ;D] that nowadays you never see yb,s sitting on your loft the next morning waiting to get in, whereas b4 even after a hard race , with birds missing , there were allways many birds back following morning ,,, not so now,,,,,why has the patern of yb racing changed so much ?? im sure the old school will remember getting yb,s right  up till darkness ,, when now ,,if not there within an hour of the winner , their seldom seen ,,,,ive taken a list from the poll postings , to see if there are any reasons for this

1,  less than 100 pc healthy,,,in my opinion one worth looking at #,, but many years ago , this could still have been the case ,,,,but birds got back albeit some late.

2 too much rubbish bred ,,, there was as much rubbish years ago,,,,but most got home

3 poorly trained yb,s,, this happened also years ago,,,but birds got home

4 clashing,, we probably had more of that years ago,,,,but birds got home

5 mobile phones ,, what are they #

6 methods feeding ,,, even years ago many tried different feeding methods,,,still birds got home

7 types of pigeons we race now,,,definately changed over the years#

8 weather conditions ,,,we had that years ago,,birds still got home

9 same people lose them each year,, maybe not quite so true ,, ive seen champion fanciers lose just the same  recently

10 bringing birds in to the country,,   didnt happen so much years ago,,but did happen,,still birds got home.

11 over dosing medication ,, we didnt have as much medication years ago as there was not much need for it#

12 resp. probs ,, we had that years ago.

13 basket training ,, we done that, or not, same as now,, still birds got home.

14,,,hawks ,, this is one big problem we didnt have so much years ago #

15 too many yb,s bred ,,  some did this years  ago [but   were still left with more  birds.

16 ,, ,,,something we dont know [no answer to that one ,,,,yet]###

the things that differed from 30 years ago are ,5,, 7 11,,,,14 ,,,,16,,

5 mobile phones,, cant say ive seen any concrete evidence of this affecting the birds

7 types of pigeons have changed [in my opinion] mainly due to being propped up by medication , antibiotics etc now producing specimans that lack the vitality of a natural immunity, therefore loosing their hard constitution , we once had.

11 answer as 7

14  a most definate difference from years ago [one perigrine will upset a batch of racers , probably killing one but maiming through injury to many , resulting in few of that batch never getting home through sheer fright .

16" something we dont know"  but need to find out,,,, whatever this could be,, global warming ?? just a thought,,, airwaves more common now than b4,certainly more of them ,,seasons ever changing even to the extent that the chrismas race is often a higher temp, than our actual first race!! flowers are blooming in my garden now better than a few months ago,, are pigeons being confused by the four seasons now,, as its now difficult to tell these seasons apart god only knows

  in my opinion ,,,boiling it all down ,, the four  main reasons for these ever increasing horrific yb losses are as said in fact the last four mentioned

[Tony C]

Jimmy the two on the poll I voted for were the type of pigeon we now race and clashing. This to me covers both the pigeon and eventualities which may happen outside of our control, but which one is it and what’s the cause?

Lets take the pigeon. I cant believe its all down to illness as the most likely cause as the poll suggests. Why is it you come across a raceday once or twice a year where everything seems perfect and a good race is expected, not only you encounter heavy losses but the whole convoy takes a bashing. Everyone’s pigeons don’t fall ill on the same weekend so to me you can eliminate illness. My belief is that the convoy of pigeons hit the wrong line from the lib and head of in the wrong direction, get their heads down and before they know it hit the coast somewhere, maybe they don’t stop at the coast perhaps they carry on and end up in a watery grave. Is this why we don’t see them again?

Getting back to my first choice, the type of pigeon we now race. Scenario. You have two family’s of pigeons, you have a team of 32 y/birds 16 from each of the family’s. One of the family’s you hardly ever lose a y/bird from, they are a steady family but always 5 mins behind. The other family 9 times out of 10 beat the steady family but the losses throughout the year hit about 50%. You end up the year with 24 y/birds 16 from the steady family and 8 from the family that’s doing the damage. What happens? You invest in the family that’s knocking spots of the steady family and end up breeding more to cover for the losses you know your going to encounter so now you have to breed 48 y/birds to end the year with 24 taking 50% losses into consideration. To conclude I think its the whole way we look at racing these days. I wont say its win at all costs but whereas in the past fanciers ambitions were to win combines/nationals now its try and win every race from the first to the last. When you look at race programs 80% are sprint races, fanciers now keep pigeons that are competitive in these. In other words they’d just as much win a 70mile race as a 500 mile race, a win is a win! consequently losses are greater.