darkness systam

[pjc]

for anybody who is working you could always put an electric blind on a timer that could open the birds up while you are at work and time it so you can excercise the birds when you get home and then darken down again.

Just an idea!

 

Phil

[Merlin]

Very good idea  for anyone without time ,but eight hours light is the recommended time ,its not that darkness youngsters are better than normal youngsters,its they are better equipped considering the moulting progress

[Guest IB]

Understand its just the moult that makes the difference, so wouldn't it be a lot less bother with early-bred youngsters?

 

I know our club YB 'specialist' fairly wipes the floor with the competition with his early-bred youngsters, even those flying darkness youngsters find him hard to catch.

[schouwman71]

ive bred early youngsters over the years and have never won a card with them,even has yearlings,has youngsters i found them to be too stupid,the march bred ones kicked them into the ground,so thats when i fetch my youngsters off now.I might put them on darkness this year has it will be less time on it before i have to take them off again.

[Guest TAMMY_1]

what reason do you give for putting young birds on the darkness system, is it solely to try and win races or do you have another reason, i myself have never tried it and do not have any intention to do so, would just like to know why members use it

[pjc]

IB, the reason for whatever system you use is the moult. Natural youngbirds will be getting towards the last few flights when racing is half way through.

Darkness causes the birds to body moult but hold the wing flights. The other way to race them for people working is breed early and put them on lightness so they have moulted all flights before racing.

 

Phil

[Guest Paulo]

what reason do you give for putting young birds on the darkness system, is it solely to try and win races or do you have another reason, i myself have never tried it and do not have any intention to do so, would just like to know why members use it

 

With me this year its an experiment. I put heart and soul into my young bird team last year and with out trying to sound big headed I had the right birds they were fit and I should have won a lot more than a 4th club and 13th fed. The first races they were on the same 2 seconds as the winner. Second half of the programme I was 10 minutes behind every week. Only good point was beating the other lad who had natural pigeons by 15 minutes in the YB national and he was top man with the old birds so had two pigeons.

 

The naturals just fell apart and despite being hard with my birds I love them and have a moral duty not to send them to races if they are in danger of being lost and with bald young uns with exposed ears and no flights what can you do but leave them at home.

 

I've come to the conclusion that only reason i got beat so badly was the dark and I want to try and be compeative in every race old bird and young bird so I'm going to try it and see what happens. It waas my own fault cause my dads mates who sold me the birds are both top men in fed club and combine and said if you don't have the birds on the dark you will be 15 minutes behind every week and they were right.

 

If I find that the old birds that haven't been on darkness as young uns race better as old birds than the darkness young uns then I will stop doing it as I don't belive in screwing up young birds to win a few crappy 70-300 mile races.

 

If it has no ill effects I will keep using it. Interesting thing was I got no YB sickness last year.

 

If I get a ton of YB sickness etc I will not bother doing it again. Plus with having half ybs natural it means at least I won't ruin the lot if I get it wrong.

[Guest IB]

IB, the reason for whatever system you use is the moult. Natural youngbirds will be getting towards the last few flights when racing is half way through.

Darkness causes the birds to body moult but hold the wing flights. The other way to race them for people working is breed early and put them on lightness so they have moulted all flights before racing.

 

Phil

 

Phil, my understanding from what I've seen of Jacko's January-bred birds is that they look as if they have moulted out before the racing starts, but they are on natural and its hard training 4 times a week @ 50 miles - that retards their moult?

 

Agree with what you say about natural moult, during YB season I have to start stopping individual pigeons a few weeks into the racing because they are on No7 primary. Result is that its really the moult that decides which of my birds go to last races, which isn't the way I'd like it.

 

The thing I noticed most about Darkness youngsters was their bigger body size. Was involved in our Fed stray centre for two years, a few years back and you could tell the darkness youngsters because they looked just like yearlings. The only other thing of note was that Darkness youngsters (then) made up the vast majority of birds through our stray centre, 9/10 were darkness birds. No slur intended, could easily mean that 90% of the Fed flies Darkness YBs.

 

I'm told Darkness youngsters also need special handling as yearlings. Seems an awful lot of bother to me - for what gain?

[schouwman71]

yes tammy,its certainly is to win races and thats all it is bud,if it wasnt no body would use this darkness system,on darkness you can get your team home from a 200ml race in 15mins,i have seen this done,on natural you might be waiting hours from your first to last,thats the difference,Leen Boers in Belguim was doing this years before anybody knew about it.

[Guest TAMMY_1]

yes tammy,its certainly is to win races and thats all it is bud,if it wasnt no body would use this darkness system,on darkness you can get your team home from a 200ml race in 15mins,i have seen this done,on natural you might be waiting hours from your first to last,thats the difference,Leen Boers in Belguim was doing this years before anybody knew about it.

 

doubt that,  thats flying at 800 miles per hour  :-/

[schouwman71]

 

doubt that,  thats flying at 800 miles per hour  :-/

 

 

no i mean from your first arrival to you last,not from the start of the race,youve miss understood how i said it. ;D

 

[Guest Paulo]

yes tammy,its certainly is to win races and thats all it is bud,if it wasnt no body would use this darkness system,on darkness you can get your team home from a 200ml race in 15mins,i have seen this done,on natural you might be waiting hours from your first to last,thats the difference,Leen Boers in Belguim was doing this years before anybody knew about it.

 

damn right its too much hassle otherwise I'm at uni now doing coursework after a 10 hour day at work and will be here until 2.00am in the morning luckily my dad agreed to go down the allotment and put my shutters up at 6.00 otherwise I would have been screwed. Young bird racing is becoming far too specalised. I wish I was in a partnership at times.

 

Where it started up in the North East in the late nineties people thought people were doping. I was specitcal and thought if I get the yb's fit they can beat darkness last year I was wrong cause the yb's use that much energy moulting and are much less efficent where flying due to missing flights they have no chance on the longer races

[doo]

 

With me this year its an experiment. I put heart and soul into my young bird team last year and with out trying to sound big headed I had the right birds they were fit and I should have won a lot more than a 4th club and 13th fed. The first races they were on the same 2 seconds as the winner. Second half of the programme I was 10 minutes behind every week. Only good point was beating the other lad who had natural pigeons by 15 minutes in the YB national and he was top man with the old birds so had two pigeons.

 

The naturals just fell apart and despite being hard with my birds I love them and have a moral duty not to send them to races if they are in danger of being lost and with bald young uns with exposed ears and no flights what can you do but leave them at home.

 

I've come to the conclusion that only reason i got beat so badly was the dark and I want to try and be compeative in every race old bird and young bird so I'm going to try it and see what happens. It waas my own fault cause my dads mates who sold me the birds are both top men in fed club and combine and said if you don't have the birds on the dark you will be 15 minutes behind every week and they were right.

 

If I find that the old birds that haven't been on darkness as young uns race better as old birds than the darkness young uns then I will stop doing it as I don't belive in screwing up young birds to win a few crappy 70-300 mile races.

 

If it has no ill effects I will keep using it. Interesting thing was I got no YB sickness last year.

 

If I get a ton of YB sickness etc I will not bother doing it again. Plus with having half ybs natural it means at least I won't ruin the lot if I get it wrong.

 

 

 

my dads mates who sold me the birds are both top men in fed club and combine

 

Some mates they should be encouraging new starters not fleecing them.

The best birds you'll ever get are free birds .....from Genuine fanciers ....these are what I call DOOMEN

[Guest Paulo]

 

 

 

 

 

Some mates they should be encouraging new starters not fleecing them.

The best birds you'll ever get are free birds .....from Genuine fanciers ....these are what I call DOOMEN

 

To be fair I got mates rates 20 quid a bird and one gave me a ton of eggs and the other bred me three free young birds