Hamster Girl Posted November 20, 2007 Report Share Posted November 20, 2007 Do any of you have specific techniques that you use to teach your birds how to home? I have a general idea of how to go about it - but I was wondering what you guys do that is different from one another, or even what is commonly done and well known to be good. Just a curiosity that if satisfied may well help me with the small release business I'm thinking of. Anyhow, thanks in advance! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 20, 2007 Report Share Posted November 20, 2007 The one thing to mention here is that you will never teach your birds how to home, this is an instinct within the pigeon. By the time you start training your birds (12-14 weeks old) they will already know where there home is, if they don't you won't be training them! With young ones just start with short tosses building up gradually to whatever distance you think. They can be trained every day unless you get a bad toss or other birds are racing in you area. Old ones really only require training for fitness and to blow the cobwebs out a few short tosses followed by a few longer ones (half first race distance) usually does the trick. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 20, 2007 Report Share Posted November 20, 2007 I agree with Mickb, though the one difference in your training is that as your releases could be at any point on the compass from your birds' home, it may be a good idea to train them round the compass too. The other point too is that it might be a fine day at your release point, cloudy at home and heavy rain in between, you've no way of knowing that in advance, as you won't have line-of-flight details like our race controllers, so recommend you also do 'all weather training'. Start off with fine weather, till they get used to coming home, then train in wind, rain, cloud etc., always within reason tho, avoid gale force winds and the like! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roland Posted November 20, 2007 Report Share Posted November 20, 2007 Hamster with respect, no one knows the answer to that! - The first to know will be worth millions lol - What one must do is give them a warm dry hotel and encourage ontentment. Then any and everything can follow. Yes theorist all one wants, but how one hopes that taking a bird a little further into unchartered lands because you have LEARNT the pigeon where it is is beyond me. Quiet words around the birds with no sudden movements and a few tibbits is the starter. They RANGE AND developed their' own sectrests, and if they want to home they will ... if not they won't. But in any contented and routine system a lot more will than won't! You help them to sharpen the fitness only, and remember 'One has to become fit, then train to get fitter ... one can't train to become fit. Good luck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
REDCHEQHEN Posted November 20, 2007 Report Share Posted November 20, 2007 I agree with Mickb, though the one difference in your training is that as your releases could be at any point on the compass from your birds' home, it may be a good idea to train them round the compass too. The other point too is that it might be a fine day at your release point, cloudy at home and heavy rain in between, you've no way of knowing that in advance, as you won't have line-of-flight details like our race controllers, so recommend you also do 'all weather training'. Start off with fine weather, till they get used to coming home, then train in wind, rain, cloud etc., always within reason tho, avoid gale force winds and the like! Does it rain in Arizona? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 20, 2007 Report Share Posted November 20, 2007 Hamster with respect, no one knows the answer to that! - The first to know will be worth millions lol - What one must do is give them a warm dry hotel and encourage ontentment. Then any and everything can follow. Yes theorist all one wants, but how one hopes that taking a bird a little further into unchartered lands because you have LEARNT the pigeon where it is is beyond me. Quiet words around the birds with no sudden movements and a few tibbits is the starter. They RANGE AND developed their' own sectrests, and if they want to home they will ... if not they won't. But in any contented and routine system a lot more will than won't! You help them to sharpen the fitness only, and remember 'One has to become fit, then train to get fitter ... one can't train to become fit. Good luck. Are you saying there is no need to train and pushing them on is a waste of time??? Also totally disagree with the last line, especially if you want to be successful. The "only" way to guarantee" a bird flies at leat half an hour is to train it from a distance where it will fly half an hour! Very few pigeons will be race fit flying around the house. "Natural" fitness in no way matches race fitness. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest shadow Posted November 20, 2007 Report Share Posted November 20, 2007 Do any of you have specific techniques that you use to teach your birds how to home? I have a general idea of how to go about it - but I was wondering what you guys do that is different from one another, or even what is commonly done and well known to be good. Just a curiosity that if satisfied may well help me with the small release business I'm thinking of. Anyhow, thanks in advance! make sure the birds you have bought have homing ability ie bred from racing stock not fancy breeds as these will never find their way home Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Greig the doo Drysdale Posted November 20, 2007 Report Share Posted November 20, 2007 on the first few young bird traing tosses i let a few old hens up with them. works for me Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roland Posted November 21, 2007 Report Share Posted November 21, 2007 Are you saying there is no need to train and pushing them on is a waste of time??? Never said no so thing... training is purely for fitness ... which is just an extension of condition. Which in reality EVERY thing together makes up condition. As for the last part, well took me yonks, like it does most sportsmen, and indeed 'Fanciers' to understand, and then come to terms with. Like the light hearted say ' Exercise! If not fit you shouldn't do it ... if you are fir then then is no need'. Fit men train to get fitter, no man can train to get fit; Likewise pigeons, only when they are loft fit can you start to train then, and then that is simply to get fitter. Y'b birds are a great example, they get them selfs loft fit... then you train them. And yes you can send them with great results straight into races. Have done. And know fanciers first toss that was a a Berwicke race of 269 miles where he was first five, and 2 Fed onwards. My y'b birds seldom if ever have more than three tosses - when I actually have time to bother to send y/b races - and straight in at 120 miles. Too many believe that they are treating kids, and what I posted before is obviously correct .... or I wouldn't have posted it! But one man's meat... and every one rolls there own dice eh. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roland Posted November 21, 2007 Report Share Posted November 21, 2007 MickB, with all due respect, if one actually believed those things I said which you pointed out, then the very essence of just Feeding and racing only, where the birds are never out of the loft, then this could never work let alone all the great successes that have and are being had, let alone the wonderful results of say Ricky Mardis! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 21, 2007 Report Share Posted November 21, 2007 And yes you can send them with great results straight into races. Have done. And know fanciers first toss that was a a Berwicke race of 269 miles where he was first five, and 2 Fed onwards. I known fanciers like this too............"me train never, my birds first toss is first race".............. until you spot them at the coast for a day with the kids and a couple of pigeon baskets, and i'm sure they have not got the picnic stuff in. And as for 269 miles and win first five, i just find that totally unbelievable (even if true). But hey thats what make this sport ours so interesting sometimes, all the myths, stories etc and of course the different opinions! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hamster Girl Posted November 21, 2007 Author Report Share Posted November 21, 2007 Ah, I should have been a little clearer in what I was meaning.. Sorry if I brought any disagreements or rolling eyes! The birds I have bought are around 6-7 months old, and I bought them from a man who is in a neighborhood about an hour/half hour from my town. I.e. I live in Yuma, he lives in Somerton. I don't intend to race my birds, just for releases at weddings/funuerals.. etc. @ Bruno and REDCHEQHEN - It rarely rains in Yuma.. Today it was cloudy and we had what is called "spit". That's the first rain in almost two months. Real rain won't ever come here.. it is usually is rained out just beyond the mountains that enclose this portion of the county. @ shadow - both are Homing Pigeons, which I intend to bred out and get a small flock of about ten-fifteen ybs. Thank you all, mickb, Greig, Roland etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roland Posted November 21, 2007 Report Share Posted November 21, 2007 True Mick, and no need to fib to you ... your not the wife lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 21, 2007 Report Share Posted November 21, 2007 second attempt ;D ;D Remember your birds need to come home - if they don't you'll soon have no release business. Homing from different points of the compass in different weather conditions is something I think is necessary - to exercise the whole bird 'muscles' and 'brain' [homing skills]. Folk usually train just for fitness, i.e 'strong muscles' endurance etc., but of the little we do know about homing, we know that its not just one skill but probably a combination of many skills, so we should surely exercise as many of those skills combinations as possible, so that the bird may cope more easily with the different conditions it meets on the way home. So in my opinion, training should include : (1) experience of weather conditions that the birds may face coming home from the release event. (2) experience of homing from different points of the compass or from the main towns that you expect most of your release events to be from. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hamster Girl Posted November 21, 2007 Author Report Share Posted November 21, 2007 Thank you Bruno. I guess my main worry should really be whether or not they will go to my home, or the man whom they lived with for six/seven months home. ^^ Unfortunately, today being a fluke, we don't have many weather conditions aside from sunny, hot, or windy. Ones that would concern me are sandstorms - ergo no flights. For the first release, would you think four-five miles is an appropriae distance? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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