Racing Systems advice needed !!

[Keepsmilingqueen]

Hi i need some advice about the various motivation systems used in pigeon racing, my father sadly passed away in febuary leaving my mother and i with his team of racing birds, as a mark of respect we are now attempting to race out the season in his memory, i know he normally raced the natural system and the birds were already paired up when he passed away, most of them have reared a round of youngsters and gone to nest again - the 1st race of the season we did reasonally ok for novices getting 4th and 5th club agaist some good fanciers and birds, but since then we have been way behind the pace !! The birds are exersized morning and night and trained twice a week, however i have noticed that some of the birds have not gone back to nesting to create 2nd round of YB's and as such no longer have any motivation , We dont want to switch to widowhood as we need all the YB's we can get, as we keep only a 6 pairs of stock birds. Any hints/suggestions would be great, would it be any good to re-pair/confine thease wayward birds till they go down to nest again ???

 

we are not wanting to be fed toppers here we just want win a card or two  

 

thanx in advance xxx  

[Joe90]

well if you fly natural then let the birds get on with things and dont mess with them to much.

 

dont over feed and dont send the birds full of corn you will lose them

 

the cock will come well when driving to the nest and the hens will come well when sitting the eggs or drop a youngster under friday night

 

good luck

 

and maybe you will carry on more than just a season

 

p.s. borrow some videos from someone at the club

[hooky]

firstly good on you for carying on wit hyour fathers birds!! i do not know much about flying natural ec as i fly all my birds celabit.they fly to the perch...if i were you i would seperate ya young birds put hens and cocks in different section of loft ifyou can..young birds do not need any more motivation than food! could you please tell me whatr you are feeding them?as they may be to heavy you need to get the birds to feel light in the hand and boyent do so by feeding  light during the first part of the week,and then heavier towards the last part of the week.Feeding is one of the most important parts of racing. Birds should be fed more protein type seeds for the short races, and more carbohydrate and fat seeds for the longer races. ....do not have feed there for them all the time to graze at but feed them after they return from exercise and only a ounce per bird..how far are you takeing them on there mid week toss's?if you can take them out to around say 80 kilometers...guesing you basket for the club on friday get them out to 80 km on tuesday and then on thurdays take em out to around40 or there abouts....

[GROVEHOMER]

GOOD FOR YOU THAT YOU ARE GIVING IT A GO!          COCK BIRDS ARE GOOD FLYING TO A SIZABLE YB(IDEALLY 8 TO 16 DAYS, WHEN HE'S LOOKING AT OR DRIVING HIS HEN TO NEST ) BE WARY THOUGH,  DRIVING YEARLING COCKS CAN GO NUTS SOMETIMES AND YOU COULD WELL LOSE THEM, A DRIVING COCK IS  A BETTER BET IF HE IS 2yr+. HENS LOVE EGGS, ESPECIALLY 10 days ONWARDS, WITH CHIPPING EGGS OR YBs UP TO ABOUT 7 DAYS.  GOOD LUCK!                                              

[Guest]

Good for you Lady and you Mother.

 

I always have had good results with birds sitting eggs, then from Monday onwards I've added a pot egg a day till basketing day, the hens spend all day trying to cover all the eggs and go berserk when you take them off the nest to put them in the basket for shipping.

 

Another old trick is to hang a budgie mirror in the nest box about an hour before you basket the birds, they think another bird is trying to come in and take their eggs, really motivates them.

 

Hope this helps

 

[Guest coxy]

I FOUND THIS ON THE NET HOPE IT MIGHT HELP!!!!!!!!!!

 

THE NATURAL SYSTEM.

This is the system by which people took the natural course of pairing up their pigeons and racing them to certain times of their natural urge to procreate. We will refer to these times as we go through each peculiarity of the system. When pigeons have been mated together for approximately one week the cock bird starts to become impatient and starts chasing the hen to nest in the hopes that she will lay eggs. This as most of us know is called the DRIVING PERIOD, and many races have been won with a driving cock. However to send the hen to a race at this time is bad practice as she is about to lay has been deprived of food and water up to a point and can be lost or damaged in the process. We then have the pair sitting ten to fourteen days on eggs, this also has shown good results with cocks and hens. Following this is the period known as chipping eggs, when the youngster starts to chip its way out of the egg. Both parents have shown an urge to race at this time although some will say that because of the type of milk (liquid protein) that forms on the parents during this period, it will go sour before they get the chance to regurgitate it for to feed their young. My belief is that as this is high protein the parents will use this for their journey home, and nature sees to it that it is not wasted. There are several tricks that are used to increase the urge to return home during these periods. When the pair have been sitting about fourteen plus days and no sign of hatching, you can hole out one end of an egg, and insert a live cricket or something similar,( jumping beans have been used) and seal the end. The parents will feel the movement and presume that the baby pigeon is about to hatch, this can produce a fast return home, for the bird has a retentive memory. If the eggs are chipping and you have babies just hatched elsewhere in the loft, you can borrow that baby and slip it under the pigeon to go to the race about a half an hour before you basket. This also brings results, for a quick return.

During the various stages of the baby's growth, you can use a hen by tricking her into thinking she is feeding the baby herself, when letting the cock feed the baby while the hen is out exercising and hiding him away when she is about to return to the loft. This way the cock is doing most of the feeding, and the hen the most of the worrying. The writer won a race this way many years ago as a young man in the Up North Combine in The North of England, from Lille in France, even forecasting the time of arrival to all and sundry with accuracy within ten minutes. We must remember again, that this breeding process will bring about the dropping of the first primary flight, and the pigeons will start coming into form. Previous to this we have just raced on Condition and little incentives as described in the previous articles and I now suggest you refer back to these articles and make this Form you have just learned about work to your best advantage. Please remember the cardinal rule, Never Send Your Best Birds After They Have Peaked, be patient and wait till next year, and you will do it again at the same time.

 

 

CELIBACY This method is exactly the opposite to the Natural System, in that you suppress the urge to procreate. In other words the cocks and hens are kept separate, which means they even exercise separately. One of the advantages of this method is that there is very little fighting and no stress whatsoever. One of the little tricks with this method, is to chase the hens along the passage, about fifteen minutes before you basket (all lofts should have a passage or corridor), this also gives a little incentive for a quick return, because all boys love girls and Vice Versa.

We must remember that once again these birds are racing on condition not form, therefore each bird will have to be watched separately and noted in a book at which date they drop there first primary. This will give you an indication of there natural time to develop form, I do this with all my yearlings to see when it is their time for natural form. It is a great help when using them as two year olds and upward, to ascertain which team to put them in to their best advantage. The writer has won the fastest race from the shortest distance in the Union since its inception with this method and has not been bettered in the Union since it happened in 1995. This short fast race was won with a long distance pigeon, which went on to win a long distance classic later in his career as a widowhood cock.

 

RACING HENS This method also has met with some measure of success, Even though the writer is of the opinion that it is a waste of good cocks, just as the widowhood is a waste of good hens. The disadvantage with racing hens is that even if you use all the tricks to stop them pairing together or getting broody and laying, you will have a continuous struggle to prevent this from happening. One can never be the complete master of hens and once they show interest in each other and start hooting in a corner you will not win a good competitive race with those hens. It is also my opinion that when your hens show an edge over your cocks and all things are not equal anymore that ones loft is deteriorating. I have proved many times that the deterioration of a loft, family, strain, commences in the male line of the family first. I do not need to get involved in discussions about this,

I have done in the past and if a person is set in their ideas there is no way I will shake them from what they believe, even if they continue to buy, beg, or borrow cock birds, they will deny it to their dying day.

I can only say, that I have saved many good lofts from extinction with these observations. (Part of a future article).

There are two more methods of racing that I will deal with in the next article. They are a particular method of widowhood where only the cocks go to the races, the other being the "Roundabout" system where cocks and hens are used and worked to equal advantage. To mention it here would take too long, and I do not wish any reader to become bored with what I believe to be the Ultimate in racing old birds.

 

 

 

[jimmy white]

some good tips above, but must say what a fantastic thing you are doing, i sincerely wish you all the best, and hope you get some good results,im sure your father would have been proud of you,,,,good on you