A Crazy Idea, But Would It Work?

[swilcox]

It seems that there may be variuos reasons for young birds losses from, hawks to weather and possibly sickness. Sickness may be one of the reasons why the ybs on the 2nd, 3rd or 4th race tend to at least once fail to leave the lib site. Maybe they start to contract new viruses from the first race and with stress it multiplies and bang we have a bad race.

 

Now lets say that 3 weeks before the first race on a monday everybody baskets there ybs into the fed transportor until its full and we fed and water the birds for 3 days. All the bugs and viruses will spread throughout the lorry and the birds will then be returned to the fanciers where they can deal with whatever they have in the comfort of there own loft and by the time racing comes around they have had the effect of the MIX and got over it.

 

Would also help to teach them to eat and drink.

 

A bl**dy crazy idea i know but could see it working non the less.

 

Stu.

[greenlands]

Not so bloody crazy Stuart,I think it's a good idea my young birds were ok. till they started to be mixed with other fanciers birds on training tosses.

The hardest part would be convincing fanciers and federation officials.Then there would be the policing of the transporter to keep low life from stealing.

No not so crazy at all,whether it would work who knows till we try it.

Lindsay

[blaz]

their is not much chance of me doing this if it came about.as i would have yb,s a week out the nest to get put on a transporter for 3 day,s.i also think 3 day,s for yb,s that young would stress them out to the max. O.M.O

[THE FIFER]

at one time the FIFE fed had training with the transporter,but had to give up because not enough were taking advantage,

[just ask me]

i think its a great idea

[steve d]

an even easier way would be 3 weeks before 1st race all the members meet down the club and swap birds with one another and take them home, release them a few days later to return to their original lofts, it simply will never happen Stuart as much as I see sense in what your saying, if fanciers agree to members having there own baskets at the club instead of mixing them then it would solve a lot of the problems in my opinion......we did this last year and everyone stayed clear of sickness but after 5 races the usual whingers complain about a fancier with a basket of 12 birds in a fed of 7000 have an advantage (these are the fanciers that say they have no interest in winning yb races, its all about experience lol).......so we mixed them up again the same fanciers won but club members then got sickness.

 

I honestly believe keeping the birds separate will stop a lot of the problems as fanciers comment their birds are alright until they mix with other peoples then the problems begin, good luck to you all for the remainder of the yb season, lets hope they stay healthy and returns are good.

[Guest Owen]

Stuart, you also need to look into the sort of transportation we use. Birds are often crowded into crates without any idea as to where to find water. The temperatures in those crates go up to unacceptable levels. The Vet, Dr Colin Walker, recommends that 25c is the highest acceptable. In a study ito pigeon transportation done at Waginegen Insitute of Animal Sciences, Holland, one observation was that young birds start to suffer serious dehydration at 32c and die at 39c. Humidity is raised because the birds pant to loose heat, it is the only way that they can loose heat. Humidity is very bad for pigeons as most of us know by now. It is the major cause of dehydration.

Then you have air conditioning that is not used properly either because the design is poor or else the operators are not informed as to how to use it. Add to that the fact that a lot of crates have only one drinker fitted when the recommendation is for at least two, and you have the potential for all sorts of problems.

If you want to test out what I am saying why not place a maximum/minimum humidity meter and thermometer in some of the crates and check the readings after liberation. You could be in for a shock.