Sprint feeding

[Mark1021]

Just trying to build up a picture of where you're at at the moment

So these are all 2025 birds - not raced at present

Have they had any form of training at present? If so, how much?

They haven't had much in terms of training ive been loft flying daily up until the winter was told not to do so much due to hawk attacks ive probably done about 3 tosses of 5-8 miles but they loft fly for about 20-45 minutes seems they fly more on a nice blue clear sky when it isn't too cold if its miserable I get about 15-20 minutes out of them but yeah they are 2025 birds going to be my first OB season coming up just wondering how to prep for it they are currently all in together but sometimes I get a few that mess around usually the ones that are paired up so I wanna split them and do round about i think seems like it will work well with my 2 section loft because it has a solid partition with a sliding door between them

[Mark1021]

I think they probably needed a lot more training Mark particularly as you a sprint loft only
I like 3/4 races
This year I only had 1 race at 110 miles and 8 of us had a joint trainer at 60 miles
I must have had 40 /45 trainers only 5 over 18 miles though
You kind of need them training close to a mile a min from 15-20 miles unless you live where mountains etc making that impossible

What month did you breed them
was they more late breds than spring babies ?

I didnt breed these ones i purchased them in march off another fancier this was my first year owning pigeons you see i didnt race the young bird season due to worrying about what little pigeons i had

[goose1]

I think they probably needed a lot more training Mark particularly as you a sprint loft only
I like 3/4 races
This year I only had 1 race at 110 miles and 8 of us had a joint trainer at 60 miles
I must have had 40 /45 trainers only 5 over 18 miles though
You kind of need them training close to a mile a min from 15-20 miles unless you live where mountains etc making that impossible

What month did you breed them
was they more late breds than spring babies ?

I didnt breed these ones i purchased them in march off another fancier this was my first year owning pigeons you see i didnt race the young bird season due to worrying about what little pigeons i had

I think you need to know what you want from pigeon racing. The fact you've asked about sprint feeding would suggest you want to be competitive (some folk just like having a few knocking about) so the first thing I'd say is don't worry about how few you have. Numbers win nothing. Do the best you can for them. Keep them 100% healthy (in my opinion the most difficult aspect of the sport today) feed them correctly, train them hard and race them hard. The basket will decide which are best, breed from your best or the best you can get hold of and you should be fine. It's a tough sport is this, but a very rewarding one and I hope you enjoy it. Listen to Mike and Neil's advice they'll keep you right.

[Mark1021]

I think they probably needed a lot more training Mark particularly as you a sprint loft only
I like 3/4 races
This year I only had 1 race at 110 miles and 8 of us had a joint trainer at 60 miles
I must have had 40 /45 trainers only 5 over 18 miles though
You kind of need them training close to a mile a min from 15-20 miles unless you live where mountains etc making that impossible

What month did you breed them
was they more late breds than spring babies ?

I didnt breed these ones i purchased them in march off another fancier this was my first year owning pigeons you see i didnt race the young bird season due to worrying about what little pigeons i had

I think you need to know what you want from pigeon racing. The fact you've asked about sprint feeding would suggest you want to be competitive (some folk just like having a few knocking about) so the first thing I'd say is don't worry about how few you have. Numbers win nothing. Do the best you can for them. Keep them 100% healthy (in my opinion the most difficult aspect of the sport today) feed them correctly, train them hard and race them hard. The basket will decide which are best, breed from your best or the best you can get hold of and you should be fine. It's a tough sport is this, but a very rewarding one and I hope you enjoy it. Listen to Mike and Neil's advice they'll keep you right.

Thanks mate I just wanna do well within my club dont fancy being bottom of the sheet every week is all at the minute they are in fine fettle I've got a stock loft coming in December because my racing loft isn't all that big so plan to breed majority in the stock loft but means I can buy a couple decent pairs to build with

[Mark1021]

What do you know about the background of your birds Mark?

Do you know what family/strain they are?

Were they from the fanciers racing or Stock birds ?

Yeah they was from platinum lofts, kittel pitbull lines which i believe are sprint lines? My birds are bigger built too which from when I was researching most long distances are smaller in size? I know its not always the case but yeah they should be of a sprint strain

[Mark1021]

What pigeons you looking to bring in Mark
Make sure you go to a winning loft mate and not just breeders of fashion

Im looking to bring in sprinters of some sort mate im heading to Doncaster show this weekend coming so hopefully someone can point me in the right direction whilst im there

[Mark1021]

Make sure you check results if you can before you part with your cash Mark

Yeah ill try my best mate one of the guys in the club that flew really well last season gave me 2 pairs to start with there currently in my young bird loft but I shall move them to my stock loft once its here in December the guy im going with has been in the game along time and won a car years ago in the national so he'll keep me right he hasn't been doing very good at sprint racing hes more long distance he just flys in our club to keep his birds right i think

[Mark1021]

Avoid any high prices at Doncaster Mark
Just look at results for the distance you want to win at ,there plenty of crap in fashionable names so strain names are not important
Also try to avoid buying from a loft set up to sell as they have little selection process other than pedigree so wouldn’t move one on if it’s crap as its money to them , a real racing loft would move a pigeon on of its failed

I just need to get a couple pairs to start me off I think then race and see what comes of it i dont imagine that ill even close to racing well this season but im gunna follow your feeding guide and just train hard ill probably look forward to the young bird season because I should of raced and trained my young birds that I started with I just didnt want to lose everything and have nothing to breed off and have to start from scratch again you know

[Mark1021]

I think like Mike said race your birds May /june
Concentrate on next years youngsters

I think there is 13 old bird races next season so I could skip some how many tosses do you think theyll need? Would it be pointless tossing them now once a week?

[Diamond Dave]

Great analogy Neil and all sooooo true.