Loft Flying or Training for Young birds

[worm]

Would you say that darkness ybs don't go off ranging compared to natural ybs.
Do you think they should be trained at say from 9 week of age or when they have still got yellow down still on there heads, better to have them thinking early & up flying.
Would you agree that ybs bred in December don't range & pigeons bred around April more naturally are better for racing, just thought with the heavy losses over the last 2 weekends you all might have an opinion.
Are we as fancier's causing the losses because we are breeding to early, & from inferior stock ( paper pigeons) not from tried & tested pigeons, just don't think it's all down to bop any thoughts could of been atmospheric conditions, & I'm not sure or how we can avoid these issues moving forward.

Hi Dave.
My main youngsters are bred from my widowhood team paired up on Boxing Day. No darkness here.
They had 5 tosses at 8 miles before the first race. No more training since.
Our club has had good returns from the first 2 races with the 3Cs. I lost the odd ones the first race but got all mine last week.
A good race controller makes a big difference.

if you had 5 at 8 miles here you wouldn't get 90% of them home

[Rdhd Danny]

@worm where are based?

[king]

Would you say that darkness ybs don't go off ranging compared to natural ybs.
Do you think they should be trained at say from 9 week of age or when they have still got yellow down still on there heads, better to have them thinking early & up flying.
Would you agree that ybs bred in December don't range & pigeons bred around April more naturally are better for racing, just thought with the heavy losses over the last 2 weekends you all might have an opinion.
Are we as fancier's causing the losses because we are breeding to early, & from inferior stock ( paper pigeons) not from tried & tested pigeons, just don't think it's all down to bop any thoughts could of been atmospheric conditions, & I'm not sure or how we can avoid these issues moving forward.

Hi Dave.
My main youngsters are bred from my widowhood team paired up on Boxing Day. No darkness here.
They had 5 tosses at 8 miles before the first race. No more training since.
Our club has had good returns from the first 2 races with the 3Cs. I lost the odd ones the first race but got all mine last week.
A good race controller makes a big difference.

How far is your first race Andy? You wouldn't get away with just 5 tosses at 8 miles before the first race around me. We start at 70+ miles. The majority of fanciers will have trained 25 - 35 many times before the first race.

[Spieker-Loft]

Would you say that darkness ybs don't go off ranging compared to natural ybs.
Do you think they should be trained at say from 9 week of age or when they have still got yellow down still on there heads, better to have them thinking early & up flying.
Would you agree that ybs bred in December don't range & pigeons bred around April more naturally are better for racing, just thought with the heavy losses over the last 2 weekends you all might have an opinion.
Are we as fancier's causing the losses because we are breeding to early, & from inferior stock ( paper pigeons) not from tried & tested pigeons, just don't think it's all down to bop any thoughts could of been atmospheric conditions, & I'm not sure or how we can avoid these issues moving forward.

No. We darken and use light on our yb's and we also breed our yb's in december even whilst we still darken they do 2-3 hours on the house. Every year we are the people with the least losses in the fed.
With this i dont wanna say that you did things wrong or did something wrong but atleast in my experience darkening or early breeds have no effect on the losses etc. And for me if you wanna take YB racing serious darkening etc is necessary.

[Rdhd Danny]

@king it's crazy what some do as prep and get away with in our fed he would not get a return with training like that but it seems to work for him

[Rdhd Danny]

@leon

[CHARLTON34]

So should the racing season be changed for old & yb racing start later for OBS, I know the Channel flyers won't like this idea.
Also ybs to start later or should I say extend any thoughts or is it dead in the water because we've done it that way for decades.

[Rdhd Danny]

Dead in the water mate getting Change in this sport is a minefield sadly

[Andy]

Would you say that darkness ybs don't go off ranging compared to natural ybs.
Do you think they should be trained at say from 9 week of age or when they have still got yellow down still on there heads, better to have them thinking early & up flying.
Would you agree that ybs bred in December don't range & pigeons bred around April more naturally are better for racing, just thought with the heavy losses over the last 2 weekends you all might have an opinion.
Are we as fancier's causing the losses because we are breeding to early, & from inferior stock ( paper pigeons) not from tried & tested pigeons, just don't think it's all down to bop any thoughts could of been atmospheric conditions, & I'm not sure or how we can avoid these issues moving forward.

Hi Dave.
My main youngsters are bred from my widowhood team paired up on Boxing Day. No darkness here.
They had 5 tosses at 8 miles before the first race. No more training since.
Our club has had good returns from the first 2 races with the 3Cs. I lost the odd ones the first race but got all mine last week.
A good race controller makes a big difference.

How far is your first race Andy? You wouldn't get away with just 5 tosses at 8 miles before the first race around me. We start at 70+ miles. The majority of fanciers will have trained 25 - 35 many times before the first race.

Our first 4 races are only 34 miles to me. I am one of the shortest flyers. I fly in the Glastonbury club, radius of members is 30 miles East to West, and 10 miles South to North. We then race in the Three Counties Classic Racing Pigeon club spread over Somerset, Devon and Cornwall with a radius of around 150 miles East to West and 35 miles South to North. The first 3 young bird races are sectional with our section being spread 35 miles East to West and 16 miles South to North. Mine will invariably go over on the first couple of races and then have to work back. I only have a small team of youngsters, 8 sent last week, and I am up against members who send up to 100 birds. In the section last week we sent 742 birds. This week I expect it will be more and next week when they all go together I expect there will be 2000+.
I also work 6 days a week and only have a few minutes each week to see the birds return. Thank goodness for ETS.
I am quite hard on my birds and if they aren’t able to sort themselves out in these early races I’m not interested in them even without any training. We have members who train a lot but their results are no better than mine most of the time. I wouldn’t expect to lose more than the odd one now during the rest of the season.

[Andy]

So should the racing season be changed for old & yb racing start later for OBS, I know the Channel flyers won't like this idea.
Also ybs to start later or should I say extend any thoughts or is it dead in the water because we've done it that way for decades.

I think the problem with extending the YB season, or starting later, would be that although it would be alright for me as my natural youngsters will be well on in the flight feathers but would have gone through the body and head moult by mid September. At this time the darkness youngsters are falling apart. My natural youngsters done better in our club in the last couple of young bird races last year than those racing darkness youngsters.