UkPigeonRacing

Andy wrote: ↑Tue Sep 19, 2023 9:26 pm

George and Morgan wrote: ↑Tue Sep 19, 2023 9:02 pm how many had you left Andy

I started with 23. Lost none in training. Lost 1/23 first race, 1/21 in second race. Had a bad third race where I lost 6/20 and 3/14 from the fourth race. I then had 10/10 from the next 2 races. I lost 1/10 on the seventh race and finally 9/9 from the last race. I also have 2 others that have raced but were missing for a couple of weeks during the season. So ended with 11/23 after some tough young bird races.

George and Morgan wrote: ↑Tue Sep 19, 2023 9:48 pm they say when the fields are harvested birds start returning will you breed the same as ybs lost Andy

Devo1956 wrote: ↑Wed Sep 20, 2023 9:51 am It's good to hear from different members'views, My thoughts are if young birds are going to be raced. Breed early to give them time to understand what their life is about. And please dont set them up to fail. Train them well and you can never have too much training.

Devo1956 wrote: ↑Wed Sep 20, 2023 9:51 am It's good to hear from different members'views, My thoughts are if young birds are going to be raced. Breed early to give them time to understand what their life is about. And please dont set them up to fail. Train them well and you can never have too much training.

Andy wrote: ↑Wed Sep 20, 2023 10:55 am

Devo1956 wrote: ↑Wed Sep 20, 2023 9:51 am It's good to hear from different members'views, My thoughts are if young birds are going to be raced. Breed early to give them time to understand what their life is about. And please dont set them up to fail. Train them well and you can never have too much training.

So Dev if you are breeding early do you think these youngsters need to be put on darkness?

Andy wrote: ↑Wed Sep 20, 2023 8:11 pm It’s great having you back mate. But I do find myself contradicting some of your ideas. Not saying you are wrong just that my ways are different from yours. I suppose this is one of the great things about this sport. Many different roads to success.
Partly because my plan was to race North road with the CSCFC and hadn’t expected to do a lot of club racing I didn’t pair up until early March. My youngsters hatched between the first and third week of April. They had 5 training tosses at 12 to 14 weeks and started racing at just 14 to 16 weeks old. They were falling apart a bit during the season but didn’t stop them from racing. My youngest one hatched on 21st April. Had first race on 29th July and raced all 8 races. I am the only member in the club not on darkness and I was one of only 3 members who raced every week others that had done the darkness had youngsters going down with young bird sickness. My losses during this season were probably less than those on darkness and they held their own against much older youngsters.
Next year because of my change of system I will be breeding much earlier. I still won’t darken them but may try to give them some initial training at around 12 weeks for a few tosses before stopping them until a couple of weeks before young bird racing starts.
Having said all that I’m not really that interested in winning young bird races. It’s just giving them experience. Any prizes are a bonus.