Weaned my first few youngsters today.

[Murray]

You take your babies away a bit younger than I do, they still have yellow down sticking out of their heads.

[Murray]

Mine are much bigger, some of them have to be rescued after wandering outside without the wings to get back in......

[George and Morgan]

Andy when you say the grizzle hen has bred nothing can i ask what she was paired to

[Andy]

You take your babies away a bit younger than I do, they still have yellow down sticking out of their heads.

I like to wean them at around 24 days. I have weaned the odd ones as early as 18 days in the past when racing widowhood with no problem. These are between 23 & 27 days old. I find they learn quickly at this age. I don’t dip any beaks in the drinkers and if any were to go backwards I would dispose of them. But have had very few that have over the years. When weaning the first ones of the year I do like to wait and have a little group to wean. They quickly learn from each other. I will be weaning another 2 tonight that are 23 days old today. For the first few days I will leave food down for them all day. But once I’m happy that they are feeding I will go onto hand feeding them twice a day. I find that once you have a few feeding well any new youngsters added very quickly join in.

[Andy]

Andy when you say the grizzle hen has bred nothing can i ask what she was paired to

I have had her with a few different cocks George. I will check my records later. I have had the odd issues from what I can remember with a couple that have had growths. I had to dispose of one last year from her for the same reason, with a different cock.

[George and Morgan]

fair enough Andy but when you look at all the birds that were gifted to you and the birds you bred i don't think you have been very successful and i thing it unfair to single out just 2 birds

[Andy]

It depends what you mean by not very successful? My aim is Barcelona and wasn’t going to be achieved in a couple of seasons. I admit that I haven’t had great results in terms of positions but I’m not club racing where birds are all coming into a relatively small area. I’m not racing in OLR’s where every bird released is returning to the same loft. I am racing in big national races against some of the top flyers and against thousands of pigeons with birds going all over the country and races very much decided on the direction of the wind.
These are the facts from the last 4 years racing old birds.
2018
Sent 23 birds to 5 races
Lost 6
2019
Sent 24 birds to 5 races
Lost 8
2020
Sent 37 birds to 5 races (2 of which were internationals)
9 lost
All the above races were over the channel with the shortest race being 145 miles and the longest 544 miles.
2021 North road.
Sent 16 birds to 4 races
5 lost (3 of those were ones that had come in as strays).
I am hoping to be able to enter more races this coming year.
Admittedly youngbird racing has been more problematic and there have been some terrible races where returns in general have been poor for many members. This is why I have decided I’m not worried if youngsters get raced or not.

As far as breeding goes. Because of the number of birds coming in I haven’t been able to breed that many myself and haven’t yet been able to build a team of our own. Good breeders are rarer than good racers and I would say that over all the years I haven’t had more than a handful of birds that have appeared in the pedigrees of lots of different birds in the loft at any one time.

I wasn’t particularly singling your hen out George. But this is her breeding record over the last 5 years.
Paired to 5 different cocks.
Bred 14 youngsters.
5 died in nest or culled
3 lost off loft
2 lost training
3 lost first race.
1 in loft just weaned.

[George and Morgan]

surprised you are still breeding from her was the breeding when you lost most of the birds in was it your first trainer last year

[Andy]

surprised you are still breeding from her was the breeding when you lost most of the birds in was it your first trainer last year

I was just going to keep her as a feeder George but she laid out of sink with anything else and she hadn’t been paired to this cock before so thought I’d let them have one round. They are back down on eggs but only pots.

Yes George it was the first trainer last year that really set me back. I had hoped for a good season last year but with the delay to the start of the season due to bird flu, first race not until 12th June, the change in direction and the bad trainer where I lost a lot of birds that had flown the channel, 18 lost from 24 from 18 miles, it wasn’t a good season. Hopefully things will be better this year.

[Andy]

Just checked all the youngsters weaned yesterday. They all have a full crop tonight