UkPigeonRacing

After having slept a day on an absolute nightmare of a training flight with the combine. I still got the same question on my mind

Our combine had the first training together with the youngsters this friday. The pigeons took over 2 hours for just 40km. And everyone only got a handful home at that time. 10 hours into the release there were people in the combine having 4/38 , 3/34 , 3/17 , 30/94 ETC at home just very shocking results overall Including me who also had 40/59 at home after 10 hours. I have though and still think they colided with another combine training their youngbirds and went with them. But yesterday i started ringing a few people from other combines and they all seemed to have pretty similar issues. I know of atleast 2 other combines with same results..

Ive noticed over the past 3 years more and more losses of youngbirds and yearlings with the numbers rising drastically over the years here and it seems like its not just our combine. Ive heard people say that they think nowdays combines here are to big and the youngsters all get dragged to the side of the combine with the most pigeons and then seem to struggle finding their way back from there. Others say somethings up with the magnetic field some say the pigeons just got worse over the years.

Curious what some people here would think what exactly the problem could be. Now 2 days after i got 47/59 home. But some still miss 50-70% of what they basketed Its save to assume from 880 youngsters basketed theres atleast 300 missing on just a 40km training

The problem certainly isn't the magnetic field, as that would effect ALL the birds. If the birds had collided with another combine training their young birds, your members would have some of their stray birds and you theirs? Have members got strays in from another Combine?

40km is just short of 25 miles! NO Combine should be letting YBs birds go at such a short distance. Why send to a distance you can take them yourself?

The shorter the toss, the bigger the smash.
I can recall a local fancier to me taking his 100 ybs just 1 mile. He had 92 missing on the night.

king wrote: Sun Jul 27, 2025 2:42 pm 40km is just short of 25 miles! NO Combine should be letting YBs birds go at such a short distance. Why send to a distance you can take them yourself?

The shorter the toss, the bigger the smash.
I can recall a local fancier to me taking his 100 ybs just 1 mile. He had 92 missing on the night.

I totaly agree with you on this the problem is that the length of the closest to furthest loft in our combine is so big at this point that if we went to 60-80km which would usually be the first training flight the furthest loft would have 120+km which they claim so to much for them due to the first actual race only beeing 106km anyways. Ive suggested to split the combine into 2 for the first 2 training flights and 1 training flight with the whole combine after but it got declined id assume due to insufficient funds. Thats how it used to be back then when we had more fanciers they would split it into smaller sections and do 2 seperate trainings. unfortunatelly racing young birds here has little to non value and no one puts effort into it id say atleast half the combine wont even bother training their youngbirds by themself over 5km if even

Spieker-Loft wrote: Sun Jul 27, 2025 3:12 pm

king wrote: Sun Jul 27, 2025 2:42 pm 40km is just short of 25 miles! NO Combine should be letting YBs birds go at such a short distance. Why send to a distance you can take them yourself?

The shorter the toss, the bigger the smash.
I can recall a local fancier to me taking his 100 ybs just 1 mile. He had 92 missing on the night.

I totaly agree with you on this the problem is that the length of the closest to furthest loft in our combine is so big at this point that if we went to 60-80km which would usually be the first training flight the furthest loft would have 120+km which they claim so to much for them due to the first actual race only beeing 106km anyways. Ive suggested to split the combine into 2 for the first 2 training flights and 1 training flight with the whole combine after but it got declined id assume due to insufficient funds. Thats how it used to be back then when we had more fanciers they would split it into smaller sections and do 2 seperate trainings. unfortunatelly racing young birds here has little to non value and no one puts effort into it id say atleast half the combine wont even bother training their youngbirds by themself over 5km if even

That explains a lot about this race. Training to just 5km/3 miles.! The birds will fly further afield while loft flying. I always used to train my YBs well. Never bothered with short tosses at all. Started at 7 or 10 miles and was at 20 miles for the 3rd toss. In the last few years I raced I'd miss the early couple of short races, and send to the 3rd around 117 miles. When racing in the National they were often jumped into 368 miles from 150/170 miles.

Years ago a couple of local brothers used to let their YBs go from a football pitch no more than 500 yards from their loft and lost boat loads year after year
We always used to start ours at 15 miles on their own when they’d got the hang of that on th 25 miles then and only then did they see the training wagon why mess about with short chucks

If they’re running for 2 hours 5 miles is an insult