Young birds, yearlings and old birds.
Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2022 10:16 pm
A new topic for discussion that hopefully will be of interest. Based on our venture to fly Barcelona or Lerwick if north road. I have said from the start that I was going to be upfront and transparent in what we do and tell members of what we are doing and how things are going, both good and bad.
Anyway back to the topic. This is partly for our good friends Killer and Murray from down under.
My thoughts are that these birds need time to mature and develop naturally as I want them to be able to compete for a few years and not just be blown out in one or two. I think 150 miles is far enough for youngsters, 350 for yearlings and 500 as two year olds and then to the longest races after that.
Young birds: I pair up in February so don’t have youngsters hatching until mid March and through April. Young bird racing starts in this country at end of July with the national races in August and early September. By this time our eldest youngsters are still only 5 months old with the younger ones barely 12 weeks old. Looking at some this evening the eldest ones are up on their fifth flights so will soon be going into the body moult. These factors are why I’m not fussed about racing them as youngsters. They will get a few short trainers though. It’s not as though I have the option of a few short club races. These birds will only race in nationals against pigeons flying to all parts of the country so young bird racing can be difficult for them and they can and do end up flying many more miles than the race point would suggest.
Yearlings: These will start racing end of April going through until July. So these birds are not much more than a year old. Hopefully they would have gone through a good moult, be paired up and probably raised a youngster or two, but still maturing. Some of these may have had a race as a youngster but many wouldn’t. The first races for our yearlings are generally between 150 & 200 miles. I’m not worried about jumping birds into these races whether raced before or not. I think that the sort of birds we are looking for for the future long distance races if fit and well should complete these races ok. I’m not worried about how long they take or even if they night out. I am happy if they only have a couple of races as yearlings just for experience. I don’t think yearlings want to go any further than 350 miles. Some people do send yearlings to the longer races and get the odd ones putting up good performances but that is alright if you have a lot of pigeons and a well established team, but I think they will only put in these performances as yearlings and then be finished. The yearling stage is where I like to sort out the ones for the future and think that any left at the end of the season are worth keeping.
Old birds: Having hopefully come through the first couple of years of their life now is the time for them to show what they are capable of. I would hope to get 2 or 3 good build up races for them before being sent to their main race for that season. By now they should be well matured but also fresh as they wouldn’t have had that much racing prior. A good 500 miler as two year olds should be enough then anything after that. I would hope to then get another 3 or 4 seasons out of them after that.
As far as working youngsters is concerned with what we have been discussing in other topics I had an interesting conversation with a customer during the week. She has a hydrotherapy unit for dogs and reckons that she is seeing a lot of dogs coming in with back or muscle problems. She says that most of the problem is caused by dogs being over exercised as puppies before being mature. She says that a rule of thumb is that 5 minutes per month of age is ample. So for a 8 week old puppy 10 minutes per day is enough. 15 minutes per day at 3 months, 20 minutes at 4 months and so on. If over exercised to much before the bones and muscles have matured permanent damage can be caused.
So my idea is that a slow build up and being left to mature is the way forward to achieve our goal. A lot of pigeons aren’t going to make the grade as not many are capable of competing in these marathon races but I hope to give them every chance when they get to go.
Anyway back to the topic. This is partly for our good friends Killer and Murray from down under.
My thoughts are that these birds need time to mature and develop naturally as I want them to be able to compete for a few years and not just be blown out in one or two. I think 150 miles is far enough for youngsters, 350 for yearlings and 500 as two year olds and then to the longest races after that.
Young birds: I pair up in February so don’t have youngsters hatching until mid March and through April. Young bird racing starts in this country at end of July with the national races in August and early September. By this time our eldest youngsters are still only 5 months old with the younger ones barely 12 weeks old. Looking at some this evening the eldest ones are up on their fifth flights so will soon be going into the body moult. These factors are why I’m not fussed about racing them as youngsters. They will get a few short trainers though. It’s not as though I have the option of a few short club races. These birds will only race in nationals against pigeons flying to all parts of the country so young bird racing can be difficult for them and they can and do end up flying many more miles than the race point would suggest.
Yearlings: These will start racing end of April going through until July. So these birds are not much more than a year old. Hopefully they would have gone through a good moult, be paired up and probably raised a youngster or two, but still maturing. Some of these may have had a race as a youngster but many wouldn’t. The first races for our yearlings are generally between 150 & 200 miles. I’m not worried about jumping birds into these races whether raced before or not. I think that the sort of birds we are looking for for the future long distance races if fit and well should complete these races ok. I’m not worried about how long they take or even if they night out. I am happy if they only have a couple of races as yearlings just for experience. I don’t think yearlings want to go any further than 350 miles. Some people do send yearlings to the longer races and get the odd ones putting up good performances but that is alright if you have a lot of pigeons and a well established team, but I think they will only put in these performances as yearlings and then be finished. The yearling stage is where I like to sort out the ones for the future and think that any left at the end of the season are worth keeping.
Old birds: Having hopefully come through the first couple of years of their life now is the time for them to show what they are capable of. I would hope to get 2 or 3 good build up races for them before being sent to their main race for that season. By now they should be well matured but also fresh as they wouldn’t have had that much racing prior. A good 500 miler as two year olds should be enough then anything after that. I would hope to then get another 3 or 4 seasons out of them after that.
As far as working youngsters is concerned with what we have been discussing in other topics I had an interesting conversation with a customer during the week. She has a hydrotherapy unit for dogs and reckons that she is seeing a lot of dogs coming in with back or muscle problems. She says that most of the problem is caused by dogs being over exercised as puppies before being mature. She says that a rule of thumb is that 5 minutes per month of age is ample. So for a 8 week old puppy 10 minutes per day is enough. 15 minutes per day at 3 months, 20 minutes at 4 months and so on. If over exercised to much before the bones and muscles have matured permanent damage can be caused.
So my idea is that a slow build up and being left to mature is the way forward to achieve our goal. A lot of pigeons aren’t going to make the grade as not many are capable of competing in these marathon races but I hope to give them every chance when they get to go.