I've had several friends from accross the country inquire on how to train young birds:
I will try to address some of the most common questions like:
1. How soon do you start training your young birds?
2. How do you minimize the losses?
3. How do you get more speed out of them?
4. How do you keep them healthy through-out the Young Bird Season?
There were more questions and concerns but if can address these four with some success I will have done my job.
1. How soon do you start training your young birds?
As with training puppies to respond to their owners young pigeons should be started out right away. With puppies house breaking and coming on comand are the first two building blocks that prepare the young dog to learn. I move my young birds over once their feathers have come in under their wings, usually around 26 to 27 days old. Some flyers move them earlier, but I like them to have great health when I move them and for me this seems to be around day 26. The young birds are taught where the water is and then they are taught that when I feed them a whissle is used prior to them getting feed. Once ythese have been introduced it's to the outside where they are taught to enter the loft from the landing board - to the trap - and into the loft. For me this is the beggining of training, the foundation for futher learning and it starts at day 26 of their young lives.
2. How do you minimize the losses?
We live in the open part of the Northland with only Canada and the Northern Forests of the Northland North of us for miles and miles. For my first few years I, as well as many other flyers in my area, had experienced the heart ache of fly aways due to the youngsters either being too strong on the wing or being scared away by the dreaded attack of the "Gosh Hawk". Either way, large groups of young birds were gone and a scramble was made to recoop the looses so that we could have enough young birds to compete in the Young Bird Season. This was not just a problem for our area as I have had many of my friends from Southern Minnesota tell of the same problem, only their problems due to the vast open space of the farm lands found in that area.
Another problem was loosing Youngsters in training tosses. With the vast oppions on how to train Young Birds, it can be confussing on what is the best way to proceed in this this area too. So here are the few tricks that I have learned over the years that have worked for me.
As I stated earlier, the first thing I teach young birds is that the loft is their safe zone, where food, water, comfort and safety can be found. At day 26 when they are moved over they begin the traing process - how to land on the landing board - go thru the trap to the safety of the loft - to food and water. Once they have this on board they are ready to get acclimated to their home..
When setteling my babies I will often let the Natural flying Old Birds have their morning fly and then let the Young Birds out with the Old Birds as the Old ones have open loft. This tends to keep the Youngsters home as most flyers know that the Old Birds do not particuliary like to travel. When the flock goes up due to a scare of an attacking Gosh Hawk or just because they want to test out their flying ability the Old Birds in the flock will head them home before they get too far away. Once the young birds have been flock flying with the old birds for about 4 weeks I start letting them up on their own. By this time they have the stamana to get home from a long routing and it has cut my looses from around the loft ot zero - except for the unfortunate ones that could not exscape the tallens of the Gosh Hawk.
3. How do you get more speed out of them?
Once the Young Bird flock is traveling on a regular basis they are ready for the next jump in training - The Training Basket. I had a friend of mine in the club read and reread Rotondo's book on Racing Pigeons. In his book he pushed taking Young Birds 40 miles for their first training toss. Following Rotondo's guidence, Dave took 50 of his best for a 40 mile first toss and the results were terrible, something like 2 or 3 of the 50 ever coming home. I do believe that traveling Young Birds are capable of coming home from tosses like this but I am much more causcious when I start them out.
My first few tosses start at 3 miles - then 5 miles - then 8 miles - 13 miles - several at 20 miles - several at 30 miles - several at 50 miles - then the rest of the training they go 60 miles every day up to the first race.
One of the tricks that I have used is to put 10 of my fastest Old Hens in with the training Young Birds. The Old Hens do not like to fool around on training flights an will take the fastest route home and besause there is 10 of them they will drag the reluctant Young Birds with them. I started out doing this with just 3 Old Hens but there was many a toss where the Old Hens would just peel off the Young Bird flock and be home 2 to 3 hours ahead of them. So I upped the anti to 10 Old Hens and that did the trick. The young Birds learn that their number one priority on any toss is to race home for food - water - and safety. Once they are coming from the 50 mile toss consistently the Old Hens are retired and the Young Birds continue on their own.
I train my young birds by my self out to the 50 mile point for about a month. At that point I start training with several of the members in our club here in Duluth. I have learned to teach my youngster to race every time they come out of the basket. When training by my self I will start whissling the "come and eat whissle". Once they get agitated in the baskets I'll let one basket go, keep whissling for 5 minutes and then let the rest take off - believe me there is not alot of time wasted circling for the last group up. When I train with friends the same procedure is followed only this time their birds are given the 5 minute head start. It has really helped me up the speed of returning Young Birds. Try it you might like it.
4. How do you keep them healthy through out the Young Bird Season?
As with the first three questions, this has to be one of the most frequently asked questions that I hear. Lets start at day 26, when they are moved over. The youngsters are still benifiting from the immunities provided them from their nuturing partents. The big issue at hand at this time is making sure that they figure out where the water is. Many a future champion has been lost when the loft manager does not recoginize that their baby has not been drinking water. By the time they figure it out the Young Bird is dehydrated and in poor shape. You must spend time in the loft paying attention to what the birds are telling you. A sure "Red Flag" for the moved over Young Birds is when they start to look sleepy in the eyes - a quick dip of the beak into the water fountain and you'll see why they look that way.
I generally do not like to medicate my birds. We have the benifit of the cold climate up here in Duluth, which slows down or prevents alot of the bacterias and virus' that the southern part of our country has to contend with. With that said, there are still some diseases that I take routine precautions against; Canker, Coccidious, Parathyphoid, Pox, E-coli Infections, Worms and PMV. I believe that the farther south you go, the more vigilant you must be at protecting your birds agains these potential dangers.
There are volumes of books and research available on this subject. I have found that you can get all of your concerns taken care of by talking to Bert Oostlandr of Global Pigeon Supplies; Ed Minevile of Charles Siegel or Mike Ganus of Vita King Fame. These guys have helped me out "Big Time" over the years and are up to date with the problems concerning the various parts of our country.
My formate is to vacinate the young birds for PMV and Parathyphoid when I move them over. Then using Global's Multi-Mix, I treat for Canker, Coccidious and Worms at the same time. Around here there have been several flyers that have had a mystery bug that seems to hit the young birds just about the time that the immunities provided them by their parents wears off, about 37 to 47 days of age. Very discouraging to see these beautiful babies go to nothing in the hand and die. After some research I have concluded that it is a tough form of E-coli. With the help of my good friend Johnny Sawicki, sawickif@uwec.edu , I have been able to obtain top notch Baytril for a very reasonable price. Some flyers are afraid to use this wonderful antibiotic but if you use it like Johnny recommends followed by some form of friendly bacteria you will not have to contend with sick babies.
It seems that once the birds are to the training age the routine matainence program in about all you need to keep them going. Always paying attention to what the birds are telling you by their energy levels and activity around the loft. When we start racing the Young Birds I always give them a treatment of Multi-Mix every other week because I feel that they are often exposed to sick birds in the basket. I don't need them bringing that back into the loft so this is where a little precaution can prevent alot of heart ache down the road.
