2/27/2005

Most of my young birds have taken at least a spin around the loft by now.  All of them fly to the roof of the loft next to theirs.  Not too many are flying hard, but a couple of them regularly take off for a few minutes at a time.  At some point this week, if the weather is good, I will bring them across the yard and let them fly back to the loft.  I accidentally spooked them last week and one spent the night outside.  He seems pretty leery about venturing out too far now.  But I’d rather I spook them now and they fly a short distance, than a hawk chases them too far away at another time.

 

I had my first hawk attack of the year.  It was actually a good one, because it attacked the pigeons in my hawk trap.  All pigeons are safe and one less problem for the future. J

 

I ordered my vaccines (Paratyphoid, PMV, Pox) from Siegel’s.  I will be vaccinating my birds soon, and others as they arrive.  I bought 100 syringes so that I can save the vaccine between uses.  Normally I use the entire bottle all at once, but a sterile needle going into the vaccine jar should not contaminate the vaccine.  I will vaccinate for Pox all at the same time, most likely in early May.

 

I candled my eggs from the pair I received from World of Wings.  Both eggs are fertile and under foster parents.  I am going to get a second round from them and be done breeding (this time for sure…).  I have four gold bands left and those will be spoken for with these babies.

 

My old birds are flying longer too.  I brought the cocks about a mile from the loft, to the South and they flew back without issues.  I didn’t expect any problems, but during their young bird season, they flew from the North.  This year it’s from the South.  2005 Young birds are flying from the Southeast.

 

I have put my Loft Log on the web.  If you have missed any updates, or need links to any of the races, you can go to my page and link out.  The link can be located at http://home.comcast.net/~edrenckh/pigeons.html.  I will be adding some pictures as time allows.

 

 

2/20/2005

A few of my young birds have started flying.  Not too much, just a few laps around the loft.  Only the brave ones so far have done it, perhaps four or five out of the nineteen birds.  I have been letting them fly with the old cocks that seem to stay pretty close.  I will be flying them with the hens this week.

 

I have not seen any hawks around.  Just in case, I have begun my hawk re-location program.  Since I am a falconer, I am able to keep a trap set in the backyard.  If any hawks are caught, I will relocate them.

 

I moved my hens into my young bird loft this weekend.  I’m not really sure why I had the cocks with the young birds to begin with, other than it made sense at the time.  Since the young birds are on extended lighting, I didn’t want my Widowhood Cock team to start molting too fast.  So I switched the cocks out with the hens.  Now if the hens start molting, it won’t be my primary racers so it’s better.  Maybe next year I will have old bird flying figured out….

 

My pair from World of Wings is getting somewhat broody.  I haven’t seen them too romantic, but maybe they wait until I am gone.  I have a couple of foster pairs that are ready to take over the first set of eggs, when they finally lay them.

 

My old-bird setup is getting closer to completion.  I have my aviary almost complete.  When finished, it will link two of my smaller lofts together.  It will be a real timesaver as I will be able to exercise old birds and keep the hens and cocks separate.  Now it’s a manual chore to catch the birds and move them back to where I am keeping them.  As soon as the snow melts enough to move the lofts all together, I will be set.  Hopefully the snow will be gone in early March.

 

 

2/13/2005

Most of my pairs are now split up.  I only have 4 pairs left together, other than a pair of birds that I recently received from World of Wings.  I plan on getting two rounds of youngsters from them, with the first round going to pumpers.  I am going to remove eggs from the other four pairs every few days so that I can hopefully time their eggs with my new pair of breeders.  I want to give the new pair has a chance to prove themselves this year.

 

I flew my old birds a few times this week, they are starting to fly a bit longer, but it’s sort of a pain as after I fly them I have to catch them and bring them to a different loft.  I have started to build an aviary that will join my two old bird lofts and have a common trap.  This should ease my exercising of the old birds.  I hope to have it completed by the first weekend in March, perhaps sooner.  If we start getting warmer weather it will be easier.

 

I treated all of the birds for Canker with Turbosole, for the past week.  Since I weaned all of the remaining birds, I feel the stress level of the birds was probably high, so I treated. 

All of the newly weaned birds are doing well.  They are going through the trap several times each day and learning the feeding call that I give.  A few have flown down to the ground and back up.  I suspect that in a week some of them may make a short flight around the loft.

 

I have them on 17 hours of light right now.  I will switch to a darkening system in mid to late April.  That way, many of the flights will be molted first, followed by an intense body molt in early summer.  Last year I received my best performing birds from another flyer on May 1st, so that should be plenty of time in the dark.  I may have to cut and pull the 9th and 10th flight.  I want to come into the race season with adult plumage, both body and wing.

 

I went to my club’s Awards Banquet last evening.  I accepted the awards for ‘A’ release average speed, ‘B’ release average speed, Overall average speed, High point bird in the ‘A’ releases, high point bird in the ‘B’ release and a couple of race wins.  7 ‘trophies’ in all.  We actually have a plaque with brass plates that get added for every win.  It looks great and takes up less space than regular trophies.  Now I have to ensure that I am not just a ‘flash-in-the-pan’.

 

Our concourse flies in five different directions for Young Birds, going clockwise to a new direction every year.  Several people in our club have mentioned that the SE course for is hard for our club, due to our birds being dragged further north.  While that may be, I think extensive training can help avoid the issue of my birds over-flying the loft and having to turn around.  The central part of the cities is only about 10 miles away; so I hope that my birds will already be in the loft before the rest of the birds begin to fly in to go to the other lofts in the cities.  Time will tell which theory is correct.

 

 

2/6/2005

I weaned most of my first round of birds this weekend.  The birds went into my new loft, which is mostly complete.  It seems that there is always a few ‘odds and ends’ still to do, or re-do.  I could fly with it the way it is, but I hope to have a ‘prefect’ setup - whatever that is…

 

Since I am only taking one round of youngsters from most of my pairs, I placed four of the cocks that I am no longer breeding in with the young birds.  That way, if there are any that are slow to figure out the feed and water, the older birds will help out.  After a week or so, I will remove them.  I saw many of the youngsters are eating grain already, and all had full crops.

 

Jot me a note and let me know how your breeding is going.  I have heard from some of you, but it’s nice to get an update to help plan arrivals.

 

I purchased a software program, Hawkeye, to help out the record keeping.  Previous to this I was using Excel, which works good, but year-to-year comparisons are difficult with the way I had it setup.  So far, I believe it will be a great help.  If you have software that you are using that you think is good, please let me know.

 

I loft flew most of my old birds this weekend as it was a pretty nice weather.  I still need to adjust my setup for old birds, as I have two old bird lofts, but only one trap.  After they return, I have to manually catch the ones that don’t belong and move them to they correct section.  That will be my March project, putting in a common aviary and trap.

 

I will probably look at how dark my loft will be when I close it up at some point this week.  I have most of the light sources fairly well blocked, but since we don’t have too much daylight yet, it has been a bit difficult.  By the time I get home from work, it’s dark.  I have a window in the main door that I need to block, but other than that, its just cracks around the doors and windows.  My sliding doors may need a fringe around them to block additional light.  I should be starting to darken in a couple of weeks, maybe a bit sooner.