06/26/2005

Due to the previous weeks problems, I brought the birds in closer for some tosses this week. I repeated the eight-mile toss a couple of times and went to 12 miles again before I brought them to 15 miles today. There was a fairly strong tailwind and the birds over-flew the loft and came in from the north.

All groups departed quickly on the release and in the correct direction. I anticipated that they would beat me home. The first group came in from the north, considerably later than I expected, but still in race time. The last group took about 2 hours to make it back. I suspect that they went on a fairly lengthy tour of the cities. There are still two birds out, hopefully they will return early in the AM.

The score has been revised to 7-3; I am still maintaining the lead. I only count birds lost off the loft for the competition, not birds in flight from a toss. Anything in flight is unfair competition, as I cannot go outside my area.

I revised the bird inventory and have it back on the web. I missed a bird (0979) that was out all week, until I saw it today flying in. It was a bit skinny, but had grain in its crop. I put it in quarantine for a day or two until I see how it’s doing. I also gave it plenty of good grain and vitamins.

I have started to band the cock birds with a blue spiral band and the hens get pink. Some of the birds, especially the earlier hatches and arrivals are looking really good. They look even better than old birds. The cocks are sizing up the hens and sparing a bit more aggressively. I put some box perches on the cock side and they have quickly taken them over. I plan on putting in at least 25 box perches so all of the cocks have some territory.

I sent my Unikon memory module back to Deister for a serial number update. I am not exactly sure what the real issue was, but they said if I didn’t have my module in the clock I could not log birds with my current setup. When I get it back, if I ever forget to put in the module, I am still OK. Shortly after getting the module back, I will fit the birds with electronic bands and start posting the training tosses. By then most of the birds that are going to get lost will already be lost.

I submitted a Request for Board Action to the AU. I may have missed the deadline for consideration, but I think the AU needs to do what it takes to promote the sport more. If it means raising fees, dues, etc. so be it. The Sport is slowly declining and we need some aggressive marketing efforts. Even the Boy Scouts have discontinued the merit badge of Pigeon Raising. We need to reverse the trend. I have gotten some very positive feedback from several pigeon flyers. This Board Action form is also on the web.

http://home.comcast.net/~edrenckh/PigeonArea/pigeons.html

06/19/2005

This week was a bit disappointing in regards to losses. I took the birds on several tosses without incident, but on the 10-mile toss on Friday I had a disaster. After releasing the birds, they circled for 5 minutes or so, and were drawn towards a massive power grid line about 400 yards away. It was the very large type, maybe 100+ yards high. I saw several birds hit the wires, or at least saw them fluttering to the ground. I ran over to the area, but the brush was at least 4-5’ tall. There was no way to find any birds that were dropped.

Even with my hunting dogs, it would have been tough to find any. The worst part is that as I was watching them, they circled 3-4 times through the wires. Each time, another bird or two fell to the ground. I had eight missing at the end of the day.

I have a bird inventory now, so you can look up any band numbers and see if your birds are still in the running…. I feel pretty bad about it; I am now releasing the baskets with a larger timeframe between releases.

On today’s 15-mile toss, there are three are a bit late, perhaps lost. All main groups returned, with a few stragglers coming in after the bell. The youngest birds that I have been able to keep a visual track of returned, so I am not sure what the problem may be. I think I will repeat that station for a few times until they start coming in without hesitation.

I have put the training tosses on the web too. Right now it’s just what I have sent them to, but in a couple of weeks I will put electronic bands on the birds and will post the significant tosses. As we get closer to the races, I will put more results up.

I am pretty well done with Old Birds for the year. There are a 400 and a 600-mile race left, but I think I will pass on those. My birds don’t seem to have it this year; I believe that due to my setup, early breeding and lights, I may have messed them up. Since my setup is considerably better now, I will be able to compete a bit better too.

06/12/2005

All birds are accounted for. I have now put a link on my site to list the bird inventory. I will update the list at least weekly.

8 weeks to go before the first Young Bird race on August 6^th. I am looking forward to it.

I had several short training tosses this week. The longest to date has been about 6 miles. I will be ratcheting up the distance a bit faster now, but I don’t want too many long tosses until it gets closer to the races.

All birds seem to be flying well, including the ones I thought were going to have issues. While both of them spent nights outside due to being very late arrivals from 2-mile tosses, they flew well today. One of them beat the flock home by about five minutes and had enough energy to fly quite a few victory laps. The other came in with the rest of the birds. Just when I was about to wish them good luck living on their own from a toss, they surprised me.

I put the all of the birds on a respiratory treatment a few days ago before the training gets going too heavily, just to make sure all is well health wise. This may have been the reason the two laggard birds are responding better.

I will be affixing Unikon bands to the birds sometime during the first week or so of July. By then, the basket will have culled any birds that are not worthy of a band. I have to send the memory module back to Deister to get a new serial number re-programmed into it right after Old Bird season. As soon as I get it back and loaded, I will be tracking significant training tosses.

This will also be helpful in order to pick birds from the nomination race that happens the week before the Gold Band race. All birds must be nominated before the first race.

I normally don’t like to keep track, but the score is now (6-3, my favor)

Last weeks old bird race went pretty good, considering the trouble I had earlier. While I didn’t win it, most of the birds were back in race time. I will be racing two more weeks, then concentrate fully on young birds.

06/05/2005

All of the young birds have now been on at least one short toss, even the younger group. This week if the weather is OK, I will get them all out to at least 5 five miles. From there I will be stretching them out fairly fast, along the line of flight to the breaking point. I believe that some where near the city of Hastings is where they will need to come off of the river and start across country to the loft. It is only about 25 miles, but I believe repetition is key.

The birds are back in a single group again, both the older and younger group. They all seem to loft fly together in a real nice tight group, even the youngest ones. I still have a problem with two, but one is a bit skinny, due to being the last in. I am taking a bit of extra care with it. The second bird will beeline to the loft from the neighboring building as soon as it sees the feed bucket. It is right among the first in the loft. There is no problem with that bird, maybe just lack of exercise. I will be fixing that rapidly in the coming weeks.

Another enemy combatant attempted to cross the perimeter this week. Luckily for the young birds, they were all in being vaccinated. The insurgent was quickly detained and no harm was done to the pigeons. (Score 5-3, my favor)

All of the young birds were vaccinated with Pox and PMV. I also finished up with vaccinating the later received birds with paratyphoid and re-vaccinated most of the others with any vaccine that was left. All but 4 were re-vaccinated. I vaccinate in the web of the thigh, so a few of them had a slight limp the today, the day after vaccinating. Hopefully this limp will go away in another day or so.

I am treating for canker, coccidiosis and worming this week. No problems are noted, but I will begin a heavier training schedule this week and into next. I want to be sure that there is nothing stopping the birds from coming home in a timely manner. Next week I will give a respiratory treatment.

My old birds are all together, hens and cocks. I will fly natural the rest of the season. Doing it again, I would have done things different. I think the early breeding from some pairs may have messed up their molt. But some of my fastest birds were birds I bred from, so I really don’t know. I think the birds need more motivation so I am hoping that being in nesting conditions will help their speed. Perhaps they got tired of the double widowhood system I was using. Or I didn’t let them pair up. Or maybe the fact they are all yearlings makes a difference. In any case, I am taking notes and will have a better old bird team next year.

I ordered a few widowhood books and videos last week. I want to get better at the widowhood and double widowhood systems for old birds. Hopefully this will lead to improvement in my Old Bird flying.