Loft Log 05/17/2008
Since the last update, I have received birds from Art Casale, Bob Brumagin, Bob Long,
Bob Wallan,
I have sent messages for a few replacements, either the birds got lost, died or did not seem to be gaining weight like I thought they should. There is a lot of stress on a young bird, and some of them take the stress better than others. It is not fault of the breeder, or the bird, it’s just the way it is. Maybe it is my own handling that makes it worse, I am not sure. But most of the original birds (95%) have done well.
At this point, I have received the amount of birds that I had planned. I am actually a few birds over what I expected. I had planned on 100 birds; I have a few over that. I have developed a very efficient method of handling the birds, using my loading chute and large feeders, so the amount of birds is not the issue. I have two 12x12 lofts, so even at 75 birds per loft they still have about two square feet of floor space per bird. But I do not want to put in anymore birds than that.
If you are reading this, and have not yet sent your first AU birds (not replacements), please send them to another handler or put them on rotation. I can find a handler for you if you need it. We have many new fanciers flying the AU race that are full of ambition, energy and have a large desire to win.
The birds are now in the dark. I turned the lights off a couple of weeks ago, and they have started to molt. I am closing up the loft now to get the birds only eight hours of light per day. The lights come on at 1 PM, and go off at 9 PM. The birds get a ‘natural’ sunset, and are woken up by the lights in the closed up loft while I am at work. I open the loft up when I get home.
They will stay this way until about the middle of July. Then I will adjust the lights from 5:30 AM to 9:30 PM. That should be pretty close to the normal daylight hours, but it will stay constant throughout the race season.
The birds have been out a bit, but not flying too much. I have now pulled the 7th and 8th flight, and those should be fully grown out in a couple of weeks. The 9th and 10th are still cut, and I will pull them on all of the birds by about June first. When the birds come out of the dark, the flights will be full, and their bodies will look immaculate! The newer birds have only the 9th and 10th flight cut. I probably did not have to cut the newer birds flights at all, but I also find that they do not get too flighty when I do that, and the birds have a tendency to stay closer for a while. It definitely helps to settle the younger birds.
The training I have been doing is fairly limited. With a few flights cut, the birds cannot really get too far. I basket them up nearly every day, and single toss them from ~30 feet or so to the loft and trap. This way, while they are waiting for their flights to grow, they learn how to get in the baskets through the loading chute, see the loft from a distance, and fly to the trap. Some make a small circle, and land. It is amazing how at least one of them could still fly over 300’ and land on the telephone pole across the street. I will gradually move the basket out to about 150 feet, and after a couple of more runs to the trap, let multiple birds go at the same time. That’s when they will start to loft fly. By then they know how to trap from outside the loft, have a strong sense of where home is, and do not have to worry about hawks as much. I find that as soon as I get them to fly, I rest a lot easier. As soon as the birds are flying, they are more difficult for hawks to catch.
My goal is to have all of the birds make it to the race.
I find that if I train when the birds have a lot more light than what is natural, they tend to get into night-flights. At least that has been my experience. So they practice loading, trapping and sprinting to the loft for their meals. They are also reasonably safe from hawks.
I will be vaccinating right after the 15th of June, as that is the last day we can receive birds. I will hit them with Pox and Salmonella. As long as I am handling them to vaccinate, I will mark them with a red or blue band so that I can separate the sexes when I am ready.