exchange bird home

I am pleased to say my exchange bird, who went to folkstone 3 weeks ago returned just after lunch today looking well and healthy still had his rubber on.. Where he has been heaven knows but hes survived well, we had a terrable race that day heavy rain all along the race point after a late lib. It was his 6th race and I thought he would come, but was disapointed but he has made it maybe hes learned a lot and will be hard to loose again. Not sure peoples thoughts about late birds but I always keep birds that keep coming and never seem to forget where home is. He wont race next year anyway, as Im not racing old birds so he will be there as a 2 year old and might do the channel races for me.

sure ive just replied to this.....................

not sure what happened, seem to have posted twice, maybe admin can delete 1.

a lot of our best birds had time out as youngsters, made a mistake but learnt a hard lesson

Lightning McQueen wrote:

a lot of our best birds had time out as youngsters, made a mistake but learnt a hard lesson

good point mark, have heard this sead before.............ive a hen which was missing for 5 weeks and came back so she should have had a good look round

Well you should know mark as it was your bird....and I must say a real favourite of mine this year never put a foot wrong he had 20 ish training toses up to 40 miles and 6 races to 250 miles, not a night out...however he was starting the moult as I dont do darkness, so it might have been my mis judgement at fault and not the bird. But I must say he is now almost un looseable..lol

noticed with my younger ybs which wernt on the dark that when they were moulting they didnt even want to fly round the house..........plus when they were pairing up they didnt either .

Yes david it makes a difference, I have resisted the darkness for years and I must say i have an irish stray here thats been on it and the bird has only dropped 1 flight, not sure when it will moult so this is clearly a problem with darkness birds...but Im on it next year my youngsters this year started off like rockets I won 3 races and topped the section and open, but after 4 races they started to moult and the form fell away. from 1 to 2 hours flying each day not forced they went to 55 minutes and then 20 minutes, I never won another prize after that...so Im going darkness next year fro sure.

i tried dark for the first time martyn and my dark birds have just started moulting last week, they have dropped wing flights and the bottom part of the wing bar....also moulting around the head, not dropping to bits but would have lasted to fly the full race program.

thing is they will still be mouting in november, not so good for them, but thats the price I supose when you want to win.

dont know martyn this year was an experrimental season really, but by seeing other members in the clubs birds all dropping to bits, its made me realise its a must if i want to compete the full yb program.......i must say tho ive a lot still to learn about it.

me too.

yeah it do them good somtimes to spend a night out or so it seems to teech them somthing for sure.shame you not racing him next season thoe i beleive its a fatel time the first two years racing for the birds its as a yb and yearlings they learn all thier mistakes .well thats my thoughts.

I have had a bad time with yearlings, this year I sent 4 birds training 30 miles, a warm day light wind and fairly sunny. All 4 had raced at least twice as a youngster 2 had 4 races. I never saw a bird, a friend recons at least 1 would have come he thinks a disaster like somone shooting on route must have killed them, but it put me off. So Im not going to race any yearlings next year might do a couple of comebacks with some 2 year olds.

strange martyn, something must be happening to our pigeons other than bops/hawks....... i know they account for quite a few but surely not all of them.....

probably the biggest mystery of my pigeon career david, made no sense to me at all, I waited all day for them and couldnt quite believe they had gone, at least 10 races between them and not a bird...like the bermuda triangle...lol

pembrokeshire triangle martyn...............