Darkness Vs Light and Natural Systems.

OK Guys, lets open up the worm tin.
What advantages do you think the Darkness system has over the Light and Natural systems.
Without giving too much away, which system do you use and why?

never heard of the light systerm and the darkness never tryed and natural my birds just fell apart 3races in and it sucked

hi gaz , darkness wins hands down every time if you want to compeat with yb in the big races
naturals can,t realy touch them , but on the other hand your yb have to be good ones to win on any system putting them on dark wount help them if there not bred of decent stock . but last year i raced my yb on the natural system and they held there own all the way through to the yb national getting 15th section D so there you go quality all the time but i perfer the natural system my self but if i was serious about racing yb then it would have to be darkness every time . cheers kev .

people have and do win without darkness but that will
only be in the early races once the distance and real work comes in to play
you wont beet darkness y/b well ya will get the odd 1 but in general darkness
will come to the front

I've had most success on light, I once tried the dark, but it wasn't for me. Although we did have a few winners.
I had two of my best seasons racing on the light and scored well from our middle distance races but my best results were from our longest races at the South Coast.
The birds raced twice a week as well as training.

the darkness system has worked very well for me but i dont darken for as many hours in the day as most and the ybs raced the programme ,i agree with gary about ybs on the dark and respiratory for the simple fact that people breed to much crap and cram the ybs in .....air quality diminishes and you can imagine the effect in a darkened loft on a hot day overcrowded.
this year i am putting half the ybs on natural these being distance birds so it will be interesting to compare the 2 sets of birds

well as G says your natural will be ok for the first couple but the darkies will murder them later on and especially if you use the d/dark system better still
the light system is basically the dark in reverse this is widely practiced in america and from what i have read with great effect
the darkies and light youngins mature faster and seem to grasp racing quicker and usually come out better at longer harder races perhaps some of our american members could explain the light system in depth sean

yes sean it would be good if someone could exsplain the light system in more detail

i agree with graham and sean, natural ybs can and do win in the early races......but as we all know ybs soon start to drop to bits so they cant compete in the longer yb races, this is where the darks come into their own.

as someone has already said tho, darkness wont make a bad pigeon a good pigeon, if its crap its crap on either system.........

can someone give info on the light system...?

come on gaz spill the beans on the light system lol

should emagine its something to do with extending the hours of day light, but not sure.........

plus how would this effect the bird and to what benefit ?

David wrote:

should emagine its something to do with extending the hours of day light, but not sure.........

plus how would this effect the bird and to what benefit ?

i do know the light system is between 18-20 hrs light they will do a full moult they more like yearlings than youngins so being more mature this gives a great advantage sean

so by lengthening the day light hours it does the same thing as shortening day light hours ....? it makes them moult quick ?

David wrote:

so by lengthening the day light hours it does the same thing as shortening day light hours ....? it makes them moult quick ?

thats what i understand it to be think its just the darkness in reverse but as i say it is flown in america by many lofts with great results sean

Basically, your birds are in light for 23 hours a day and you put your lights on a timer to shut off one hour before dawn.
To use the light system in full, it starts in the stock loft at breeding time.
This ensures that the youngbirds are accustomed to it already.
It also ensures that the birds in the nest are given the best possible start in life, as they don't have a long period of darkness and they don't have any long periods of stress without food during the hours of darkness.
This does have it drawbacks of course. The stock birds work twice as hard and do have be brought back into condition for the next round.
The light birds are continually active, they have constant fresh air.
They are not in a warm stuffy dark loft filled with airborne dust particles, that could carry disease should one occur.
Light birds can be bred much earlier and allow to mature naturally.
Unlike darkness pigeons, they are not forced into moulting or maturing in other way other than what occurs naturally.
The thing is with light pigeons, they don't have to catch up in anyway.
Everything is a natural progression.
No stress.
The only thing with light pigeons, is that they have to be trained much harder and once the come into condition, you have to constantly keep on at them in the training basket.
Ease up and let them rest more, then they will fall into the moult, which will render them useless for the later races, they will start to moult in the wing, but this is slowly moulting the secondary flights, but nearer to the end of the season, will drop primary flights too. Never send a bird that is bursting a flight, but once it has come through then they are back in the game.

wont light ybs be still subjected to stress ? even using this system will alter the hormones like the dark system......?

i think maybe yb sickness is so rife in dark ybs is becasuse they are fed too late in the day before the loft is darkened, therfor giving the birds not enough time to digest the corn properly............

this is just a thought.

David wrote:

wont light ybs be still subjected to stress ? even using this system will alter the hormones like the dark system......?

i think maybe yb sickness is so rife in dark ybs is becasuse they are fed too late in the day before the loft is darkened, therfor giving the birds not enough time to digest the corn properly............

this is just a thought.

you could well be right david i seen some lofts on the darkness with the vents boarded up think your asking for trouble dont need to be that dark sean

hi sean, ive done it for two years now and in my opinion as long as you stick roughly to the opening and closing times the system will work...........the first year i stuck ridgidly to the times but this season just gone i didnt, and it made no difference at all..........they still could have raced the full yb season as they hadnt started dropping wing flights or moulting heavily.

i agree sean, my loft wasnt pitch black, remember they need to find the drinker........

They are subject to some stress of racing and training as with all birds, but it's a gradual sort of stress.
But no illness or respiratory.
I got the idea from a fancier I met in Blackpool in 2001 from Iceland.
He was telling me, how where he lives it never goes dark in the summer months and he takes UK bought birds back home with him.
He said they race well for him and maybe it could work for us if we imitated daylight.
So the next season I adopted the system and it worked a treat.
The following season a few fanciers I know had a go at the same system, they too had only good things to say bout it.
I have spoken to others who only put their birds in 18 hrs daylight, but the results were the same.
They do moult some of the body feathers, but it's not a heavy moult like the darkness.
I would never rubbish anybody else's system and I would think all these systems just add to fun, so to speak.
Nor would I say any system is superior to another, I have raced well on natural too.
But the light certainly worked for me.
One other thing I did also do was to separate the sexes, by the use of a mesh door, so they could see each other, this seemed to also work a treat, as I only let them play together on basketting day and when they returned from racing.
Both cocks and hens scored well..

i tried the light system once many years ago they mature

at a rappid rate ide say they look even better than darkness pigeons

i had them trained well up to 50 miles never dropped 1 out of the twelve i

had on it but then came the first race12 light birds went along with about 15 not on the light

dont know what went wrong but to this day im still waiting for the first 1 to get back all the others got home a bloody mystery to me

so i didnt try it again i used the darkness but i will give it another go once i get a team up and running

once again though you have to remember you play and mess with nature your

playing with fire

birdy2011 wrote:

i tried the light system once many years ago they mature

at a rappid rate ide say they look even better than darkness pigeons

i had them trained well up to 50 miles never dropped 1 out of the twelve i

had on it but then came the first race12 light birds went along with about 15 not on the light

dont know what went wrong but to this day im still waiting for the first 1 to get back all the others got home a bloody mystery to me

so i didnt try it again i used the darkness but i will give it another go once i get a team up and running

once again though you have to remember you play and mess with nature your

playing with fire

yes thats damn strange that g eh

duno yes it was strange but the birds were fit ide have bet my life on them
being the first back

That's pigeon racing G.
As with any system mate, there's no hard and fast rules and it's all trial and error.
My first team of youngsters I had on it, miraculously I only dropped two, one reported in Belgium, the other came back 4 weeks after the season ended.

well ill give it another go gaz cus i must say they looked well and far more mature

just dont know why none ever showed up

Strange mate, indeed.
I like the system because of it's simplicity.
Plus I like to spend time with my youngsters, lots of it.
With the darkness, you don't get to spend this time with them for obvious reasons.
I have to agree, they do seem to be a lot more advanced and they do make cracking yearlings the following year.