Training Old birds now the season has started

I know we touched on this subject a little with the other Phil's posting which was headed 'is it too much?' My question is, what do you think about training old birds once the racing season is underway?

Should one keep training for example once a week well into the old bird season, or is once a week not enough, or do you feel that training old birds at all once they get past 200 miles is a waste of time?

Phil

the latter for me phil

same here, lost 3 hens training, one of them scored my only first place last season, its feeding time for hawks

We don't have that kind of hawk problem here in my part of frogland - would that make any difference to your training?

Phil

phil, I know you might have already said on another topic.....but how are your old birds racing, natural, widowhood or roundabout...?

I would like to say we are on "Widowhood" but we only have 4 hens to 8 cocks.

Last weekend I took 4 stock hens that are resting at the moment, and put them into one side of a cock's nest box. We are using standard widowhood nest boxes with plastic fronts.

The 4 hens that have been with a cock before, know which box to go into, so they are happy. I am using the 4 stock hens to gee the other 4 cocks up somewhat.

I only used this for the first time last weekend so none of the birds are really used to any system yet, bearing in mind last week was only their second race. I am trusting that, as the weeks go on, I can play with them a bit more, and hopefully motivate them.

The only slight snag with the system as it is at the moment is that, if a cock comes back before its racing hen, it might be a little disgruntled. We will have to see.

Phil

As I have said before I like to train for days a week as I feed a heavy mix and they don't fly around home very well but if they do fly well at home then I wouldn't think training would help

markevans wrote:

As I have said before I like to train for days a week as I feed a heavy mix and they don't fly around home very well but if they do fly well at home then I wouldn't think training would help

How far do you train your birds Mark?

Phil

30miles Phil Monday to Thursday weather permitted its just what I have all ways done then I feel its up to the birds