Young Bird darkness System Part 2
Racing young birds my way
When you have reared
your young birds and have them on the darkness system, they should have been vaccinated as early as possible after weaning.
By
now your young birds should have been basket trained and learnt to drink whilst in the basket or crate, they should also coming
well from training every day. If you can try and get your birds to fly for one hour in the morning and one hour in the evening.
I
flag my youngsters at a very early age, so they get used to me flagging them, THEY GET INTO A HABIT OF FLYING AN HOUR AM AND
PM
This should be how they all through the young bird season, you may find it hard to get them into the habit but you can
do it if you want to win, if I can do it so can you, I get up as soon as it gets light enough to let my birds out (young or
old), if it means that you have to go to bed a little earlier, then this is what you will have to do,
BECAUSE THIS IS WHAT
YOUR CLUBS HIGHEST PRIZE WINNER IS DOING, IF YOU WISH TO KNOCK HIM OR HER FROM THE TOP SPOT, BE KEENER AND DO EVERYTHING BEFORE
AND BETTER THAN HIM.
Train every day weather permitting up to the first race, it should be around the twenty mile mark
on the line of flight right up to the first race, if you don’t want to loose many racing TRAIN THEM HARD
After the
first club race let your youngster’s pair to whom they wish to, in fact try and get them all to pair, if you give them
wheat germ oil once a week this will get them very amorous and they should pair very easily
Now put some nest bowls into
the young bird loft, all around the floor of the loft also along the sides of the loft about two feet apart, Lean a bit of
ply from the wall to the floor over each bowl, The size of the ply should be roughly eighteen inches by eighteen inches wide,
Cover the bowl with the bit of ply then block one side of the bowl, if you cut a bit of ply at an angle to the floor and the
wall this will block one side.
Once you have the birds down on eggs you may have to place some pot eggs into some bowls
and they will sit them.
After the second club race, on the Friday afternoon about an hour before you basket the birds
take away ALL the bits of ply, so now you have all the birds sitting eggs and are in view of all the other birds, this will
get them agitated, this is enough for your third race.
When the birds come home they will find all the bits of ply back
covering their bowls and nests, they will carry on sitting these eggs as if nothing had happened.
The next Friday two hours
before you basket them for the fourth race, take away the ply and move every nest bowl still with the young birds still sitting
eggs about a foot towards the middle of the loft, if you take a lot of care the young birds should not get off the eggs.
Leave
them alone until you basket them for the race, so now you can see that the birds will still sit on the eggs but very agitated
as some of the non sitting birds will be looking at the bowls with the birds sitting, the sitting birds are now trying to
defend their territory for all their worth, you can let the eggs hatch and still carry this on every week. But it is much
better to win the longer young bird races, so start them sitting to fit in with your race program.
Save all your egg shells
from your stock birds when they hatch, save them in a jam jar because you can use them for younger birds to gee them up, after
you have all the nest bowls near the drinker you can put a few empty shells around the nest bowls
If you have the time
and space another good way to race your hens is:-
Before you start racing your young birds pair 3 young hens to the same
cock, you need a loft where you can let your hens into the cocks department through a hole or sliding door, you need four
or more cocks so that you can pair a young hen to each of them every week until all the cocks are paired to THREE young hens,
try and not let the young hens lay, let them pair to the cock for about a week, Then another hen is paired to the cock, repeat
this the following week so after about three weeks you have three young hens paired to the same cock.
On Friday night whilst
basketing for the races let all three hens into the cock, they will all fly to the same nest box where the cock is locked
in one side. Be quick and basket them, then do the same until you have all of the young hens basketed for the race.
They
will get very jealous when all three are after the same cock, you can mess about with them every week any way you wish to,
Let the cocks into the young birds section when you have basketed all of your other young birds and only leave the young
hens that are paired to the old cocks, but don’t let them damage themselves fighting, remember there is only one winner
in your club so you only need one really keyed up to win for you.
You will find that you will get a few birds together
every race
But what ever system you use
YOU MUST HAVE GOOD BIRDS not good
PEDIGREES The best advice I can
give you is to go to the best flyer in your area within a 25 mile radius and try and purchase birds from his best, but the
fancier you chose must want you to win with his birds as well
THEY ARE HARD TO FIND but they are out there
Best
of luck Mick Waterhouse
