Winning with Hens

For the best way to fly this system you need ten cocks and twenty hens, or if wanting to race cocks it is the other way around, 10 hens and twenty cocks, you can use birds from the breeders to make up the numbers.

For the breeding boxes the ideal size is 30 inches long 18 inches deep and 12 inches high. The boxes should be made so a see through partition either wire or plastic can be fitted through the middle, this is to stop the hens getting to the cock on their return from the race or toss.

Approx six weeks before you want to bring the hens into racing you pair ten of the hens to the ten cocks, you let them lay their eggs, sit them for seven to ten days. You then throw out the eggs split the pairs wait a week then pair the other ten hens to the cocks; you follow the same procedure right up to the sitting of the eggs.

Train the hens together but do not let them go back to the cocks, three weeks before you bring them into racing let each group of hens see the cocks separately, don’t let two hens to the same cock at the same time.

Two weeks before you bring the hens into racing you give all the twenty hens three or four tosses together from approx ten to twenty klms, and this time trap them to the cocks, always make sure that somebody is home when the hens arrive or they could do themselves a fair amount of harm, both fighting over their shared cock bird.

When racing the hens only send ten at a time those mated to ten of the cocks, race the other ten hens the alternative week, this is in case of a bad smash you don’t want to lose all the hard work getting the hens to that stage, put the ten birds that you are not racing with the cock bird and let the birds that you are racing see them for a very short period of time then put them in the basket before taking the other hens out

If you lose one of the hens, before you send the other to a race put another hen in with her cock bird in one half of the nest then let the hen to be raced into the nest section for a few seconds, only enough time for her to see the other hen with her mate 

This system can be also used successfully with cock working in reverse

I have based this on 20 birds racing but it can be used with any combination and number of birds