MAY BLOG 2009
5.24.09 - Sunday
2:00 pm - On Friday, May 22, a number of pigeon fanciers from Arkansas and Oklahoma participated in a "special" long distance race from 500 to 700 miles liberated from Lebanon, Alabama between Birmingham and Atlanta. I designated the first inaugural race the BUBBA WILSON SPECIAL after the man who helped organize the race and pulled the race with his wife, Stacey "Bubba" Wilson. Bubba is the race secretary for the Arkansas River Racing Pigeon Club. Several weeks into the 2009 Old Bird Race Series, Bubba suffered a heart attack. After several days in the hospital, Bubba continued racing his pigeons. In spite of his illness, Bubba continued to race his pigeons and manage the club's affairs. I truly hope Bubba's club appreciates his heroic efforts to keep the race series going smoothly despite his personal health. Concerning the long distance race, Bubba fed and watered the birds magnificently and liberated them in the early morning hours to allow the fanciers in Oklahoma to have the opportunity to clock day birds.
There were 18 day birds clocked in Oklahoma. The minimum Oklahoma distance was 629 miles which was my loft. The farthest Oklahoma distance was Ron & Kay Smith's loft at 703 miles near Ponca City. The race results are as follows:
WinSpeed-1 North Central Oklahoma Combine 05/23/09-19:45
Weekly Race Report Page 1
Open and Sportsman Category
Name: BUBBA WILSON SPECIAL Old Bird Race (Special) Flown: 05/22/2009
Release(A): 05:30 Birds: 54 Lofts: 9 Station: LEBANON AL
Weather (Rel) Ptly Cldy, ENE 8-10, 66 degrees (Arr) SUNNY, E-10, 79 degrees
POS NAME BAND NUMBER CLR X ARRIVAL MILES TOWIN YPM PT
1 QUAY HILL /16 7036 AU 07 KEY BC C 18:27:12 666.342 00.00 1508.971 50
2 LAMBERTON C/2 446 AU 07 TEAM WHIT C 17:48:50 628.890 05.20 1498.075 49
3 TNT TITANS/17 16 AU 07 OLLI BB C 17:56:40 634.835 06.13 1496.374 48
4 TAISHO LOFT/7 124 AU 07 TSHO SILV H 18:13:26 636.759 20.44 1467.967 47
5 TNT TITANS 92 AU 06 TNT NONE C 18:17:04 2/ 17 26.38 1456.578 46
6 TNT TITANS 57 AU 06 TNT BB C 18:26:45 3/ 17 36.19 1438.420 45
--------------------------------- Above are 10 percent ------------------------
7 TNT TITANS 337 AU 08 TNT BB C 18:29:41 4/ 17 39.15 1433.009 44
8 Kay Smith/2 9579 IF 05 A BC H 20:00:23 702.507 50.59 1420.556 43
9 TNT TITANS 2479 AU 08 ARPU DCSP C 18:38:10 5/ 17 47.44 1417.585 42
10 TNT TITANS 24 AU 06 TNT NONE C 18:49:18 6/ 17 58.52 1397.840 41
11 TNT TITANS 335 AU 08 TNT BB C 18:53:12 7/ 17 01:02 1391.052 40
--------------------------------- Above are 20 percent ------------------------
12 TAISHO LOFT 687 AU 06 WTUL NONE C 18:55:57 2/ 7 01:03 1390.527 39
13 TNT TITANS 650 AU 03 WTUL IND C 18:56:53 8/ 17 01:06 1384.702 38
14 QUAY HILL LOF 7455 AU 07 KEY BB H 19:47:12 2/ 16 01:19 1368.143 37
15 TNT TITANS 439 AU 06 WTUL NONE C 19:18:34 9/ 17 01:28 1348.466 36
16 TRI-COUNTY /4 7183 AU 07 KEY BC C 20:31:38 679.525 01:49 1326.453 35
17 TNT TITANS 43 AU 06 TNT NONE C 19:40:50 10/ 17 01:50 1313.176 34
18 TNT TITANS 124 AU 07 TNT DC C 19:45:19 11/ 17 01:54 1306.293 33
19 CIRCLE M LO/3 340 AU 07 CM BC H-06:19:52 666.342 03:10 1211.716 32
20 QUAY HILL LOF 6368 AU 06 KEY BC H-06:35:11 3/ 16 03:25 1192.837 31
21 TRI-COUNTY LO 6072 AU 06 KEY BB C-07:01:44 2/ 4 03:37 1184.450 30
22 TAISHO LOFT 60 AU 07 OLLI RC C-06:36:42 3/ 7 04:01 1139.265 29
23 TRI-COUNTY LO 6018 AU 06 KEY BCPD H-07:44:58 3/ 4 04:20 1135.818 28
24 TNT TITANS 52 AU 06 TNT NONE C-06:39:06 12/ 17 04:05 1133.042 27
25 QUAY HILL LOF 6371 AU 06 KEY BB H-07:27:44 4/ 16 04:18 1132.315 26
26 Justin Lind/2 5223 AU 05 KAY BB C-08:43:34 702.507 04:52 1112.329 25
27 QUAY HILL LOF 5782 AU 05 KEY BB C-07:49:16 5/ 16 04:40 1109.253 24
28 QUAY HILL LOF 7418 AU 07 KEY BB H-08:00:49 6/ 16 04:51 1097.266 23
29 TRI-COUNTY LO 7167 AU 07 KEY BB C-08:52:48 4/ 4 05:28 1067.076 22
30 QUAY HILL LOF 4615 AU 04 KEY BB C-08:31:52 7/ 16 05:22 1066.290 21
31 TNT TITANS 1376 AU 06 VITA NONE C-07:48:09 13/ 17 05:14 1058.896 20
32 QUAY HILL LOF 5775 AU 05 KEY BB H-08:54:33 8/ 16 05:45 1044.743 19
33 TNT TITANS 94 AU 06 TNT NONE C-08:23:06 14/ 17 05:49 1024.947 18
34 QUAY HILL LOF 740 AU 03 STWR BB C-09:17:06 9/ 16 06:07 1024.169 17
35 TAISHO LOFT 210 AU 08 TSHO DC C-08:28:29 4/ 7 05:52 1023.014 16
36 TAISHO LOFT 279 AU 08 TSHO BB H-09:06:32 5/ 7 06:30 988.674 15
37 CIRCLE M LOFT 325 AU 07 CM BB C-11:14:09 2/ 3 08:04 929.190 14
38 TNT TITANS 131 AU 07 TNT BC C-10:41:31 15/ 17 08:08 909.467 13
39 CIRCLE M LOFT 7311 AU 07 KEY BC H-14:23:45 3/ 3 11:14 807.836 12
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No clockings were reported from BULLSEYE LOFT out of 1 entries.
This year's race was the first step to compete in a 1,000 mile race. We decided it was prudent for fanciers to first have some success from 600 to 700 miles from the southeastern United States and to increase the distance by no less than 100 miles per year. With this time table, we should compete in our first 1,000 race no later than the spring of 2012.
Most fanciers had excellent returns. Congratulations to George Glasby for clocking the winning pigeon. Congratulations to Tony Smith who clocked 11 day birds in just a few hours. Congratulations to Kay & Ron Smith for clocking their first 700 mile day bird. AU 07 TEAM 446 is an excellent Antoine Jacops white male that also has a little Mike Ganus Golden Witten blood in him. Two weeks before this race, 446 was 10th in a 400 mile Oklahoma State race from Conroe Texas competing against 1295 pigeons throughout the entire state! I have decided to name 446 - DeSinta (The Saint) - after Antoine's grandfather in Belgium. He may be the best distance pigeon that I have ever raced!
5.26.09 - Tuesday
The Old Bird Race Series is coming to an end. This has been a very strange year. The good birds have done very well. But I have lost several very nice pigeons including MAVERICK, an AU Champion. The top bird of the season has definitely been DeSinta, the white Antoine Jacops male that has a 10th prize against 1295 pigeons in the State of Oklahoma 400 mile race from Conroe Texas and 2nd prize in the BUBBA WILSON SPECIAL Long Distance race in which he flew 629 miles on the day.
Since it is the third week in May, I am also road training the first round of 2009 young birds. There are about 30 young birds in what I have designated as the red group which has small red bands on the ring leg. The second round is designated with blue bands and the third round has yellow bands. I do not wait to train the first round until all of the young birds can be trained: first, second and third rounds. I don not wait until a few weeks before the young bird series begins to train them either. And, I do not wait until the old bird race series is over to either loft the young birds or begin road training them. Young birds have an early critical window in their mental development during which they soak up knowledge very quickly to store in long-term memory that occurs during the first few months after they leave the nest. Although pigeons can learn at most any age, the learning process is never more fertile than during this early critical window of time. Further, young birds are constantly learning whether they are being taught by a fancier or not. They will learn permanent undesirable behaviors unless they are taught correct or desirable behaviors before they have developed permanent bad habits. Since the first round was hatched during the first week of January, they need to start a regimented curriculum of education at weaning.
when I wean youngsters, I immediately place they in a settling cage on the landing board and teach them to trap on the first day. This trapping procedure will be imprinted in their permanent memory and they will never forget it. After a week of this daily training, they are ready to be released from an open loft since they now know had to reinter the loft. Any pigeon that has trouble with this function is removed from the team. The response to learning to trap correctly and quickly provides an excellent early measurement of the intelligence quotient (IQ) of each young bird. Young birds that refuse to trap quickly and easily are assumed to have a low IQ and are eliminated from the team without reservation. The smarter the young bird, the quicker the youngster will learn to trap correctly.
The red group (first round) have been routing and flying around the loft for several months. They have had a number of daily road tosses up to 10 miles from every direction possible around the loft location. About 5 young birds out of the first round have not returned from these road training tosses. As I said before, about 30 youngsters remain. During the second month or in February, the first round was crated numerous times in shipping crates where they learned to eat and drink while in the crate. The first round has received road training primarily during the month of May since April was a very wet month in the Tulsa area. From these tosses, I have already identified several excellent youngsters that returned first from several of the tosses. I have also identified several weaker youngsters that need a little extra work.
In Belgium, the first early young bird races from 50 to 100 kilometers occur in May or right now. 50 kilometers is about 30 miles. 100 kilometers is about 60 miles. The four prestigious national races begin at the end of July. That is why young birds are raised early in the year and are road trained early in Belgium. Although the young bird race series doesn't begin in my area until they second week of September, my young birds are raised and trained as if they were going to race in Belgium. Young birds that are trained early and on time in terms of their optimal learning curve make better racers than young birds that do not receive the proper type of early training.
The first round males are becoming sexually active and beginning to couple with the first round females. After the old bird race series is over June 6, the young males will be separated from the young females and coupled with the old bird team. The young males will be coupled with the old widowhood females and the young females will be coupled with the widowhood males. In several earlier blogs, I have discussed the tremendous advantages of mating young birds to old birds. Young males will begin to act like old males within 24 hours of being successfully coupled with an older amorous widowhood female. It is very special to observe. While the same is true for females, the behavioral changes are usually not quite as visually dramatic as it is with young males. Young males will aggressively lock onto their nest box and nest bowl if stimulated and encouraged by a very amorous older female.
As the second round is road trained, several of them will be added to the compartments housing the first round males and females. Out of about 100 young birds, I will select only about 20 young males and 20 young females maximum to race on widowhood - less than 20 pairs if I do not like the quality of some of the young birds. If I race extra birds or more than 40 young birds, they will not be separated by sex and will race strictly to the perch. Although I have heard from new fanciers how hard it is for them to select the best young birds to race, if you will rate each young bird on every learning task, and if you will rate each young bird on their physical appearance in terms of health and robustness, and if you will time each youngster on how long they train in the air around the loft without landing in relation to all the other young birds, it is very easy to select the best potential racers. The basket and the young bird race series will do the rest.
Do not wait until old birds is finished to begin educating and training your youngsters. Do not wait until a few weeks before the young bird race series begins to train your youngsters. Do not wait until the old bird race series has concluded to loft your young birds. Each of these three procedures represents a major mistake and will only handicap your pigeons when you ultimately race them. If you don't have the time to properly care for 50 or 60 youngsters or more, only raise 20 or 30 youngsters. If you can't properly care for 20 or 30 youngsters, only raise 10 to 20. If you don't have the time to care for any of your young birds, properly, then please have the decency to remain quiet on race day when your young birds come home hours after the young birds that are managed by fanciers who care for their young birds properly. What you do with your young birds in the spring will significantly determine what happens when you race them in the late summer and fall.
5.27.09 - Wednesday
TRAINING YOUNG BIRDS IN OKLAHOMA IN APRIL & MAY RATHER THAN AUGUST
Since I race pigeons primarily in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the summer heat is almost always an issue for most fanciers when training young birds. Since, the young bird race series begins during the second week of September, those fanciers who wait to road train their young birds until a few weeks before the young bird race series commences necessarily commits their young birds to road train in the scorching heat of late August. Even if young birds are road trained at dawn during the month of August, if they make a mistake finding their way home, they will have to fly home later in the day when the heat is above 85 or 90 degrees Fahrenheit.
By training early bred youngsters in April and May in Oklahoma, the average temperature is in the 70s and low 80s. when young birds make mistakes finding their home, they do not have the added burden of flying through scorching heat to finally come home.
when DOES THE YOUNG BIRD RACE SERIES BEGIN?
As I have stated many many times in the blog, for me and for most European fanciers, the young bird season begins about November 1 of each calendar year. On or about November 1, the breeders are put through a complete regiment of medication for canker, worms, respiratory problems, and coccidia. The regiment is followed by some brand of pro-biotics and electrolytes. This regiment is necessary to place the breeders in a physical position to have a successful breeding season and to raise robust youngsters. About December 1, the breeders are coupled. The first round of youngsters are hatched around January 1. January 1 hatches are usually routing and ready to road train no later than May 1. So here we are on May 27. The first round of young birds has been road trained about a dozen times from 15 miles or less. The tremendous rains Oklahoma has experienced over the past 8 weeks has somewhat delayed the normal road training regiment that I follow this time of the year.
HOW FAR SHOULD YOUNGSTERS BE TAKEN DURING EARLY ROAD TRAINING?
Early road training is designed to "wake up" or "initiate" or "jump start" the young birds natural homing ability. There is absolutely no benefit of taking youngsters more than 10 to 15 miles during their first 20 or so road tosses. Why? Because these early road tosses are designed to exercise the youngster's homing ability; not their bodies or their stamina. Physical and stamina training on the road will take place about three weeks before the first young bird race. But for now, I want to exercise the young birds' minds rather than their bodies. I don't want them in race form in May for races in September. I do, however, want the young bird team to have learned how to quickly and efficiently find their way to their home loft regardless of where they are released.
I take a crate of early hatches on every errand around the city than I have time to accomplish. Often, I will crate only three or four of the 30 early hatches and single toss them as I am conducting my daily business while using the automobile. Numerous single-tosses are excellent for 3 or 4 month old youngsters learning to find their way home from various random release points. At this stage of training, it is not important to release the early hatches from 30, 40 or 50 miles. As I have said, that will come just prior to the onset of the young bird race series.
LINE OF FLIGHT
To a pigeon, there is no such thing as line of flight. That's something people have created by using common release points in a repetitive race schedule. In reality, pigeons often come home from every direction imaginable based upon rain, weather, wind, drag, confusion, mistakes, etc. Pigeons seldom fly home they way people might drive home, i.e., in a straight line. Whether you train your pigeons around the clock or not, during a pigeon's lifetime, he or she will learn to come home from every direction possible. I believe that only training pigeons on an imaginary line of flight can often hurt the performance of many racing pigeons by teaching them to react as they exit the crate rather than reason which way is home. If pigeons exit the shipping crate and instinctively "react" by heading home in the direction they "normally" or "usually" race home, they may miss the mark and fly significantly out of their way until they finally correct their course. This type of training may add valuable time to their overall race performance. Pigeons that exit the crate and "reason" which way is home will ultimately fly the fastest and shortest way home. Pigeons learn to "reason" the direction home when they are very young through multiple short small group road tosses and single tosses from less than 20 miles away from the loft.
Always training on the line of flight creates an artificial tendency to exit the shipping crate in a certain direction and head home - even if home is in the opposite direction. Several years ago, the French government would not let Belgian pigeons into their country for the beginning of the race season because of the Avian Influenza. This decision was a political decision rather than a decision based upon sound science. Consequently, the Belgian Federation started the early races from Germany rather than France. when the Belgian birds were released from points in Germany, what do you think happened? Most of the pigeons headed north rather than west into Belgium and were never seen again. The losses were staggering. Because the Belgians always race south into France and Spain, most of the Belgian pigeons "react" rather than "reason" - and it cost very good fanciers a lot of very good racing pigeons.
Every day, I train the racers from opposite directions. This varied training method makes the pigeons think rather than react. I believe that an intelligent "thinking" pigeon will race home much faster than a "reacting" pigeon - almost every time.
More revelations to follow......................................................Thank you......................................................Dr. John and Morgan Lamberton