blog8-09

August BLOG 2009

BLOGGING AGAIN

After a longer layoff than I anticipated, I am once again going to blog on a regular basis.

IMPORTANT NEW AU POLICY ON RELEASES

I was incredibly pleased and amazed that the AU will finally permit the group release of young birds and old birds together although a single release will still be divided two separate races: one for young birds and one for old birds. The total number of birds released will not be a factor when calculating either race. Each race will be quantified in terms of the number of young birds or old birds released. The Belgium system of pigeon racing is a single season that begins in May and ends in October. During the Belgian yearly racing season, all pigeons are released together although there are usually numerous races nested within the single release. Generally, races are divided into young birds, yearlings, and old birds. But there are also races for females only.

The Highway 75 Combine in Tulsa just finished hosting the 2009 Texas Center Convention. The convention organizers did a great job according to the feedback that I received from several convention attendees. It is my understanding that a bird entered by Ray Taylor won 1st in the D race and another entry won 2nd in the B race with pigeons bred directly from Lamberton breeders down from the Golden Mattens family of Mike Ganus which Ray had purchased from me last year. Congratulations Ray!!!

2009 ARPU PRESIDENT'S CUP & CHAMPION LOFT ANNUAL AWARDS

According to the AU website, the final standings for the 2009 PRESIDENT'S CUP and CHAMPION LOFT have been posted as of August 1, 2009. As I read it, our loft was 2nd national in PRESIDENT'S CUP and 2nd national in CHAMPION LOFT ALL DISTANCE. It appears that we lost the PRESIDENT'S CUP AWARD by less than a point. Congratulations to Don Paltani who won both awards. I hope to interview Don and blog about his amazing results and accomplishments!!!

LETTER FROM A NEW FANCIER AND BLOG READER

Dear Dr John,

I just wanted to take the time to tell you about an interesting training toss that I had this morning. Our first race is this Sunday from 100 miles. As you can imagine, all of the club members have been training in earnest to prepare for the first race.

Our club's best flyer is a neighbor of mine and he asked me if I would like to train with him and his birds. I accepted his offer and for the past three weeks have been training with him out to about 75 miles on the line of flight. In addition to training with my neighbor, I have been single tossing my birds from various directions and distances which the other club members - including my neighbor - consider unnecessary and in some instances - crazy. Today my crazy behavior paid off. My neighbor and I took our birds out to 55 miles. It had rained all night which resulted in a very foggy and overcast morning. The rain was gone so we decided to liberate the birds at 07:30. The birds had a very low ceiling of visibility to deal with and couldn't find the river which runs right through the heart of our racing area and by which they usually use to navigate.

Long story short, I arrived home about an hour later to welcome the birds; but I started to get worried when neither my neighbor nor I had gotten any birds home by 09:00. At 09:09 I got 10 birds on the drop and immediately called my neighbor as I was sure he got some too. Much to my surprise, he hadn't gotten any. He is racing 65 birds and I am racing 29. At 09:18, I got 10 more and by 09:30 was only missing one member of the team. My neighbor clocked his first bird at 09:30! I was very surprised to say the least. I attribute this occurrence to single tossing and forcing the birds to think for themselves instead of flock flying them constantly which seems to be the accepted training method where I live. I just wanted to say thank you for your blog and mentoring!

MY RESPONSE: I am always pleased when a reader has success on his or her own by manifesting the ideas in the blog in their own management phase of playing the pigeon racing game.

2009 YOUNG BIRD RACE SERIES

The young bird race series has begun for a number of fanciers and will begin shortly for others including myself. There are about 18 females and 15 males on the race team. As you will recall, all birds trap into a "commons" area in the racing loft and then exit into one or more of several compartments. The young females exit left into their compartments which is adjoined by 18 old males in three different compartments. The young males exit right into a three compartment loft with an adjoining loft for their mates which are old females. The young birds are raced on a widowhood motivational system just like the old birds. Most of the young males have spent the month of June feeding a single youngster. The young females are mated and laid eggs in July that were removed after about 10 days. Both the young females and young males have nest boxes and have been bonded to the nest boxes and nest bowls by either laying eggs or feeding a youngster. All of the young birds have been trained out to 100 miles.

Each day I look for a reason to eliminate one or more of the young birds from the race team. when the race series begins in September, my preference would be to race only those young birds that are capable of and ready to place high on the race sheet. It is far to late in the year to entertain those young birds that cannot help the performance of the overall team. Weak pigeons, stragglers, wild pigeons, stupid pigeons, poorly developed youngsters, "average" pigeons, unhealthy pigeons, and even some good pigeons have been removed from the team. If possible, come early September, I only want to manage the "crème de la crème." Even with all of my selection criteria, I am sure that there are probably still pigeons on the race team now that will not be there at the end of the young bird race series. Ultimately, competition in the basket will allow the cream to rise to the top if I have done my management job starting in October of the previous year.

A RACE TEAM IS A GROUP OF INDIVIDUALS

Although there are about 33 young birds on the race team, I have spent the summer getting to know each young bird on an individual basis - just like I understand the potential abilities of my old birds. Through observation in the loft and the data collected from numerous training tosses, I want to be able to estimate with some degree of certainty how each young bird will perform on a race before the race season begins. when I select young birds for a young bird race, I want my selection to be based upon verifiable evidence and accurate testing rather than leaving the results strictly to random chance. I don't want the young bird race series to be a crap shoot based on luck. I want each young bird to have been tested enough that I am able to predict with a high degree of certainty which are the best birds for each race before the race season begins. Why? Because national awards are based upon each fancier's entry; or how many young birds are sent to the race. Let me ask you a question. How many young birds does it take for you to place a young bird high on the race sheet? Does it take 5? 10? 20? 40? 60? 100? Do you need to send each and every young bird on every race in order to guarantee that one of them will perform well?

The PRESIDENT'S CUP AWARD penalizes fanciers for sending more than a few pigeons on each race and rewards fanciers for placing every young bird sent on a race high on the race sheet. If it takes an entry of 50 young birds in order to place one or two in the top ten percent of the race sheet, in terms of the PRESIDENT'S CUP score, that is less of a performance or accomplishment than if you only ship 5 young birds to a race in order to place one or two in the top ten percent. In Belgium, a true pigeon fancier is required to know each and every pigeon raced - even in young birds. According to the Belgian system of racing pigeons, a true pigeon fancier is not someone who races 40 or 50 young birds to every race hoping that one of them succeeds. A Belgian fancier tries to reduce or eliminate the prospect of hoping by knowing each and every young bird as much as possible before the race series begins in order to place every young bird entered in a race in the top ten or twenty percent of the race sheet.

8.06.09 - Thursday

I just found out that Larry Adams won the E High Roller Race at the Texas Center Convention with a granddaughter of a Lamberton pigeon that is a son of S. R. HADDEN, a full brother to Mike Ganus's SPACEMAN. Larry and I have been close friends since we were in junior high school in Tulsa; although Larry now lives in southeastern Oklahoma near Durant where he and his wife own and operate a convenience store out by the lake. According to Larry, his marvelous blue female was about 26 minutes ahead of the other pigeons in the High Roller race. The mother of Larry's race winner is a granddaughter of S. R. HADDEN and was third high point bird in Larry's club last year. She also won a 350 mile race among other head prizes.

In case you haven't seen the movie Contact written by Carl Sagin and starring Jodie Foster, S. R. Hadden was the wealthy industrialist whose final days were spent on the Russian Mir space station. In the movie, Hadden loved space exploration and funded Foster's " experimental journey" traveling through the fabric of space in various "worm holes." Consequently, the movie portrays Hadden as a modern day "financial entrepreneur, scientist, and spaceman." That is why I named SPACEMAN'S brother - S. R. HADDEN.

ELECTROLYTES

Particularly during the hotter summer months, it is important to regularly administer electrolytes to young pigeons in training. I do not use any product that combines electrolytes with vitamins. when the pigeons get electrolytes, they get pure electrolytes. when they get vitamins, they get only vitamins. I do not like to mix the two products. I don't want to administer too much vitamins when pigeons require a healthy dose of electrolytes to replenish their reserves. I purchase an off brand form of Pedialyte. The off brand still meets the normal quality standards for human consumption, but it is several dollars cheaper per bottle than Pedialyte. Electrolytes are very important for all animals and humans during periods of heat and/or physical exertion or stress. After young birds have been stressed on a long training toss in the heat, electrolytes will bring them back into condition in only a matter of hours. Depending upon the level of physical exertion, a bottle of electrolytes is administered straight or mixed with water, even though the directions state that the product should not be mixed with water. Pedialyte or similar substitutes is a salty tasting product. Let me suggest that you taste a little of it. Mixing it with water dilutes the salty taste just a little and the birds usually tend to drink it better. I pour a bottle of electrolytes into a two-liter Belgium water fountain - then fill the fountain with water. I leave it in the loft until it is virtually gone. Due to the extreme thirst of pigeons under stress, they will drink the electrolytes even though they may not particularly like it. May I suggest that you acclimate young birds to electrolytes weeks before the race season begins. It is usually not a good idea to interject something new to the normal routine once the race season begins.

Electrolytes are administered in the drinking water on a regular weekly basis to the young bird team during training and during the race season. Electrolytes make a huge difference in the ability of pigeons to train rigorously and to race well every week during the race season. Remember: don't overdose your pigeons on vitamins trying to administer enough electrolytes to successfully replenish their reserves after rigorous physical exertion.

8.27.09 - Thursday

Although the young bird racing season has begin in earnest in many parts of the US, young bird racing does not begin in Oklahoma until after the Labor Day holiday which is the first weekend in September. Dove season also begins that weekend and it is usually somewhat risky to train or race pigeons during the first few days of the hunting season.

There are currently 15 young males and 10 young females on the race team. During the past few weeks, I have eliminated 6 young females from the team for what I have determined are sub-par performances during training. While many fanciers train in a manner that is specifically designed to retain as many young birds as possible, our young bird race teams in Oklahoma and Belgium are trained in a manner to eliminate as many pigeons as possible. This does not mean that the training regiment is cruel or extremely difficult or arduous. However, it does mean that the degree of difficulty of the training regiment is determined by the performances of the best young birds on the training team and not by the poorest young birds on the team.

Young birds that are slow to return or that do not train well receive extra work rather than rest. If pigeons are trained not to lose them, the performances of the poorest youngsters will usually dictate the basic level of difficulty of the training regiment. Remember, my young bird race team receives many short tosses from varied directions. Young birds that cannot return in just a few minutes after the first returning birds are eliminated from the team over time. After 25 to 50 short tosses twice a day over a period of months, the training records of each youngster are recorded and analyzed. Consistently slow youngsters are eliminated from the young bird race team. Some of these slow youngsters may be held back for the old bird team. They may be slow to return because they are "distance" pigeons and need time to mature. Some pigeons return slowly because they are not as physically gifted as the others. Giving these pigeons time to grow and develop may be prudent. Other pigeons, however, are slow because they are not as mentally keen as other more gifted pigeons. These pigeons are eliminated from the racing program altogether.

Just because youngsters are not raced during their young bird season doesn't mean that they are never raced again. And, as strange as it may sound, young birds that don't race particularly well during their birth year sometimes make excellent breeders as yearlings or two-year old pigeons. Assessing the future capability of young birds is complicated. It is an inexact science. Oftentimes young birds must be evaluated with one's "gut" and intuition as much as from the collection of hard data.

The young birds are currently "chipped" and their training tosses are recorded, printed out and placed in a three-ring binder as part of a permanent record. As many of you know by now, I like data collection. It is superior to my "memory." That probably comes from learning about the scientific method in graduate school. Without as much data recorded as possible, properly evaluating youngsters can be overwhelming and down-right impossible.

Why do I want to eliminate as many young birds as possible before the young bird race season begins? Because the youngsters are raced on the widowhood system. It is much easier, less time-consuming and cheaper to race only a large handful of youngsters on this system. It would be too difficult, expensive, and time consuming to race 24 to 50 pairs of youngsters on the widowhood system. And, the young bird racing loft could not accommodate that many pairs of racers. Since the youngsters are mated to old birds, it would also take too much work to keep the number of old birds that would be necessary to couple with 50 to 100 youngsters.

As I frequently repeat, I believe that it is far better to race one pigeon well than 40 pigeons poorly.

when the young males and young females return home from a training toss, their mates are locked in one side of the nest box. when I return from each toss, I carefully let each young bird into the side of the nest box holding their mate and open up the nest box as normal. The young males often peck and slap my hand with their wing as I open the door to their mate to allow them access to their mate. Those young males that are calm yet aggressive to my hand when I give them access to their mate are often "signs" that they are going to make great widowhood males in the future. How each young bird acts in the box after returning from a training toss is as critically important information as to their future racing success as how fast each came home from the toss. The calmer, more interactive, more responsive and more aggressive youngsters in the box often make the best racers. The wilder or non responsive youngsters - even after months of daily repetitive training - seldom become true champions.

Out of the 25 youngsters on the young bird team, I am constantly looking for the tell tale signs of a champion. I often eliminate very good youngsters from the race team in favor of better youngsters. Right now, 52421, a blue splash female sired by the Lautermans male and one of the best grizzle females from the 2008 young bird race team; 52483, a female bred from Ganus pigeons; and 52454, a female bred from Cuypers pigeons (my partner in Belgium), are the best young females that have consistently performed at a very high level during the training process. They have never been slow or late from a toss by even a few minutes. Those other seven females that cannot keep up with the performances of these three females will be eliminated from the team before the young bird race series begins in several weeks should it become necessary to do so.

Conversely, there are several young males that have led the way during their training regiment. The performances of the best young birds dictate the fundamentals of the training regiment rather than the performances of the poorest youngsters. The fear of losing pigeons is one of the greatest hindrances to consistent success at the top of the race sheet.

A fancier's fear of losing their pigeons is far more debilitating to the overall future success of the race team than anything the pigeons will do themselves.

8.28.09 - Friday

Well I guess I shouldn't have blogged yesterday about 52421, my favorite young female. She returned home late from yesterday's training toss with her breast significantly injured from hitting a wire. Her racing career as a young bird is finished due to her injury which will take several months to completely heal. While I am unhappy that she will not race this year, I'm very pleased that she retuned home despite her injury. This is a classic example that no matter how hard you work or how many hours go into the detailed preparation of each pigeon, accidents - the unexpected - can always happen and change the course of the game. I felt as though this female could have flown a young bird race series almost single-handedly. But now I will never know. However, after her injury heals, she may head straight to the breeding loft unless she recovers well enough mentally and physically to race as a yearling.

In yesterday's blog, I tried to discuss the period of time after the young birds return home from a toss. This period of time is extremely significant. Often, I return to the loft after the birds have returned home from a toss. when I enter the loft, every young bird is supposed to be sitting in the open half of the widowhood nest box. The closed side of the nest box contains their mates. The reaction of each racer as I place my hand in the open side of the nest box to open the small door to let them in with their mate is very important. Like I said yesterday, each racer, both males and females, knows that I will open the side door to let them with their mates who are sitting in the nest bowls. I prefer pigeons that wait quietly, but act aggressively when I place my hand in their box. It is hard to explain unless you have seen it and experienced it. But each racer has a unique and very distinctive way of handling that phase of the training toss. In my system, the training toss is not complete until each racer has been allowed to enter the closed side of the nest box containing their mates and nest bowls. The pigeons that display a definite "attitude" towards me as I open the side door to the closed side of the nest box are my favorites and their reaction to me oftentimes ends up being a "sign" of the future racing ability of each pigeon. Super pigeons are superior athletes both physically and mentally. Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods are great athletes because of their mental abilities as much or more than their physical abilities. In like manner, super racing pigeons have superior attitudes and mental capabilities. Motivation - the single most important part of the pigeon racing game - is a result of the mental capabilities of great pigeons. Motivation causes pigeons to be fast. Motivation causes pigeons to perform at the top of the race sheet. Although racing pigeons must be physically fit to race the required distance each week - motivation separates the pigeons winning head prizes from those pigeons farther down the race sheet.

There are two basic types of motivation: natural and systemic. Natural motivation comes from pigeons racing home quickly to eggs or youngsters which are part of the natural or normal life of pigeondom. Laying eggs and raising youngsters are part of the natural cycles of being a pigeon. Widowhood, however, is an artificial or systemic type of motivational system that was designed by pigeon fanciers in Belgium years ago. Separating the sexes on a weekly basis and reuniting them as their reward at the end of a pigeon race is not a natural or normal function of pigeons. It is an artificial or systemic method of racing pigeons. The reason that many fanciers use the widowhood system is that it is extremely difficult to place racing pigeons in a highly motivational natural nest position every single week of an 8 to 16 week race series. This is not the case with the widowhood system. The widowhood system can motivate racing pigeons each and every week of a race series. Consequently, the overall performances of racing pigeons can usually be better maximized on the widowhood system than overall performances on the natural system.

I prefer to begin teaching youngsters the widowhood system as soon as they begin to mature sexually. Because the sexual maturity of young pigeons is new, unknown and sporadic, older mates as used to calm them down and to teach them the system much more quickly than it would take if they didn't have older role models to follow. I prefer pigeons that become sexually mature by six months of age. I especially like pigeons that mature sexually by four months of age. The faster young pigeons mature sexually, the sooner they can learn the widowhood system and the more practice they can experience on the widowhood system before the first young bird race. The primary reason why Belgian fanciers raise early rounds of youngsters in the winter is so that the youngsters will be sexually mature before the national young bird races begin in late July. Because young bird racing does not begin until September in Oklahoma, the youngsters get an extra 5 or 6 weeks of practice more than the youngsters receive in Belgium before the important races begin. After the youngsters begin to learn the widowhood system during the month of June in Oklahoma, they practice the system until the races begin in September.

Remember to scrape your nest boxes or perches every day. Pigeon droppings are a very important window into the health and form of your young birds. It is impossible to evaluate the progress of your training regiment or racing system if the droppings are not removed on a daily basis. I scrape each nest box twice a day. It would be impossible for me to scrape 50 to 100 boxes twice a day. Even with 24 pigeons now on the young bird race team, that is more boxes than I prefer to scrape twice daily. I prefer to scrape 12 boxes or less on a twice daily basis. Currently, I am training more pigeons than I prefer.

8.29.09 - Saturday

THE INDIVIDUAL OR THE GROUP

Over the past several years I have tried to emphasize the point in my blogs that racing pigeons are exciting and unique individuals. This perspective is embedded in the Belgian racing pigeon culture. Belgian fanciers are always in search of the next great champion. Each year, Belgian fanciers want to discover the very best youngster or youngsters in the population of young birds bred that year. Although loft championship awards are prestigious, individual racing pigeon championship awards are valued as the pinnacle of the Belgian racing pigeon sport. Belgian fanciers aspire to be well-known in terms of the outstanding performances of their best champions rather than the collective performances of their overall race teams reflected in general or collective "loft" awards.

In America, I have witnessed just the opposite culture. It seems to me that most American fanciers prefer to value Average Speed awards - President's Cup awards - Champion Loft awards - all awards which tend to shine the spotlight on individual fanciers rather than on individual champion pigeons. While these awards certainly reflect a measure of outstanding accomplishment and therefore should be valued, it is significantly different from the Belgian or European model. Because of my Belgian training, I too value the performances of outstanding individual champions more than I value collective or loft awards. The designation or distinction that I value most in America is the AU Champion and Elite Champion award earned by outstanding pigeons that have distinguished themselves in multiple races from varied distances over time. In Belgium, I prefer the National Champion award based upon multiple accomplishments over time more than I value the 1st National winner of one race. While both awards are prestigious, awards given for multiple accomplishments over time seem more practical and useful to me. Why? Because a first national race winner could simply be a lucky pigeon or a pigeon that had a distinct advantage over the other pigeons in the race because of weather or environmental factors.

There is no right or wrong answer or preference when it comes to the question of whether individual or group awards are most prestigious. That decision is up to each of us to make. But if I want to fill my breeding loft with new breeders from the race team in America, I certainly prefer to fill the breeding loft with AU Champions or Elite Champions over any other type of racing pigeons.

8.31.09 - Monday

The young bird race series begins in a little less than two weeks. The race team is ready. There are fourteen males and nine females currently on widowhood. Widowhood simply means that each youngster has a nest box and a nest bowl in which they are celibate until they race at which time they return to an older mate for a few hours at a time. As you may know from following the blog, each section of the racing loft has six nest boxes per section. The young males are housed in three sections while the young females are housed in two sections. when the young birds trap and enter the loft into a common foyer, the young males exit right and the young females exit left. when they return home from a toss or race, their mates are locked in one-half of the nest box. when the young birds return and fly into the open side of their nest box, they see their mates through the wire nest front and usually begin to engage in some sort of display or reunion with their mates. After a few moments to settle, I gently reach my hand into the open side of the nest box next to the racer and open the wire door to allow each youngster into the closed side of the nest box containing their nest bowl and mate. As I said a couple of days ago, the reaction of the youngster to my hand is often a "sign" of their character and their future racing ability. males should quietly stand their ground and bob their heads or sometimes slap my hand with their wing. females should stand motionless or quietly coo. These behaviors are a result of the joy the youngster feels as they anticipate the doors opening and the upcoming physical reunion with their mates. Until you have observed these reactions or behaviors, it is hard to describe or put into words. It is very significant, however, as part of the racing system. In order to follow through with the system properly, each youngster should be allowed into the closed side of the nest box with their mate when they return home from the race - regardless of when they return home.

I have observed that sometimes fanciers will immediately get on the telephone with their friends and discuss every moment as their first birds arrived home. While most of my friends know not to call me on race day until after the birds have arrived home, if the telephone does ring while the birds are arriving, I seldom, if ever, answer it. The window of time that the racers return home is a quiet, private time between me and them. It is not a time to involve other people. Even if a youngster returns home late, I spend quality time with them. A late bird properly managed one week may mean an early bird home the next week.

I play the racing pigeon game because it is what I will call a private or "spiritual" or self-manifesting experience strictly between myself and the pigeons. It is not a social experience between myself and other fanciers. I don't race pigeons to relive each moment as the hawk came out of nowhere and forced my winning pigeon to fly around for over thirty minutes. I don't race pigeons to gamble. I don't race pigeons in order to feel the rush or excitement of risking my money or the empty prowess of taking someone else's money. I don't race pigeons to beat other fanciers or to pump up my self-worth every week. I don't race pigeons to brag. I don't race pigeons to drink alcohol or to get high every weekend. I simply race pigeons to develop champions that will one day inherit the breeding loft in order to breed future champions. Racing pigeons for me is a thrill; but it's a private thrill between myself and my pigeons.

This perspective doesn't make me a better person than anyone else who races pigeons for another reason than I have stated. It doesn't make me better than those who race pigeons for one of the reasons that I don't race pigeons. My perspective simply states that my game is primarily a private affair. Personally, I can't wait until the day when figuring race results is entirely electronic so that I won't need to hand carry a module to the club house. Unikon could do this now but they refuse to do so. While I completely enjoy and fully appreciate electronic timing and would never want to go back to countermarks to clock racing pigeons, I am very disappointed with the Deister company and Unikon for their lack of response to the needs of a global racing pigeon community. But that's a topic for a future blog.

I have drawn some stern criticism for my views on racing pigeons over the years. But candidly, the criticism falls on deaf ears. I simply won't allow others to take away my joy of racing pigeons. And over the years, I have found many many other fanciers who share my philosophy of the game - many more than those few who criticize.

In the past five years, the race team has earned 14 AU Championships or Elite Championships. The thrill of having fantastic pigeons whose never-say-die attitudes led them to enough outstanding performances to earn the coveted AU Champion awards is all the support I need in order to enjoy the game. I will always prefer that my personal validation comes from my race team's magnificent struggles to reach home in record times over any validation that could come from social opinion. It is my guess that a great violinist enjoys playing his or her instrument primarily because of a deep love for creating beautiful music more than they enjoy the applause of others. It is my guess that a conductor loves the beautiful music generated by the orchestra more than the applause from the audience. In an overwhelming social world in which social messages are constantly blaring from cell phones, HD TVs and many other electronic devices, it is still okay to enjoy private moments inside the pigeon loft after our racers have struggled for hours to return to the safety and sanctity of home after their release from distant unfamiliar places.

More to come......................................thank you....................................Dr. John & Morgan Lamberton