Dandilofts Marathon Pigeons
Autumn time to reflect and make the difference for next year
Part 1
It is the end of long season, and time to contemplate and reflect on our season, what worked well, and what needs to be improved upon for next year, in order to give our team at least a fighting chance to reach home in a respectable time. One of the first aspects to realise is that the fault for nearly all the not so good races lies one and alone with YOU, This is the one point that most racing pigeon men don't or won't accept, for them it is always the fault of, the Rain, the Wind, “The Liberation was too early”, or “I live to far west or east” But in my opinion in 99% of cases it's our own mistakes or our own laziness or in some cases just Lack of knowledge which leads to races that do not meet up to our own expectations and in the worst case can lead to big losses, what we do now for our birds will influence our results and our performance next year. How deep we delve into the problems now will determine how much we improve next year.
After all, “after the season is also before the season”
The areas to consider:
The Loft
Overall Health
Breeding
Motivation
System
The Loft:
This is the time to think hard about how your loft worked for you and your racing system, do you need to tweak your race system or does the loft need modifying in some way, For me this Year is a little bit more complicated than it would be normally, as two years ago I built a new loft for the start of racing and on reflection at the end of last season I realised that it really needed to be slightly modified, there were a few thing gave me difficulty during race preparation and indeed on basketing nights, although in general the loft had worked really well including the ventilation, trapping feeding and cleaning , and the birds were in great condition the whole season, What was not optimal was the positioning of the hen compartments, although they were then only a few yards away from the cocks when I wanted to show the hens to the cocks I had to basket the them and carry them over to the widowhood section, and in my opinion this created to much stress on the hens (as well as myself) so I have changed to a better layout where each cock section has the hen section adjoining it and therefore I could use the roundabout system (through adjoining hatches) which in my opinion is the best method for keeping both sexes fit and motivated, so this year it was full steam ahead with the new layout and wow did it work well, so we are here at the end of the season looking at the loft again and how we can improve It just a little to move us nearer to our goals for next year.
I have decided that the distance loft is perfect the way it is ,However the yearlings loft has not performed to the standard required, i.e.: 6 weeks of top results and then as the hot weather arrived the form just dropped off, showing me that the lofts was heating up too much during the daylight hours and the ventilation was not optimal to hold the birds top form. Decision a new loft must be built that means planning and building over the autumn, so I have the work cut out for me this year.
With the changes and decisions made and the lofts all disinfected it is time to move the birds in for the winter months which will allow them to claim there boxes and settle down before the next season, I keep all the yearlings so it’s a straight forward job to put them in the new section, I spend a good 10 days in the loft with the birds ensuring they are well settled in and none of them get to bullied.
Overall Health,
Given that the birds have performed well this should be easy task with the requirement just to get a vet to do an end of season check-up, if however the performances were not up to the standard that you require, it may (more than likely) be traced back to the birds not being completely healthy which in turn would normally mean that the birds are or were infected with one or more of the pigeon diseases, the symptoms of which were missed by YOU or your VET.
The solution to the health question is very personal we all have our own thoughts as to how to prepare the birds for the coming season, my personal thoughts are never treat until you know for sure what you have to treat for, I would not say never use antibiotics but (and it’s a big but) “use the correct ones”, easier said than done I have had a stroke of luck and found a Lab where my birds can be tested for diseases and also for resistance against antibiotics so I will be told from the lab what my team has and which medicines they need and for how long they must take them, not that over the past 3 years I have had to give any antibiotics.
The health of the birds is due in the most part to the environment that they are held in their access to the sky’s as well as the food and supplements they are given on a daily basis.
In my opinion and this will more than likely cause a controversial talking point amongst the Fancy, (but here goes anyway) Plain water is a breeding ground for many different pigeon sicknesses to be spread around and therefor my birds always have something in the water ,the whole year round, up until three years ago I used apple cider vinegar Avidress and they were both doing the job of keeping the spread of sickness at bay (I think) but 3 years ago I found a product that I find to be the best water supplement around, I am not promoting this product Its just in order as they say to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing less, I need to mention it, It’s called Kuhn Brieftauben-Tonikum. It is really expensive, but I could not envisage my birds racing so well and staying so healthy without it, a few drops every day in the water and they always look the part
look out for part 2 when I will be highlighting the following:
Breeding, Motivation and the System as used at Dandilofts Marathon Pigeons
All the best D R Reynolds
