First YB trainer 2023

[Andy]

Mine will start at around 7 miles for the first couple then 15 miles for a couple. If the weather is right and I get time I may give them a 25 miler before the first race.

[Murray]

Great to see you have got them home, Trev, but my blood ran cold when you said you went 10 miles first up.
I don't doubt you had some out overnight.
My first toss is always from about half a mile away and I usually take them down to the creek when the old birds are flying around home.
Then I go 2, 4, 8, 10 miles, more or less, and this year I went several directions.
I have lost about 20 of the 45 youngsters I bred, as many of them being taken by the hawks while loft flying as in training, but the ones that are left have had lots of training and are now hard to lose.
I take them 20 miles to a place that is open country, and even going at the speed limit I cannot beat them back.
Good to see you are training them in two teams, Trev, If you have a bad toss, and one team gets torn up, you have not done all your youngsters.
Good luck and keep the work up to them.

Mine always started at 20 miles then 30 finally 50 where they stayed all through racing

You can't do that here, and expect to have any pigeons left.
When we first moved to Bendigo I ran into a bloke who had pigeons. So, next thing I am invited to go out on a Sunday morning for the first club toss for the season.
About 10 blokes with vans and trailers, about 1000 green youngsters. Distance about 20 miles.
On the count of three there's a flurry of wings and a big mob of youngsters gather up and start going round, and round, and round
Then several peregrine falcons plowed into them and there were pigeons going in all directions. That was their first introduction to life as racing pigeon.
Long story short, by the time they got to the 40 mile training stage, lots, lots, were gone, and they were chasing them out of the trailers.
I have never taken my youngsters to one of those "trainers". They are simply trained to get lost or terrified.
The hawks around here are dreadful. Most thinking men do what I do. Start very short and train often, increasing the distance as they show they are ready.
Today some of them were edgy, and I figured the was a BOP somewhere. Next thing WHOOSH! they all took off, and when I looked up there was a BIG falcon soaring through, and these things were flying loops around it. Old Gordon and the old stock birds were up there, they aren't frightened of it. Seen too many and are too smart.
My young birds, instead of taking off in a panic and hitting power lines and hiding in the bushes, were tearing around the falcon too. Learning that if you are above it it cant get you.
It was funny when they came down, they were strutting around giving each other Hi 5's.

[Trev]

Great to see you have got them home, Trev, but my blood ran cold when you said you went 10 miles first up.
I don't doubt you had some out overnight.
My first toss is always from about half a mile away and I usually take them down to the creek when the old birds are flying around home.
Then I go 2, 4, 8, 10 miles, more or less, and this year I went several directions.
I have lost about 20 of the 45 youngsters I bred, as many of them being taken by the hawks while loft flying as in training, but the ones that are left have had lots of training and are now hard to lose.
I take them 20 miles to a place that is open country, and even going at the speed limit I cannot beat them back.
Good to see you are training them in two teams, Trev, If you have a bad toss, and one team gets torn up, you have not done all your youngsters.
Good luck and keep the work up to them.

To be honest Muzza most of the fanciers around here do the same as you and start off with short tosses, unfortunately I've never had the time or patience for that so always used to just stick them straight in to 20miles so this year I've been lenient lol as with feeding there are so many different theories on training and so many fanciers do it differently. Last year having had that sickness in my birds I ended up with 15 youngsters to race, they had no training at all so were sent straight into racing.
Nine of them started at 106 miles 8 returning on the day.
Four of them went straight in at 152miles non of these made it on the day but 3 returned over the next week, 1 of them injured.
One had his first race at 60miles and the other straight in to 106miles.
Now granted they didn't set the world alight but they weren't too far away and having had most races I only dropped the one and he turned up in June this year lol Now I'm not saying I condone this as a rule and wouldn't want to repeat it but it just shows that in some circumstances you don't need to train them so hard or so often. Going back to my years on the Isle of Wight of course being only 23miles x 17miles unless you had the time and money to keep going over to the mainland it was/is impossible for most fanciers to get any kind of decent training in but you regularly see their names in the results of many of the classics/national races.
Sadly after this years old bird season I now only have 8 of these birds left.
I was once told that to establish a reliable team of distance pigeons you had to try to lose them.

[Trev]

Great to see you have got them home, Trev, but my blood ran cold when you said you went 10 miles first up.
I don't doubt you had some out overnight.
My first toss is always from about half a mile away and I usually take them down to the creek when the old birds are flying around home.
Then I go 2, 4, 8, 10 miles, more or less, and this year I went several directions.
I have lost about 20 of the 45 youngsters I bred, as many of them being taken by the hawks while loft flying as in training, but the ones that are left have had lots of training and are now hard to lose.
I take them 20 miles to a place that is open country, and even going at the speed limit I cannot beat them back.
Good to see you are training them in two teams, Trev, If you have a bad toss, and one team gets torn up, you have not done all your youngsters.
Good luck and keep the work up to them.

Mine always started at 20 miles then 30 finally 50 where they stayed all through racing

You can't do that here, and expect to have any pigeons left.
When we first moved to Bendigo I ran into a bloke who had pigeons. So, next thing I am invited to go out on a Sunday morning for the first club toss for the season.
About 10 blokes with vans and trailers, about 1000 green youngsters. Distance about 20 miles.
On the count of three there's a flurry of wings and a big mob of youngsters gather up and start going round, and round, and round
Then several peregrine falcons plowed into them and there were pigeons going in all directions. That was their first introduction to life as racing pigeon.
Long story short, by the time they got to the 40 mile training stage, lots, lots, were gone, and they were chasing them out of the trailers.
I have never taken my youngsters to one of those "trainers". They are simply trained to get lost or terrified.
The hawks around here are dreadful. Most thinking men do what I do. Start very short and train often, increasing the distance as they show they are ready.
Today some of them were edgy, and I figured the was a BOP somewhere. Next thing WHOOSH! they all took off, and when I looked up there was a BIG falcon soaring through, and these things were flying loops around it. Old Gordon and the old stock birds were up there, they aren't frightened of it. Seen too many and are too smart.
My young birds, instead of taking off in a panic and hitting power lines and hiding in the bushes, were tearing around the falcon too. Learning that if you are above it it cant get you.
It was funny when they came down, they were strutting around giving each other Hi 5's.

I do get that Muzza, I guess the birds do need to clear almost immediately to escape being hit !!
Years ago if I went training I would arrive at my destination, put the baskets outside the car and give the birds a few minutes to settle and find their barings before releasing them, these days its get them out and get them gone before the hawks realise they are there. I reckon that is some of the problems with todays racing, I'm sure these birds see the transporters arrive and are hanging around like vultures waiting for breakfast and hit those batches of pigeons before they've got too far from the race points.

[Buster121]

Mine always started at 20 miles then 30 finally 50 where they stayed all through racing

You can't do that here, and expect to have any pigeons left.
When we first moved to Bendigo I ran into a bloke who had pigeons. So, next thing I am invited to go out on a Sunday morning for the first club toss for the season.
About 10 blokes with vans and trailers, about 1000 green youngsters. Distance about 20 miles.
On the count of three there's a flurry of wings and a big mob of youngsters gather up and start going round, and round, and round
Then several peregrine falcons plowed into them and there were pigeons going in all directions. That was their first introduction to life as racing pigeon.
Long story short, by the time they got to the 40 mile training stage, lots, lots, were gone, and they were chasing them out of the trailers.
I have never taken my youngsters to one of those "trainers". They are simply trained to get lost or terrified.
The hawks around here are dreadful. Most thinking men do what I do. Start very short and train often, increasing the distance as they show they are ready.
Today some of them were edgy, and I figured the was a BOP somewhere. Next thing WHOOSH! they all took off, and when I looked up there was a BIG falcon soaring through, and these things were flying loops around it. Old Gordon and the old stock birds were up there, they aren't frightened of it. Seen too many and are too smart.
My young birds, instead of taking off in a panic and hitting power lines and hiding in the bushes, were tearing around the falcon too. Learning that if you are above it it cant get you.
It was funny when they came down, they were strutting around giving each other Hi 5's.

I do get that Muzza, I guess the birds do need to clear almost immediately to escape being hit !!
Years ago if I went training I would arrive at my destination, put the baskets outside the car and give the birds a few minutes to settle and find their barings before releasing them, these days its get them out and get them gone before the hawks realise they are there. I reckon that is some of the problems with todays racing, I'm sure these birds see the transporters arrive and are hanging around like vultures waiting for breakfast and hit those batches of pigeons before they've got too far from the race points.

Agree 100% there Trev

[Andy]

I never put mine down nowadays. I will leave them to settle for 5 minutes in the car but once I take the crates out they are released straight away.
My birds disappeared for over an hour Wednesday morning. They came back as a batch. But on counting up I was, and still are, 3 missing. I don’t think a bop went into them as they came back all together and not all split up. I would imagine that it was more likely that they got in with either other birds training or a mid week race. All good experience for those that returned as they must have covered some miles. Better than any training toss that I could give them.

[Trev]

Trying to get my second trainer in isn't going so well as conditions are against me at the moment but I'm hoping to get them going again in the next day or two
We have our first race in just over a week so I need to get moving !!!