Homing not Racing

[Winfort Lofts]

Hey guys,

This one has been bugging me for a while.

Why is it when training my young birds, they seem to home rather than race back home?

This behaviour seems to continue right till we get into the racing. Only then do they come with a sense of urgency!

Now, I have noticed this occurrence the last couple of seasons, often, but not always they will take a couple of hours to return from short training tosses (10-15mile). They will then all drop together as a group!

It's almost as if they are roaming about learning the area before deciding to head home!

At the liberation point, they will circle a couple of times and then disappear in what appears to be the correct direction very quickly.

Any ideas? Or is it something I am worrying about for nothing?

[Murray]

That is not a good habit.
Tossing them is not to get them fit, it is to instill the idea of springing out of the box and going straight home very quickly. Or as we call it, racing.
They should be flying an hour, more or less, every day before they begin going in the basket. If they are not hard and fit and flying out of sight for long periods at home that cause them to go exploring when you train them. Learning the territory they should have covered already.
If yours are not flying hard and ranging at home, you could cut the tosses back to maybe 7 miles, go there over and over until they beat you home, then 10, then 12, etc, only moving on when they are doing it quickly.
Mine are flying an hour in the morning and half an hour in the afternoon, and stepped out in stages like that, last week they flew 20 miles in 19 minutes.
Then I felt confident to go further out the road. They did that easily.
It's just teaching them to do what you want them to do by repeating easy lessons.

[Winfort Lofts]

That is not a good habit.
Tossing them is not to get them fit, it is to instill the idea of springing out of the box and going straight home very quickly. Or as we call it, racing.
They should be flying an hour, more or less, every day before they begin going in the basket. If they are not hard and fit and flying out of sight for long periods at home that cause them to go exploring when you train them. Learning the territory they should have covered already.
If yours are not flying hard and ranging at home, you could cut the tosses back to maybe 7 miles, go there over and over until they beat you home, then 10, then 12, etc, only moving on when they are doing it quickly.
Mine are flying an hour in the morning and half an hour in the afternoon, and stepped out in stages like that, last week they flew 20 miles in 19 minutes.
Then I felt confident to go further out the road. They did that easily.
It's just teaching them to do what you want them to do by repeating easy lessons.

I had a feeling that may be the case.

I was under the impression that my birds have been flying and ranging well. As often they are out of sight for an hour or more.

However, with my location it's difficult to say if they are out of sight flying, or out of sight on a roof just up the road.

[king]

Hey guys,

This one has been bugging me for a while.

Why is it when training my young birds, they seem to home rather than race back home?

This behaviour seems to continue right till we get into the racing. Only then do they come with a sense of urgency!

Now, I have noticed this occurrence the last couple of seasons, often, but not always they will take a couple of hours to return from short training tosses (10-15mile). They will then all drop together as a group!

It's almost as if they are roaming about learning the area before deciding to head home!

At the liberation point, they will circle a couple of times and then disappear in what appears to be the correct direction very quickly.

Any ideas? Or is it something I am worrying about for nothing?

Since I was never interested in the short races this never bothered me when racing. Mine would sometimes return straight home from training then circle the loft and go off for a couple of hours. Unless you have somebody at the home end you'll never know if they ARE first coming home then going off again.

[Murray]

Hey guys,

This one has been bugging me for a while.

Why is it when training my young birds, they seem to home rather than race back home?

This behaviour seems to continue right till we get into the racing. Only then do they come with a sense of urgency!

Now, I have noticed this occurrence the last couple of seasons, often, but not always they will take a couple of hours to return from short training tosses (10-15mile). They will then all drop together as a group!

It's almost as if they are roaming about learning the area before deciding to head home!

At the liberation point, they will circle a couple of times and then disappear in what appears to be the correct direction very quickly.

Any ideas? Or is it something I am worrying about for nothing?

Since I was never interested in the short races this never bothered me when racing. Mine would sometimes return straight home from training then circle the loft and go off for a couple of hours. Unless you have somebody at the home end you'll never know if they ARE first coming home then going off again.

Mine do that too from the short tosses, roar home then fly for another half an hour or more. That doesn't worry me. When they start going further they start dropping in and doing it properly.