Flying in the heat.
Posted: Fri May 03, 2024 9:37 am
I was reading about this topic, and come across Steven Van Breemen writing on the subject, how do members prepare their birds in these temps.
Flying racing pigeons in the heat
With regard to the strange races of section 7 in Holland, where pigeons came home totally dehydrated and lost 30% of their bodyweight, I asked a number of our authors to comment the problem. How they look upon it you can read below.
Dear Steven,
Scientific answer about flying in the heat:
Total heat load = environmental temperature + body temperature + UV thermal Load
If you change any one of these variables you change the total metabolic rate of the bird which corresponds to high energy demand and there by higher consumption of minerals, fat, and other vitamins.
Best regards,
Bob Rowland.
Dear Steven,
Thank you for your email, good to hear from you. It sounds like there has been some frustrating things going on with the racing recently.
There is no single disease that comes to mind that would cause the symptoms, however, any disease can make the races particularly taxing for the birds and prolong recovery. I would imagine however, that you have already had all of the routine checks done to ensure that your birds are healthy. The two most common diseases that lead to excessive thirst during racing are; wet canker and respiratory infection causing inflamed air sacs. With wet canker the trichomonad organisms produce a toxin that makes the birds thirsty, while when the air sacs become inflamed they lose their moisture conserving ability and the birds lose excessive moisture in the exhaled air. When correcting the ensuing dehydration they often over-compensate and drink excessively. As you say however, there may be concern that the conveyers are not watering and feeding the birds adequately. Experiments have shown that pigeons deprived of water for 24 hours at 25C become 5% dehydrated. Given the high body temperature of pigeons(41.7C) and the number put in race baskets, the temperature within the basket can get much higher, even on cold days particularly if the race basket is poorly ventilated. Birds released that are only slightly dehydrated can be expected to orientate poorly and take longer to recover. In Australia water is continuously available even when the birds are being basketed except when the transporter is actually moving. I hope these short notes are a help.
Regards,
Dr. Colin Walker.
Flying racing pigeons in the heat
With regard to the strange races of section 7 in Holland, where pigeons came home totally dehydrated and lost 30% of their bodyweight, I asked a number of our authors to comment the problem. How they look upon it you can read below.
Dear Steven,
Scientific answer about flying in the heat:
Total heat load = environmental temperature + body temperature + UV thermal Load
If you change any one of these variables you change the total metabolic rate of the bird which corresponds to high energy demand and there by higher consumption of minerals, fat, and other vitamins.
Best regards,
Bob Rowland.
Dear Steven,
Thank you for your email, good to hear from you. It sounds like there has been some frustrating things going on with the racing recently.
There is no single disease that comes to mind that would cause the symptoms, however, any disease can make the races particularly taxing for the birds and prolong recovery. I would imagine however, that you have already had all of the routine checks done to ensure that your birds are healthy. The two most common diseases that lead to excessive thirst during racing are; wet canker and respiratory infection causing inflamed air sacs. With wet canker the trichomonad organisms produce a toxin that makes the birds thirsty, while when the air sacs become inflamed they lose their moisture conserving ability and the birds lose excessive moisture in the exhaled air. When correcting the ensuing dehydration they often over-compensate and drink excessively. As you say however, there may be concern that the conveyers are not watering and feeding the birds adequately. Experiments have shown that pigeons deprived of water for 24 hours at 25C become 5% dehydrated. Given the high body temperature of pigeons(41.7C) and the number put in race baskets, the temperature within the basket can get much higher, even on cold days particularly if the race basket is poorly ventilated. Birds released that are only slightly dehydrated can be expected to orientate poorly and take longer to recover. In Australia water is continuously available even when the birds are being basketed except when the transporter is actually moving. I hope these short notes are a help.
Regards,
Dr. Colin Walker.