For most SA organisations the 2008 racing pigeon season starts in May and ends in October. There are anything from 20 to 30 race events on the various provinces’ programmes. All race events embrace a short, middle and long distance series and single or double races are customarily scheduled for Saturdays. The right approach and a few important pre-season precautions can secure a competitive season.
Time management
You can’t let the pigeons out for loft exercise before sunrise or in the late afternoon when darkness falls. They could fly into overhead wires or other obstacles and suffer serious injury. Yearlings aren’t confident in the dark and nervous youngsters may fly off in all directions, never to return.
This is problematic if you work long hours, but the birds need to be trained to get them fit and ready. As they’re still in the moult in April, they can’t be given extra hours of exercise too early to compensate for less exercise during the week.
One possible solution is to give them open lofts all day, every alternate day, but only if there are no neighbouring cats around. A live-in domestic can also let the birds out for loft exercise an hour before you return from work. All you need to do is allow them to trap and attend to the feeding.
Another option is to let them loft train an hour a day over weekends and arrange for a buddy to road train them at 30km to 60km every morning during the week. This means that you can basket them during the previous evenings on a slightly hungry stomach, which ensure they trap in after the road toss to keep them disciplined. If you can manage to go home for lunch you can let the birds do a midday training session of 30 minutes.To get them trapping fast at your whistle when you need to rush back to work, don’t overfeed in the early morning. If all else fails, you may have to skip the short distance series and gradually train the birds up over weekends until you can resume with weekday training around August or September.
Engage in enough gradually lengthened road-training flights to avoid “jumping” the birds into a race event of a considerable distance before their muscles are properly toned. Racing pigeons can be considered ready for race events of around 500km after at least six weeks of loft training and at least four to six road training flights of 180km to 200km each.
Preselect the birds
here are race events for yearling or old birds only. There are also open races for all age groups, and there are special races that carry high cash rewards and classic races such as the Yearling National, the Yearling Derby and the Old Bird Championships. Study the “ammunition” in your team in advance to get your prime birds fit and ready for these various races. This is called specialised training.
You are going to have to work on the psychology of your birds to make them keen prior to an event. means you could engage in extra bonding two weeks prior to the race by giving birds a peanut or two from your hand, while they are perching after training in the early evening. Talk to them, fight a little with an aggressive male, but don’t upset it. The goal is to create a content and happy environment and allow form to peak during the race weekend.
To manage this, you may need to analyse the exact number of races each bird needs to get ready for the race in which it’s expected to score its best. Birds prepared for the Yearling Derby and Yearling National preferably shouldn’t have engaged in a race event longer than 150km to 200km the previous week, to allow them to build up sufficient reserves.
Study the pedigrees of your birds and determine which distances and expected weather conditions would suit them best. Don’t race your long distance birds week after week, but allow for a gradual build-up. Don’t enter your sprinters or inexperienced birds into long distance events.
Standard applications
Authorities require you to vaccinate your birds against the Paramyxo virus (use Nobivac) and pigeon pox (use Medipox). Also treat for worms with Mediworm. Use probiotics before, during and after treatment to boost natural immunity. Other useful applications are Lewerstim, which cleanses the liver and Bloedstim, which assists red blood cell formation. – Thomas Smit ([email protected] or call (011) 680 4778).
