By Michael Feeney
Part 3 is from March 2015 and sees me discussing what type of racing system to use and the duration this will be carried out for.. in all honesty this I know will be a lifetime journey that will hopefully not end ever for me…. Happy reading and as always please feel free to contact me at the details below. I have been thinking on this article for a couple of weeks now and have not been sure how to proceed. Given the birds I am using and the end goal in mind the lingering question always in the back of my mind is ‘are they the right building blocks?’ This is going to be the biggest question and hardest to answer when trying to attempt this task. You may ask at this point why this is so?
The answer is simple it takes years, a minimum of 4 to get the birds ready for the job in mind for them. This patience can be misplaced and all the hard work for nothing if the starting blocks are not right to begin with. Unfortunately the only way to know this is to try the feat they are being bred for. I hope and I do believe my choices are the right ones and I believe with the right introductions when needed over the years they will succeed.
So with the building blocks in the loft the next thing is what system to operate. After months and months of research, and I mean this literally, I have decided to adopt the open-hole method. I have used this growing up with my dad and our birds with moderate success. For the task in mind and the research and conversations I have done and had I think this will suit me and my circumstances the best. This system will be adopted for both cocks and hens which will be kept natural and also the young when they are ready to go out. This will ease my work load, I hope, and will keep the birds fit themselves with tossing when required. For those of you who do not like the open-hole system there is also one of my friends following traditional methods of flying, meaning the birds will exercise twice a day. I will keep you posted on his progress as we arrive at our ultimate destination. I have had an interesting conversation in recent weeks about tossing and the need to and the over racing candidates that are destined for marathon events. This conversation has seriously backed up my belief that in marathon racing pigeons less is certainly more. The less stress the birds have to deal with coming to the eventual event the better. And so I will be doing experiments with some of the race team in the coming years and comparing the results of what and how many races each and also which birds are successful and where. The feeding system I have adopted will be one I found on line in published methods and that is of Jim Emerton’s. I will use this as my base starting block with tweaks for myself where necessary, if at all necessary.
MY BARCELONA DREAM - PART 3