# single widowhood hens???



## windyflat (Jul 19, 2007)

Anyone here ever race single widowhood hens? Roy Dycks widowhood book mentions them and I'm curious to see if anyone here has ever raced that way???
Tom


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## Lovebirds (Sep 6, 2002)

windyflat said:


> Anyone here ever race single widowhood hens? Roy Dycks widowhood book mentions them and I'm curious to see if anyone here has ever raced that way???
> Tom


Do you mean have cocks and hens but only fly the hens? Or do you mean have ONLY hens and fly them?


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## windyflat (Jul 19, 2007)

hens and cocks but flying only the hens. My OB loft is only 8x8 so i don't like to keep more than 10-12 birds in a loft that size. not big enough loft for dbl widowhood IMO. I have a bunch of individual pens in my garage where i could keep single cocks that would be mated to the racing hens. Just curious if anyone here has ever flown only single widow hens


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## Lovebirds (Sep 6, 2002)

Well, IM _very_ HO........I think it's a real waste not to fly both sexes. Last year in YB's we won the 300 mile race, with a cock bird. One of the very few races that we've ever won with a cock. Probably 95% of our won races were with hens. Now if I flew regular Widowhood (cocks only) instead of Double Widowhood, where would I be? Why raise a bunch of hens and let them sit in the loft? Some people do it and that's fine, but there's potential there that you will never know about if either of the sexes are kept at home every week end. JMO..........I take it that your loft is just one section? Where do you keep the birds now? Do you ever separate them? In an 8 X 8 loft you should be able to keep 30 birds and 24 very comfortably. However, when you start splitting it in half, then you cut down the number of birds. 
Now, having said all of that, there's no reason why you can't race just the hens, or just the cocks. I'm sure that people have done it before. You can do whatever you want to do and make it work. 
If you've just got the one section though, I would consider flying natural, minus the babies. In fact, I'm seriously thinking about giving it a try next year. We haven't flown natural but one season and that was our first and I didn't have a clue what I was supposed to be doing. I've got much better info now that I did then and might just see if I like it. If not, then it's back to double widowhood. 
So, now you know what I think...........


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## windyflat (Jul 19, 2007)

I'm currently flying single widow cocks because after my first two years of YB racing i only had a handful of hens left and those that were left over never really performed as YB's.. Obviously my inexperience played a big roll in that!!! and for some odd reason I've been raising many more cocks than hens the last two years???? I felt that my OB loft was too small to split into 2 sections to fly dbl widowhood
I keep the extra stock/widow hens in separate single breeder coops in my garage. I would guess they are 24"x24"x18" high. Each hen gets one of those coops. I feel bad for them staying by themselves but it's only for 8 weeks then they go back to the widowhood cocks to raise a yb before they are separated for the year.
I think i've had a pretty decent year with only 7 cocks. 
One 2005 cock in particular has responded very well to widowhood.. My yearlings on the other hand seem better suited to nest flying. I flew nest birds my first year in OB's and did well but i love how the widowhood cocks exercise. I had to flag my nest birds twice a day and i just don't have the time for that. The widow cocks are gone outta sight for 40-45 minutes. When they do return they quickly (clap off) again after a morning dove or starling and they're gone for another 5-10 minutes. Will likely stick with single widow cocks just curious to see how you all fly your OB's. Have had flyers visiting here from other areas and they all seem to think hens would be a better choice on this tough south course.


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## Lovebirds (Sep 6, 2002)

windyflat said:


> I'm currently flying single widow cocks because after my first two years of YB racing i only had a handful of hens left and those that were left over never really performed as YB's.. Obviously my inexperience play a big roll in that!!! and for some odd reason I've been raising many more cocks than hens the last two years???? I felt that my OB loft was too small to split into 2 sections to fly dbl widowhood
> I keep the extra stock/widow hens in separate single breeder coops in my garage. I would guess they are 24"x24"x18" high. Each hen gets one of those coops. I feel bad for them staying by themselves but it's only for 8 weeks then they go back to the widowhood cocks to raise a yb before they are separated for the year.
> I think i've had a pretty decent year with only 7 cocks.
> One 2005 cock in particular has responded very well to widowhood.. My yearlings on the other hand seem better suited to nest flying. I flew nest birds my first year in OB's and did well but i love how the widowhood cocks exercise. I had to flag my nest birds twice a day and i just don't have the time for that. The widow cocks are gone outta sight for 40-45 minutes. When they do return they quickly (clap off) again after a morning dove or starling and they're gone for another 5-10 minutes. Will likely stick with single widow cocks just curious to see how you all fly your OB's. Have had flyers visiting here from other areas and they all seem to think hens would be a better choice on this tough south course.



Sounds like you've got it under control. They say "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".....
Now, see, my widowhood cocks won't fly around the loft. The hens will, but not for a long time, but the cocks don't want to do anything but get back in the loft to their box. They laugh at my husband when he gets the flag out. 
So, we are forced to road train them before we start racing. After the first race, we don't road train any more. We just let them out to fly for 2 minutes every day. That's one advantage to having a small team. I can empty the loft and get all of my birds to the first race station. I don't keep more birds that I can send to every race. I COULD send my whole team every week end, but I don't.


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