# Loft flying



## kevin321 (Dec 13, 2010)

Hi again. Just wondering for how long and how often do you loft fly your racing pigeon a day.(young birds) and (old birds). Thanks.


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## SmithFamilyLoft (Nov 22, 2004)

kevin321 said:


> Hi again. Just wondering for how long and how often do you loft fly your racing pigeon a day.(young birds) and (old birds). Thanks.


 During the YB season I will let the YB's out everyday the weather is good and they are not undergoing road training. The longer they actually fly, the better. My best years the birds would go up and stay up for 2 1/2 + hours, then come down and go right in when called. Most folks can't seem to get the birds to fly for more then an hour, so this is when you must insure that you are not dealing with sick birds, birds which are way over fed, or simply a line of birds which require a lot of road training.


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## kevin321 (Dec 13, 2010)

Thanks. I might as well ask this aswell. How often do people road train a week??? Is it just young birds you road train or do you road train old bird as well??? Also keeping the pigeons fit!! Lets say I loft fly my young birds and road train them up until the yb season then do I just loft fly during the yb season to keep them fit. Then Lets say I have olds birds that had gone through the yb season the year before do they just get 1 or 2 road trainings so they remember what their suppuse to do and are they then just loft flown until and during the ob season to keep them fit. Or is this totally wrong. Feel free to give your own info. Thanks again.


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## Big T (Mar 25, 2008)

kevin321 said:


> Thanks. I might as well ask this aswell. How often do people road train a week??? Is it just young birds you road train or do you road train old bird as well??? Also keeping the pigeons fit!! Lets say I loft fly my young birds and road train them up until the yb season then do I just loft fly during the yb season to keep them fit. Then Lets say I have olds birds that had gone through the yb season the year before do they just get 1 or 2 road trainings so they remember what their suppuse to do and are they then just loft flown until and during the ob season to keep them fit. Or is this totally wrong. Feel free to give your own info. Thanks again.


I work thirty road miles from the house, so I take any old bird not nesting and release them from there once or twice a week just for exercise. Loft fly most good weather days when I get home and the hawks are not around. Young birds, once training is complete they too come to work for the exercise. but usually three times a week; Mon, Wed, Fri. Since work is South, Sunday or Saturday I take the birds in another direction and work them out the distance until they fly home from all around.


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## swaze (Mar 3, 2010)

kevin321 said:


> Thanks. I might as well ask this aswell. How often do people road train a week??? Is it just young birds you road train or do you road train old bird as well??? Also keeping the pigeons fit!! Lets say I loft fly my young birds and road train them up until the yb season then do I just loft fly during the yb season to keep them fit. Then Lets say I have olds birds that had gone through the yb season the year before do they just get 1 or 2 road trainings so they remember what their suppuse to do and are they then just loft flown until and during the ob season to keep them fit. Or is this totally wrong. Feel free to give your own info. Thanks again.


during the actual season I think it mostly depends on how well they are loft flying. if they loft fly voluntarily for close to an hour or more I don't think they need any road training. for old birds especially this is true and even for young birds i think it is mostly true as by a certain point they know where they are and what the quickest way home is. 

if the birds are not loft flying well then they will need the road work to get wing time on them but unless you are flying a system like natural in old birds (where hens want to get back to eggs and not fly) there is usually an underlying reason for the birds not flying well that needs fixed and almost always that is health.

a lot of flyers when their birds start doing bad and stop loft flying well think the solution is to train harder and further and then they wonder why the results don't improve. the reality is usually something is wrong with the health of the birds and you don't fix that with training.

i know someone will respond to this thread saying that you need to road train every day or several days a week regardless but while that works for some that is not necessary for everybody. i know of guys that never train once the season starts and have excellent results while other guys train like crazy and have poor results. of course the reverse is also true just depends on the flyer. i even know of guys that later in the season hardly even let their birds out, the birds rest most of the week and they still have excellent results. in that case if the birds have been flying tough races every week the whole season that mid week rest is more valuable than flying


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## kevin321 (Dec 13, 2010)

Thank for the help. So basically its just try them and find which ever one suits my loft.


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## birdkeeper (Jun 24, 2009)

smithfamilyloft
how do you get your birds to fly for a long period of time because it seems like my birds will only fly mostly for 30 mins at a given time? during summer my birds flew a lot longer and now i do not know what happend.


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## SmithFamilyLoft (Nov 22, 2004)

birdkeeper said:


> smithfamilyloft
> how do you get your birds to fly for a long period of time because it seems like my birds will only fly mostly for 30 mins at a given time? during summer my birds flew a lot longer and now i do not know what happend.


These fine points, are what seperates the real pigeon fanciers from the pigeon folks who simply have a shed and throw feed in it to keep the pigeons alive. Entire books have been written on just the subject of feeding. There is a lot that goes into getting pigeons into form, and keeping them there. I don't think I could really answer your question in fewer then 10,000 words, so I suggest you go back and read some of my 3,000 odd posts, as I left all kinds of clues along the way.


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## swaze (Mar 3, 2010)

birdkeeper said:


> smithfamilyloft
> how do you get your birds to fly for a long period of time because it seems like my birds will only fly mostly for 30 mins at a given time? during summer my birds flew a lot longer and now i do not know what happend.


Are these youngbirds that were raised in 2010?

if so I suspect the answer is they became sexually mature and now they would rather chase each other around on the loft or in the loft rather than be in the air. once the birds become sexually mature and you've got a whole loft full of cocks and hens interested in mating, flying time will decrease unless you get them separated.

now if they are already separated sexes and flying time has decreased, then first thing you gotta look at is health. are they healthy?


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## kevin321 (Dec 13, 2010)

birdkeeper said:


> smithfamilyloft
> how do you get your birds to fly for a long period of time because it seems like my birds will only fly mostly for 30 mins at a given time? during summer my birds flew a lot longer and now i do not know what happend.


If you are unable to separate the hens and cocks like swaze said which would probably be the most effective way to get them to fly longer, you could try road training more often to keep up their fitness if fitness is thats what you worried about.


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## ERIC K (Mar 29, 2010)

The only way Mr. Smith keeps his birds up in the air that long is to flag them. A tall pole with a shirt or some sort of matereal tied to the top that acts like a flag , or resembles a hawk to the birds. 
He might have them in super shape and road trains the feathers off the birds , they then could fly for 2 + hours at home.
I don't have any luck keeping mine up that long at one time without the flag. If you feel safe to let the birds have open loft for a week or so they will take off and fly , land take off, fly, land take off fly land many times in one day. easy way to get them in shape


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## swaze (Mar 3, 2010)

ERIC K said:


> The only way Mr. Smith keeps his birds up in the air that long is to flag them. A tall pole with a shirt or some sort of matereal tied to the top that acts like a flag , or resembles a hawk to the birds.


i would not say that is only way. having birds loft fly for 2 hours or more without use of a flag is unusual but certain families of bird loft fly better than others and certain groups of birds some years loft fly better than other. it's funny because some year you can raise a group that are healthy and a good loft fly for them will be 1 hour to maybe 1 hour and 15 mins that is normal but then other years years you can raise group that will fly for 2 or 3 hours.

i've had it happen twice years with birds that would voluntarily fly for 2 to 3 hours a day without being scared by hawks or flags and both of those were excellent year where those birds just dominate. the one year i even had to stop loft flying them on thursday for saturday race because they were flying so long on thursday i was afraid that even one day of rest would not be enough since they fly so long

kind of a mystery as to why certain groups fly that long though because 2 plus hours is not normal but you hope to see it


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## Leon V (Mar 26, 2016)

*How do I fly my lazy pigeons*



kevin321 said:


> Hi again. Just wondering for how long and how often do you loft fly your racing pigeon a day.(young birds) and (old birds). Thanks.


Hi I was wandering if you know how to train lazy pigeons because I have been trying for weeks and it hasn't worked please help me please!


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## Rod Hultquist (Aug 23, 2009)

Overweight pigeons won't fly for long periods of time. The same is true of pigeons that are hungry. Therein lies the challenge for many pigeon fanciers. My suggestion would be(and others may not agree) to feed your birds a feed with about 13% protein and 8% fat content. Add about 2-3% barley to your daily mix.* Feeding is they key to getting birds to exercise with vigor*. Much has been written on how and how much to feed on this forum alone.


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