# settling cage and trap training



## TipplerBeni (Sep 30, 2007)

Got the youngsters in the race loft they been in the settling cage through the traps. My question is should I lock them out all day an just open the traps when its time to eat? I've been training them just to go through them no real trap work yet just to get them the know how to go in. I notice when i throw them in the settling cage around 6ish they want to jump back in quick but when I put them out around 10am they will stay out for hours should i just let them be or start cracking the whip on feed training now?


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## g0ldenb0y55 (Dec 23, 2008)

The sooner the better! You don't want them to make a habit of not trapping right away. That's just my opinion.


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## spirit wings (Mar 29, 2008)

TipplerBeni said:


> Got the youngsters in the race loft they been in the settling cage through the traps. My question is should I lock them out all day an just open the traps when its time to eat? I've been training them just to go through them no real trap work yet just to get them the know how to go in. I notice when i throw them in the settling cage around 6ish they want to jump back in quick but when I put them out around 10am they will stay out for hours should i just let them be or start cracking the whip on feed training now?


well the trap training is to get them used to going in, and as long as they know how to do that then you start calling them in to feed, when they are hungry and that is to have control over them coming in, so if they know how to trap in well, I would say control calling them in is next, with the feeding, they need to be hungry to want to come in. so I would say that would be your next step. but they should know your feed call already if you started that early.


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## RodSD (Oct 24, 2008)

I only put the birds for 1 hour before feed time, then I open the trap door, whistle, and let them come in. I only do that for 3 days. Once they respond to my call and trap in, then trap training is finished to me. Then I just let the trap door open the whole day and let them come and go thru the trap (still have the settling cage intact). I do that so that they can spend time to see the surroundings.

My trap training then coincides with settling phase.

Oh yeah, I forgot to say that I currently changed my trap system to home-made sputniks trap and the birds learned to trap on their own.


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## Kal-El (Oct 10, 2008)

My system is very similar to Rod's. After I wean my birds, I put them into the young bird section. This is also were I keep my widowhood hens. I teach them to drink, but not to eat. For the first couple of days, the young birds don't know how to eat, but they will begin to feel very hungry. Everytime I feed the hens, I whistle. The young birds will learn very quickly how to eat. Once they understand this, I put them in the settling cage. I leave them there for a couple of hours a day so they can get to know their surroundings. I then feed the hens and call the young birds in. After a week of this, I start letting the hens out for exercise. I remove the settling cage while the hens are out. I then call the hens in when they're done. The young birds observe this and follow suit. This is risky because not all will immediately trap. Some like to lounge around on the rooftop. Those that are slow to trap will starve that day. This teaches them that if they don't trap fast, they won't get to eat. Once these young birds are taught how to trap, they will be good trappers for life.


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## Lovebirds (Sep 6, 2002)

Kal-El said:


> My system is very similar to Rod's. After I wean my birds, I put them into the young bird section. This is also were I keep my widowhood hens. *I teach them to drink, but not to eat. For the first couple of days, the young birds don't know how to eat, but they will begin to feel very hungry. * Everytime I feed the hens, I whistle. The young birds will learn very quickly how to eat. Once they understand this, I put them in the settling cage. I leave them there for a couple of hours a day so they can get to know their surroundings. I then feed the hens and call the young birds in. After a week of this, I start letting the hens out for exercise. I remove the settling cage while the hens are out. I then call the hens in when they're done. The young birds observe this and follow suit. This is risky because not all will immediately trap. Some like to lounge around on the rooftop. Those that are slow to trap will starve that day. This teaches them that if they don't trap fast, they won't get to eat. Once these young birds are taught how to trap, they will be good trappers for life.


Wow.........I can't believe that you let a newly weaned young bird go two days without eating. The most important time of their life and you're starving them? Doesn't make a bit of sense to me. 
My young birds have food 24/7 the first week, sometimes 2 before I start trap training. I might have a little trouble with them in the beginning, I'll admit that, but they haven't missed a meal and by the time they're OLD enough to not be harmed by going without food for a day, I CAN let them be a bit hungry and get them to trap. 6 months down the road, it doesn't matter anyway whether they learned to trap when they were 30 days old or 60 days old.


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## g0ldenb0y55 (Dec 23, 2008)

RodSD said:


> I only put the birds for 1 hour before feed time, then I open the trap door, whistle, and let them come in. I only do that for 3 days. Once they respond to my call and trap in, then trap training is finished to me. Then I just let the trap door open the whole day and let them come and go thru the trap (still have the settling cage intact). I do that so that they can spend time to see the surroundings.
> 
> My trap training then coincides with settling phase.
> 
> Oh yeah, I forgot to say that I currently changed my trap system to home-made sputniks trap and the birds learned to trap on their own.


Rod - Do you have pictures of your home-made sputniks trap? I owuld love to see what it looks like..... I use the bobs and my birds seem okay with it but I've been reading that everyone eventually switches over to a new trap system like the sputnik or the drop trap.


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## LUCKYT (Jan 17, 2009)

When they are real young you do not even need to get them hungry 99% want to go back inside anyway.


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## Kal-El (Oct 10, 2008)

Lovebirds said:


> Wow.........I can't believe that you let a newly weaned young bird go two days without eating. The most important time of their life and you're starving them? Doesn't make a bit of sense to me.
> My young birds have food 24/7 the first week, sometimes 2 before I start trap training. I might have a little trouble with them in the beginning, I'll admit that, but they haven't missed a meal and by the time they're OLD enough to not be harmed by going without food for a day, I CAN let them be a bit hungry and get them to trap. 6 months down the road, it doesn't matter anyway whether they learned to trap when they were 30 days old or 60 days old.


I should rephrase that I don't teach the young birds to eat, but when the other birds are eating, they watch and learn. It's not that I don't let them eat, but the young birds have to teach themselves.


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## Guest (Feb 12, 2009)

personally I would just let them fly in and out of the settling cage while leaving the trap door open for a couple weeks so they learn to know where to go in thru when they are let out and then after two weeks I would put the trap in motion so they can learn to go in thru it for about a week while training them to a sound(whistle or can shaker) while you feed them the whole time ... then the next week I would take away the settling cage or open the door of your california style front and let them go and hope for the best


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## RodSD (Oct 24, 2008)

Henry,

My mini-sputniks trap:http://www.pigeons.biz/forums/album.php?albumid=488&pictureid=5287

I designed it based on the available left-over woods and hardware cloth. LOL! There is a door on the trap inside my loft that I can open or close. The trap is too small, but....


Here is my old settling cage/trap/training crate:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtV9Dp9lFBI

I like to design my stuff to be multi-functional and removable.


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## TipplerBeni (Sep 30, 2007)

I decided to re-do my loft. Im adding a 4x3 avariy to the bottom of the landing board. Im going to put a door at the front of the avariy so the birds can go out through without using the main front do0r. I think that would be alot easier to settle them.


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## spirit wings (Mar 29, 2008)

TipplerBeni said:


> I decided to re-do my loft. Im adding a 4x3 avariy to the bottom of the landing board. Im going to put a door at the front of the avariy so the birds can go out through without using the main front do0r. I think that would be alot easier to settle them.


sounds like a plan! cool.


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## Lovebirds (Sep 6, 2002)

Kal-El said:


> I should rephrase that I don't teach the young birds to eat, but when the other birds are eating, they watch and learn. It's not that I don't let them eat, but the young birds have to teach themselves.


Well, again, IMO, , the newly weaned babies should already know how to eat before they are even weaned. It's a pretty simple thing to just let thier parents teach them. That's what they parents are for.


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## kalapati (Aug 29, 2006)

RodSD said:


> Henry,
> 
> 
> Here is my old settling cage/trap/training crate:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtV9Dp9lFBI
> ...



hey Rod,

that is a cool video. they are well trained and trap so quick.

i was off to babysit yesterday and while my baby was sleeping i got the chance to make a tunnel box to mount the benzing antennas:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx1XICyfqVw



kalapati
San Diego
http://bluebarloft.from-ca.com:81/Jview.htm


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## Lovelace (Jan 10, 2008)

I agree, 100% renee I leave my with their parents until they come out the nest on their 
own they never miss a meal in this way, they learn were the food and water is through
their parents. I think they become better birds in this way natural.


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## Timber (Jan 6, 2009)

*Trap Training*

These are all great methods posted here. Like its been said before, you ask a question to 100 people, youll get 100 different answers...lol

Heres what we like to do. When I first got back into things (2006) I weaned the birds between 27-32 days old, depending if the feathers under the wing were fully showing. Then, for those hens that I didnt want another round from (always seems to be a few) I would put those hens in the YB section with the weaned youngsters. I would show them were the water was and place their beaks into the water. From there, I would just leave them alone with the hens, opened to the avairy and bob traps. They would continue to be fed by the hens in most cases and those that didnt, they would find the food soon enough. With in 2-3 days, all would be eating when called. 

Once the first set of youngsters were independent of any hens and the second set of newly weaned birds arrived in the loft, I would pull the hens and the YB's would teach each other. 

After about 2 month's, when I would go clean the loft, I would lock all the YB's out in the avairy, clean the loft, then call them in. Within seconds, 90% of all the YB's would trap in and be fed. Those that linger, would go with out food until the next feeding. I found that if I did this once or twice, by the end of that week, all of them would be on the "trapping system". 

When it came time to road train and eventually race, I never had a bad trap. Once they landed on the board, and I whistled the feed call, they would immediatley go inside. I still get a kick out of it when I see the old birds who are inside the loft, drop to the deck when calling in the YB's. They would expect to be fed. Like a good trainer, yes, I would toss them some peanuts or small seeds just to insure the whisteling to feed notion...LOL

As a matter of fact, Im about 3 days away from starting this system again for this year.


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## g0ldenb0y55 (Dec 23, 2008)

Timber - I like your method of putting some hens in with the YB's so that they can see and learn what the hens are doing for food and water. I can see the YB's following the leader at that point. When it comes time for me to settle and trap train some Yb's I'll try that method! Thanks for contributing to this thread!

Henry


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## g0ldenb0y55 (Dec 23, 2008)

RodSD said:


> Henry,
> 
> My mini-sputniks trap:http://www.pigeons.biz/forums/album.php?albumid=488&pictureid=5287
> 
> ...


Pare Rod - I lilke what you did but won't the birds be able to fly back out? Maybe I'm not seeing the whole idea here.....


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## Kal-El (Oct 10, 2008)

Timber said:


> These are all great methods posted here. Like its been said before, you ask a question to 100 people, youll get 100 different answers...lol
> 
> Heres what we like to do. When I first got back into things (2006) I weaned the birds between 27-32 days old, depending if the feathers under the wing were fully showing. Then, for those hens that I didnt want another round from (always seems to be a few) I would put those hens in the YB section with the weaned youngsters. I would show them were the water was and place their beaks into the water. From there, I would just leave them alone with the hens, opened to the avairy and bob traps. They would continue to be fed by the hens in most cases and those that didnt, they would find the food soon enough. With in 2-3 days, all would be eating when called.
> 
> ...


Although it's true that if you ask 100 people, you most likely will get 100 different answers, but in this case, the system you're using is uncannily similar to mine! And yes, it does work quite well!


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## RodSD (Oct 24, 2008)

Henry,

The old trap lets them escape so I decided to change it. The new sputniks trap initially allowed the birds to come out by climbing out on that angled entrance. I changed it so that the distance from the trap's bottom to the angled side is higher so they can't jump out and fly. So it works. One of my smartest birds, however, can be so persistent that it can use her wing (and not her legs) to pull herself out like doing a chin-up. The trap works. Once they come in and the exit door is closed, then they can't come out anymore (trapped).

I think the simplest trap is like those from Kalapati which is just using a flap (same idea in RedRose loft).

Here are videos from someone else's loft:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWr8d9O35mo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOWUzhGXiCg

And this is how they come out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICpD-XUch4w&feature=channel_page


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## TipplerBeni (Sep 30, 2007)

this is how it was i put a screen in front of the trap an put the birds in it. With this set up I was going to let them out through the front main door. Which I thought about an I thought it was a bad idea I didnt want the birds flying over my head thinking it was time to go out when I walked in the loft since the loft is about 2 ft off the ground the door opening is high.


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## TipplerBeni (Sep 30, 2007)

Now it looks like this its a 4x3 avariy the front opens so I can let the birds out through the screening. It has expanded metal floor makes it easier an safer to give them bathes. I was planning on letting them bathe outside but that would be dangerous hawks an stuff could snatch them.




















They like the new screening


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## RodSD (Oct 24, 2008)

I totally agree with the bath thing. A hawk tried to get my birds when they were taking a bath outside all wet. Never again!

Beni,
Your loft is nice.


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