# YB widowhood



## NZ Pigeon (Nov 12, 2011)

Hey Guys, What you think

I have 28 young birds settled out of 26 2013 bands bought, two of them are wearing last years bands, So far haven't lost a bird, my goal is to get all 26 to the first race.

Anyway, that's my little boast done and is completely off point I might add

To my question

I have around 4 of those young pairing up, Should I move those 2 pair into my OB race loft which currently has room for about 10 pairs and race them on a natural system moving them to widowhood towards the end of the YB season??

My concern is that it will interrupt their good flying habits, So far I get an hour to an hour and a half out of them round the loft and will start training in around 20 days time.

Just wanting some opinions and thoughts on moving birds off a typical "perch and feed" type system onto a system that is more inline with what the old bird race guys do.

I am stoked with my young birds this year, So much faster than my flock last year, they hoon round the loft and look like all the other guys flocks, I guess in my first year I had a lot of breeders were as this year I concentrated on the four pair that produced birds that placed in my first young and old bird season.


----------



## pigeonjim (May 12, 2012)

I am superstitious!! Never brag!! Now you have to throw salt over your left shoulder, pepper over your right shoulder and spin in place 3 times counterclockwise without falling down and personally apologize to each and every bird while there is still 28. lol Hurry!! hee!!hee!!


----------



## NZ Pigeon (Nov 12, 2011)

LOL, I am not superstitious in the slightest, They all came back this morning. I like to bath in what I see as successes, Helps on the days when the birds misbehave and I get frustrated with myself for feeding them wrong. Or when two roller pigeons take off into the pins and never come back ( happened on Sunday )


----------



## pigeonjim (May 12, 2012)

I know what your saying, one bad day can stain a bunch of good ones. I do not have a lot of experience, but I have tried it both ways. I like to keep a few nest boxes with the young racers and let what happens happen. A little urgency never hurt anything, but I do still keep them all together as a team. I replace eggs with fake ones until they are trained out. Works for me......


----------



## ERIC K (Mar 29, 2010)

Evan, What your talking about is part of several light systems that people have been using for years. If you have room I would separate your YBs into 2 groups, hen and cocks. You can train and loft fly separate and in the middle of the week you can let them go together for a short time. If you have a helper and can help keep the birds separate when you road train them. Someone at home to move the birds to their own section. You would need to release the birds separate too, 15 to 20 minutes apart . If they mix I wouldn't worry but they need to live separate most of the time to make it work.

I wouldn't let them mate or have eggs, that's too much for a young bird and would interrupt their training trying to sit on eggs and not wanting to leave the nest etc. 

You can fly them on a widowhood system by letting the cocks have a nest box but keeping the hen in a different room. You then put the hens in with the cocks on race day, and you race both groups at the same time. Separate them the day after they return home. As the season go on more of your birds should mate up and your team will get stronger each week.

If you fly widowhood in old bird you will be light years ahead of the competition because your cock birds will be on their second year of widowhood as yearlings.


----------



## Crazy Pete (Nov 13, 2008)

I've always been told that after a few years on widowhood they are not that good at parenting, any thoughts on this?
Dave


----------



## ERIC K (Mar 29, 2010)

I guess that could be true and its quite possible that the birds could get bored with the system but I think it is much easier to learn and fly than the natural system. 

You could always let the couples raise a round or even one baby before training starts in the spring. If you have a quality pairs they could possibly raise your whole young bird team.


----------



## Crazy Pete (Nov 13, 2008)

I keep a couple pair of Modena for pumpers for when I try to set up a hen to fly back to eggs that are pipin, or a cock bird on 10 day old babies. You have to have the pumpers on eggs or babies of the same age to keep them warm while they are in the race create. Or if you loose a bird I find that Modena's are bid enough to handle the extra feeding.
Dave


----------



## ERIC K (Mar 29, 2010)

Crazy Pete said:


> I keep a couple pair of Modena for pumpers for when I try to set up a hen to fly back to eggs that are pipin, or a cock bird on 10 day old babies. You have to have the pumpers on eggs or babies of the same age to keep them warm while they are in the race create. Or if you loose a bird I find that Modena's are bid enough to handle the extra feeding.
> Dave


I wasn't talking about raising young while racing but before the season ever start to keep the widows happy and complete.( with old birds)

What your talking about with the pumpers is a good idea but that's part of the problem with the natural system, for old birds, so much extra work and even though a hen on 10 day old eggs is hard to beat in a race, she will only be at her best for one race and widows cocks are good week after week.

The original post and my thoughts were about a system for young birds, in which you breed early , separate them , then and as they mature fly them on a separate/widowhood system in which the cocks get nest boxes as they mature, without the problems of nest building and egg sitting. 
Most of what I posted comes right out of John Sampson light video. In 1993 he set a world record by taking 1 to 9 th place vs 4869 birds in the New England Open Pigeon Race.

As you can see by the date 1993 these young bird systems have been around for over 20 years but few people will share them with you. The Europeans have been using the dark system/ separate/widowhood for young birds longer so when you buy champion birds from Holland or Belgian and you can't get the same results, it might be because the original bird was raced on a system and if your not on that same system your results will be different.( not as good)


----------



## raftree3 (Oct 16, 2010)

Here's my thoughts on the original question. If you have a team of ybs that were all born pretty early something like that can work well as the race season progresses. Just to try it with a couple of pairs wouldn't be too much effort but would be hard to train and fly them to keep them as fit as the rest of your team. Ybs have a lot to deal with in their heads early on so it may be an overload. Yearlings at times have difficulty understanding your system....true widows and natural flyers have it all figured out . Part of my plan this past year was to separate my ybs by sex after the third race.....by this time they were getting pretty dependable and were mature enough to realize that if I put them together on one toss during the week, one of the rewards was that they could be together on returning from a race. The added motivation seemed to work well for some of the cocks I think.....not sure about the hens. Good luck!


----------



## pigeonjim (May 12, 2012)

raftree3 said:


> Here's my thoughts on the original question. If you have a team of ybs that were all born pretty early something like that can work well as the race season progresses. Just to try it with a couple of pairs wouldn't be too much effort but would be hard to train and fly them to keep them as fit as the rest of your team. Ybs have a lot to deal with in their heads early on so it may be an overload. Yearlings at times have difficulty understanding your system....true widows and natural flyers have it all figured out . Part of my plan this past year was to separate my ybs by sex after the third race.....by this time they were getting pretty dependable and were mature enough to realize that if I put them together on one toss during the week, one of the rewards was that they could be together on returning from a race. The added motivation seemed to work well for some of the cocks I think.....not sure about the hens. Good luck!


The way I do it I notice the same. The cocks seem to return better and the hens stay the same. The hens later like 2nd year start to shine more and I think are better Mothers on the nest because of the early setting they did and the cocks the 2nd year do better when the young are a week or two old. Listening to the other comments makes me want to re-think a little, but change makes more work also.


----------



## Revolution Lofts (Aug 7, 2008)

What are your guys thoughts on flying young birds to the perch early on and as they get older, fly them on the natural system? I don't have the loft space to fly widowhood, but I have 15 nest boxes in my young bird loft. The nest boxes are 18 inches wide, 16 inches deep, and 12 inches high. No nest front or anything, just an option for birds that may want to pair up, breed, and lay eggs.


----------



## ERIC K (Mar 29, 2010)

Revolution Lofts said:


> What are your guys thoughts on flying young birds to the perch early on and as they get older, fly them on the natural system? I don't have the loft space to fly widowhood, but I have 15 nest boxes in my young bird loft. The nest boxes are 18 inches wide, 16 inches deep, and 12 inches high. No nest front or anything, just an option for birds that may want to pair up, breed, and lay eggs.


 I would avoid letting them build a nest and have eggs , I think it will disrupt the training more so with the Hens which sit at night till 9:30 am if you want to train in the morning and they will likely not want to fly when they think they should be on the nest. Same with the cocks that have a nest with eggs, they will not fly in the late morning or afternoon. 
You could open the nest boxes and as the cocks mature see if any will claim a box, you could use that to your advantage.

Even with most separate systems for young birds, not all the cocks will mature enough to take and hold a box so it will be trial and error the first few week.
They most likely still be flying to the perch.


----------

