News and Updates

Dec-21-2020

CHRISTMAS UPDATE

Hello breeders, It is past time for an update. I hope you know this is not my typical Motus operandi.

Just 4 short months after my mother passed away, my father has followed her. He passed away 2 weeks ago. This has proved to be a much tougher time to deal with feelings and emotions . . . and time.

I know many will say ,"suck it up its life, what about my birds!" I wish I could make it that easy. My father was my best friend, my biggest cheerleader and my hero. Always upbeat and looking for the bright sunny side of life. A dreamer. Happy, and a jokester, a realist. I miss him deeply. He was 86 and they were married for 63 years. They lived in Eastern Oregon.

We spoke constantly and he always wanted to know the latest about the birds, mine and the one loft. We flew birds together when I was a teenager and that is the time I cherish most in my life.

The birds are doing fine they are going through a respiratory treatment last week and this week.
I am hopeful the hawk problem is behind us. 18 have been relocated. We have had a lot of rain and low overcast the last couple of weeks. Hard weather to get any meaningful work on the birds in any consistent fashion.

Next week we will start them again on the road and hope the weather will cooperate and we can get this underway.

There will be no activation fees due for about 3 weeks so if that was a concern you still have more time.

I cannot apologize enough for the way this season has turned out, many things and circumstances were way beyond any of my control. Thank you in advance for your understanding. We will get through this.

Embrace your family while you can, if you have elderly parents cherish every day they are on the green side of the grass with you, it won't be forever on this world.

May God keep you and bless you now and in the future.

I remain, Richly Blessed and Highly Favored,

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to each of you.

Bud
call or text,

281-924-5197

Nov-26-2020

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

We sincerely hope each of you is enjoying a relaxed day off of work and a nice meal with family.

As we get closer to the end of the year, I have had to make some adjustments and changes to the plans.

First let me say I intend to do what's right for the birds first and foremost. It is the birds that are important, not the schedule.

This has been an extremely challenging year and I do not want to throw away the work up to this point. So I was faced with making a choice of one of four viable options.

1. Cancel the races.
2. Shorten the series from the anticipated 5 races to 3 or 4 to end by Dec 31st.
3. Rush the training and the races to finish by Dec 31st.
4. Do right by the birds and work them out at a resonable pace and extend the races into January.

I hope this will not be inconvenient to most of you, but if we want a good clean series, I see this as the only viable answer with the situation as it stands right now. I have chosen number 4. Yes I have to feed them longer, and that is okay as I said earlier for me it is about the birds.

The challenges have been many, and I hope we are on the downhill stretch. There is a pair of Goshawks working the birds at this time, and the birds have become very good at evading capture. A suggestion was made by one of the breeders to use one of those wind dancers. I replied to him, "I have one but it doesn't work". I need to clarify that statement. It did work at the loft. What did not work was when the lazy birds go and land in a tree or get spooked off the loft and the various passing Coopers, Chicken & Prairie hawks would pick them off.

The Goshawks on the other hand where taking them right out of the air in deep dive attacks from very very high up. They never attacked the birds on the loft that I saw. And until the birds learned how to evade them they also took a few.

There were about 30 birds who simply would NOT come out of the loft. The only way to get them out was to catch them and put them in a basket, the problem with them was they only had one thing on their mind and that was to get back in the loft, PERIOD! They were literally scared to death and did not want any part of being outside the loft.

These came home from half a mile 3 times, but when I took them 1 mile 10 did not come back when I took them 3 miles, I droped 16 more. Believe me I tried but I can not continue to hold the others back for birds that simply refuse to fly.

Computer and internet problems have been corrected, with that said, the first 6 birds to trap today scanned but for some reason they did not upload. I believe wincompanion says there are 169 birds the is actually175 but one has a hurt wing. There is another one not scanned that came in from Sundays toss with a broken leg. I will be contacting the owners by Friday to let them know.

I know it may not seem like it to some of you, but I am working diligently to protect and train the birds the best I have been able to considering the extreme hawk situation this year and the late start due to the death of my mother.

May you have a belssed holiday season.

Bud
281-924-5197

Oct-19-2020

HELLO BREEDERS

Here is the latest update. The birds have been going out everyday it is not raining or the wind blowing to hard. There were several birds who had not come out of the loft literally scared to death. A week ago Sunday I pushed them all out with the trap blocked luckily for 3 days in a row we had no hawk attacks and the birds relaxed a bit, but that was short lived. They have been devastating this year.

I am confident we will be able to start training in the next couple weeks and be on target to start the races Thanksgiving weekend as planned.

You can look forward to an updated inventory this next weekend.

Thanks again for your participation.

Bud

Sep-23-2020

YOUR LONG AWAITED UPDATE

Your long awaited update

My apologies for such a long spell with no updates. This has been a difficult time,

and I hope I am caught up with the family situation for the time being.

Thank you to those who sent me well wishes at my mothers passing. I am back

from Oregon and had to stay a bit longer than intended to make sure my dad was

settled and would be okay.

The birds are doing well, the health is very very good. What is not good is the hawk

situation. This is by far the worst year I have ever experienced. We have relocated 7

so far and there are at least 2 more, maybe 3 which are relentless!

My personal young bird team has been sacrificed to protect the 1-Loft birds. I have

also lost several prized breeders killed and their head eaten through the wire in my

individual breeding pens. I am amazed at the cunning and the intelligence of my adversary.

The last time your birds were out, one hawk would not let a group of 10 or 12 land and trap.

He chased them every time they would try to land right up until dark, those birds were not

seen again.

I will be doing a hand inventory next week with the cooler weather. I hope to be off and

running next week and regular updates will resume.

Thanks again for your patience and kind words.

Bud
281-924-5197

Aug-10-2020

UPDATE

Hello Breeders

This summer has been one of the most challenging I can remember.

We have not escaped the young bird sickness experienced by so many
other one loft races this year, though in our one loft birds it seems to have
pretty much run its course.

We lost about 35 of the 400 birds to illness, and have 8 in the hospital pen.

Yesterday I moved 12 fully recovered birds back into general population to
retrain them with the trapping routine.

Things really went from bad to worse over the last couple weeks, but are
beginning to level off. I expect we may lose 5 or 6 more before its all over.

The illness took a real hold about 10 days after we had 8 inches of rain in 5
days. It has been a battle ever since, and hope is we are at the end of it. I
will mist the loft again this week in an effort to kill anything lurking.

The majority of the birds which we lost were the later ones which came in.

The majority of the birds are doing great. Most have finished the body molt
and most are more than halfway through the wing molt.

I have had a few personal issues to deal with as well, I had a couple health
set backs but am now recovered.

If that were not enough things to deal with, my mother passed away last
week. She lived in eastern Oregon about halfway between Portland and
Boise. I need to make a trip out there for my 86 yr old father, there is just
not a good time to go and leave the one loft birds. But at the same time I
need to.

I have help in place but now all is a timing issue. There won't be a service
as such at this time due to local COVID-19 restrictions, everything is up in
the air, I must be flexible. I hope you can allow me that time when I will
need to be away for a short time.

Thanks for your patience and understanding through this stressful time.
As always you can call if you have any questions.

Bud
281-924-5197

Jul-20-2020

JULY 19 UPDATE

Hello Breeders, hope this finds you all well!

It has been a rough couple of weeks. The health of the birds was greatly challenged after the large amount

of rain a couple weeks ago followed by extremely high humidity, heat and a heat index in the teens for over

2 weeks.

We did lose about half a dozen birds though this time with 4 or 5 more which will need to be put down. I will

be in touch with the affected breeders this week. Young bird sickness, circovirus or ????? not sure but it hits

some birds really hard really fast and others just waste away to nothing. The mortality rate is not that bad

but one loss is to many.

The majority of the birds are looking great and are in great shape; molting heavily and trapping well, finally.

There were about a dozen birds that just did not want to trap on their own. Whatever their issue was, they

seem to have gotten over it.

The next item on the agenda is to get the clocking system updated and set up for this season. Hopefully

Terry will be available when I am. Then we will be able to post a current inventory on wincompanion.

As always, if you have a question feel free to give me a call

Bud
281-924-5197
www.TexasHolidayDerby.com

Jun-30-2020

END OF JUNE

Good evening breeders, it appears as though the
rains may be over for a few days, but the high winds
have temporarily taken their place. Here at the loft
we received right at 8 inches of rain in 5 days.

It was tough going there for a bit but we made it through.

We did lose 3 more birds this last week The owners
have been. The hospital pen has three
more which may not make it, and I think that will be
the tail end. The rest of the birds are looking very
good and moulting very heavily.

When we get rains like we did last week any bird with a poor immune system suffers; part of what makes flying here such a challenge.

We have great ventilation and plenty of room so the majority seem to handle the added stress very well.

The birds are finally starting to get the hang of trapping, for some reason it was more of a challenge with this group as a whole.

With all the rain, I did not get the pictures I had hoped to but they will be coming.

I hope everyone is healthy and staying that way, and I hope you each enjoy the coming July 4th weekend.

As always if you have a question feel free to give me a call.

Bud
281-924-5197
TexasHolidayDerby@gmail.com
TexasHolidayDerby.com

Jun-23-2020

WOW!

Hello Breeders, wow is all I can say!

We hit 400 birds for the start of the series! Never expected that, and am humbled by the entries.

Health is still holding, there continue to be a couple birds a week I need to pull from the flock and isolate,
we have lost 12 and have 8 others in the hospital pen. Four of those will get moved back to "gen pop" this
week.

If you have lost a bird, you have been notified so you could send a replacement.

If you are on facebook you should be able to go there after this week and sign up on my channel
Texas Holiday Derby where I will be posting videos and pictures.(after next week)

A lot of rain and bad weather expected this week so will [play it by ear. Birds are learning the trapping

system but it seems to be hard for many, not sure why.

Again thanks for the support, I will do my best.
As always, any questions feel free to call.

Bud
TexasHolidayDerby.com
281-924-5197

Jun-15-2020

DOG DAYS OF SUMMER ARE HERE

Greetings Breeders from the Texas Holiday Derby! Important info please read.

Things at the loft are proceeding on schedule birds are allowed to freely trap out into the aviary as they wish and trap back

into the loft. They all have not got the hang of it yet, but they are learning. we will give them another week or so to discover

it on their own, then force them out to fully understand the routine before we release them all.

We are right at the 380 mark with a few replacements yet to come in. The health has continued to hold strong. We have lost 6

birds to illness and 6 others had to be put down on arrival to protect all the other birds,, and 6 more with various ailments in

the hospital pen. There has been nothing consistent as far as ailments go they have all been different.

July 1st is a pivotal day... last day for replacements and also the last day to enter for average speed, $25 per bird you can

check on wincompanion. If there is NOT a large green dot on the far right for a bird, that bird is not in average speed. Only

birds with a green dot on their line will be competing for average speed.

All birds listed on the "BIRDS" list are here.

Any questions feel free to give me a call.

Bud
281-924-5197

Jun-08-2020

BOY ITS HOT!

Texas Holiday Derby Update

A very heart felt thank you to all this years participants!

My goal this year was 300 birds. That goal was shattered last week and
this week will be more than I could have hoped for. We are sitting at 342
birds right now and due to some delays in shipping last week I expect
the last 30 or so birds this week. Several birds are needing to be replaced
because of the boxes they have been sent in.

We have received 2 boxes of dead birds in square/rectangular boxes with
flat tops. I highly recommend using the boxes which are angled at the top
so if the postal/shipping personnel are not paying attention and pack the
boxes tight against each other and on top, there is still at least some air
getting to the birds. Many other boxes which were cut down were simply not
appropriate to ship birds in, most with not enough air holes for air flow.

For the most part the health has been excellent. There have been a few
issues, we have had a couple birds expire and a total of 6 pulled from the loft.
The owners have been notified.

As you already know, any time you mix birds from dozens of lofts from all
around the country there will be problems pop up. The key is early recognition
and quick action.

Thank you again for your trust and support of this race.

As always feel free to call if you have any questions.

Bud
281-924-5197

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