Birds locked in today (1-16) due to heavy cloud cover and light drizzle - 

Doxy Tyl in the water the last few days for respiratory...

Working them again tomorrow and thru the long weekend....

Best of luck ~~

Birds will be loft flying today - giving them a break - with Doxy Tyl in the water...

This week we stay around the ~ 50 mile markers.. Give everyone a chance to be confident at this distance before we stretch out to 75-90-125...

Best regards

We will stay in this range for a few days to get those conditioning tosses in - medicate for Respiratory 3-5 days before we stretch them out to 75 and 90 miles. They will be worked twice daily until we get to 75 - then its once a day ~!

Best regards

Birds are being worked twice per day in this early going -  taken out in the morning, then loft flown late afternoon - 

As we are seeing, this course (in January vs November) is a lot more working tosses with variable winds - and should provide really good feedback to the breeders. As such, birds will be thoroughly trained (no light training and waiting for blowhome days).

The weather is really beautiful - 60's and variable winds, clear skies for the next few days - we will take advantage of that.

Hand inventory to be done as a couple of bands are incorrect, and a couple birds are missing bands etc..... We are waiting on one of those days when the birds have to be kept in to do this task....

Stay tuned ~~!

Birds are working twice a day - morning and evening.

Back on the road again to the last spot - they have been pampered enough.

Every day they will go in mornings, loft fly in evenings until we get out there as long as weather keeps beautiful as it has been.

- best of luck ~~!

Flagging birds today - they have been babied for too long. About 80% of the flock are free-flying really good.

We are working them twice a day!

Health is great - a few birds need replaced e-bands or cleaning.

Recall that we delayed our training due to the local Federation flying their YB season and birds over our loft.

We did not want to risk losing birds to overfly as our neighboring sister race did and dropping over 300 birds in one toss - we believe we did the right thing by delaying. 

See all the prior updates for all the details ~ No need to re-hash!

Stay tuned for daily updates from here as we crank up the momentum !

Open lofting the birds for another couple days before we start them back up on formal training path to 100 miles.

Not all the birds are free-ranging as we would like For 45+ minutes.

Health is optimal - so its only a matter of loft management to get them operating as one flock.

Birds are not sick - so no medication needed - juat probiotics and Vita Pro Combo in water aeveral times weekly.

All the best for 2020

Steve

Happy New Year to you and your family - all the best for 2020 ~~!

Birds are back out today after the period of a wet, cold and windy Christmas. Generally with puddles of water around the loft, we keep them in as we do not want them drinking anything outside at this time. We hit 32 degrees here. and birds will need to adjust.

Birds will be on Open Loft today and everyday this week and get them back up in the air for 45 minutes after they were roughed up last weekend.

Best regards

Merry Christmas to you and your family from us ~~!

Looks  like operator error from my helper on the "Live Clocking" inventory attempt. Not sure if it was Internet down, password related or wrong USB port for the Wincompanion.

Well rain, rain and winds thru Christmas and also predicted for Friday. Bieds will get some down time to regroup and back in the air and on the road again.

best regards

Power has been restored to the loft as of Saturday - Utility company had shut it off due to some water damage/flood erosion that could have potentially caused some issues to the electricals.

BIrds have been exercising well  in part to our persistent aerial predators and have been out every day on open loft.. We took them on some short orientation tosses down the street 1 mile, 10, 15, 25. CLocks were not on as we had no power until Saturday. The 25 mile was released in light tail winds and partly cloudy - later turned to 10-15 mph and the birds struggled, taking off in the wrong direction and coming from the west/north west which is opposite to our southeast direction for this series. We turned the birds out in the evening thinking it was a clock issue - and reran the birds through the traps. Hope that a lot of the stragglers come in today (cloudy and strong variable winds from the south).

BIrds will be on lockdown for a few days due to strong winds/rain forecasted. After that looks like another nice spell of weather - will re-group and start at the 10 mile marker.

Best Regards