Good morning Apple Cup breeders!
The birds continue to be released each morning about 6 AM and are really starting to fly again, flights are nearly completely back in. They are offered the opportunity to take a bath each morning as well.
Yesterday we cut out the wall at the west end of the hallway and installed a sliding door for release. This will be used now on for loft flying and when the trailer is done, being told Friday, we will butt up the end of the trailer that has openings so the birds can get used to going in it for a few days before we start training next week.
If you have a bird that has to be removed we will call you, if you have a bird show up missing on a inventory and we did not call you then we have no idea as to what happened to your missing bird. Sometimes these birds hit things, meet birds of prey, or collide with eachother while well away from the loft and they go down. In the aforementioned incidents, we have no way of knowing what happened. So to reiterate, if you have a bird come up missing and we did not call you then we will not be able to tell you what happened to your specific bird. I know to most this sounds like common sense, but some individuals demand to know what happened to their birds when they come up missing on a inventory. Unless they die, we can not give you an answer other than we just do not know.
Temps have been up and down lately fluctuating between high 80s to 100ish, seems we are about past the 100ish days and that is well received by us and the birds.
Again, as long as the trailer is complete by Friday which we are being told will be so and there is no smoke in our area, we will start training next week. We are excited to start getting your birds down the road, we hope you are too!
Everyone have a great week and stay coo!
Rick & OLga
Today we got some welcome cooler weather, it will be in the 80s today and start heating up again this weekend with it hitting 100 F on Monday.
We are running a inventory today, most are in but there are several birds outside still so please be patient if you are missing a bird or two. We worked on narrowing both the width and height of the trap entrances today, the birds came through them easily just having enough room to go through with not much space above their backs. It is now impossible for a bird to piggyback which we saw a few birds doing on these loft flying inventories where they want to rush in to eat and drink, eliminated that possibility completely.
Speaking of missing birds, as mentioned in our updates previously, if you have a bird show up missing and do not receive a call from us then we have no idea as to what happened to your missing bird. We call breeders if they have a bird die or injured, but when we open the doors for their morning loft flying we invariably are going to have birds hit wires while out routing or collide with eachother and ocassionally run in to a bird of prey. Unless it happens right in they yard where we see it, well you get the point.
We continue to walk through the loft several times a day handling birds to see where they are with their 9th and 10th flight regrowth after having pulled them coming up on a month ago. We are happy to report that they are coming in nicely and many of the birds are starting to really fly well again like they were before flights were pulled. Providing the smoke from the NW fires we get this time of year is not lingering in our area and on our training path, we shoulld start training in 10-14 days. Our trailer will be done in a few days and we want to get them used to it for about a week before we start taking them down the road. The trailer will butt up to the end of the loft and they will have to run in to the trailer to be able to go outside. We also have a ramp being built to assist them in reaching the top 3 sections of the trailer, there will be 4 sections total. The back of the trailer will have sliding doors for loading, the sides will also open for releasing and cleaning. Once it is done we will post pictures.
Speaking of starting training, Olga and I have really been putting the miles on our tires searching out improved training locations for this year. We want to try to train the birds to go around Satus Pass this year instead of going due south on HWY 97, the route we plan on training is slightly SE and to the east side of Satus pass and the mountains. In other words, instead of training them to go over the mountains and hills, we are going around to the east side where it is fairly flat scattered with wheat fields and vineards. Wednesday we put nearly 400 miles under our tires, then yesterday I drove down to OR again and put another 300 miles on the odometer. One of your main focuses has been to find a spot on the N side of the Columbia River whereas the birds can see the river and get used to it before we have to take them across. The next goal was to find the best spot to train across the river on the OR side where they will hopefully recognize the spot across the river on the WA side we will be training from. Hopefully the training spots we have identified will equate to more birds getting activated which will make our breeders and ourselves happy.
Birds are super healthy, flights are nearing completion, we should be on the road within the next 2 weeks.
Everyone have a great week!
Rick & Olga
Record breaking heat this week, hit 110F yesterday and cooling through the weekend. Personally not complaining too much, it hit 128F in Iraq when I was there in 2005 a few miles north of Baghdad while wearing full combat gear lugging around my rifle in the sand. I will take 110F any day over that because now I get to wear swimming trunks and flip flops instead of full combat gear!
The million dollar question is, how many gallons of water can slightly over 2,500 birds go through a day on hot summer days like this in the arid high desert region of WA? They went through 44 gallons yesterday and today will go through about the same. The birds are liberated each morning at 0600 slightly after the sun has crested over the hills to the east and by 0900 they are allowed to reenter. Our helpers go home around 1000 and at the time of typing this update up, 1530 which is 3:30 PM for you non military folks, they get fresh water again. We find it is FARR BETTER to give them fresh cool water in the afternoons then to have the loft full of waterers getting warm on days like this, it also helps with maintaining health them getting a fresh drink in the afternoons opposed to warm water.
Invariably some birds just can not handle the heat, they most likely (would put my house on it) have a underlying bacterial or viral issue that we just can not see with the naked eye. Yesterday we had one pigeon die and today had one as well, breeders notified. We have not had to remove a bird for several weeks, we are absolutely giddy over health this year, so having a bird succumb to this extreme health here and there tells us that if 99.99% of the birds are doing great even on days like this we are going to jump up and down with joy!
As stated the last few times in our updates, every evening we handle about a dozen birds checking on the progress of the flights regrowth. We are happy to report that they are growing in nicely with the aid of great quality feed supplied by Don Chapin with Juniper Feed, Don also does Top Pigeon clocking systems. The grain Don uses is locally grown in the Pacific Northwest, they also get fresh mineral grit twice a day and we alternate between Primilac and Ecoltonic from Ed Minvielle of Siegels in the water. When we find the need to medicate we also include Primilac, we find this keeps their good gut bacteria where it needs to be to help maintain optimum health.
OK running back to the house where it is cool, everyone try to stay coo!
Good morning fellow Racing Pigeon enthusiasts!
As you can tell we ran a complete inventory yesterday, birds trapped slowly for several hours so we highly doubt any were missed. If any were missed or stayed out overnight they will be picked up this morning as the clock is still running. The way our traps are set up this year no birds should be missed.
At the time of writing this the birds are out of the loft and have bath pans in front of them on the ground out in front of the loft.
We handled about a dozen birds yesterday while walking through the loft in the evening to see where they are in the moult. We are happy to report that the flights are coming in nicely and all throats were clear and their eyes were bright. This is something we do daily in the evenings while giving them fresh water and securing the loft for the night.
Record breaking heat this week, the birds are handling it nicely. We are out here as the sun is rising which makes things much easier for us and easier on the birds.
As it looks we should start training mid to late August, please be patient as we will not force them if they are not ready and we are on no set timeline.
We have a misting system being installed that will run the entire length of the aiviary, we are sure the birds will really enjoy this.
Good morning Apple Cup breeders and onlookers!
We are running a complete inventory today. All birds were forced out of the loft this morning so this will be a inventory of all birds entered. The birds have had the feed really poured to them since the flights were pulled and are trapping very slowly so there should be no birds being missed today.
Many of the birds are forming in to small flocks again and starting to take off for several minutes, it is just a matter of time before they are routing again like a majority were before having had their flights pulled.
Our neighbor took the entire week off work from his construction/welding job and says that the trailer should be done by end of week. It is good having your welder living so close because you can offer suggestions as the project unflods. This trailer is going to be like no other, when it is complete we will post pictures on Facebook.
We are supposed to have record breaking heat this week. The birds are given fresh water every morning and again in the evening. Now that health has evened itself out we are offering them frequent baths to help keep them happy, cool, and clean.
Hope everyone has a great week!
We started letting the birds back out yesterday on their own after having had their 9th and 10th flights pulled 10 days ago. No birds were forced out of the loft yesterday and we are doing the same today, it is 0640 at the time of writing this and they were allowed to go outside at 0600. We will do this for another week or so and once they are for the most part going out on their own we will start running loft flying inventories again.
We did pull 8 birds out of the loft during our chip and health check and while pulling the 9th and 10th flights, mainly due to wing injuries and one died yesterday while colliding with another pigeon when they got spooked while being outside.
There is one pigeon that we found that is not assigned, ARPU 102391. We sorted through our records and can not find this pigeon in our written notes which we do when the birds arrived. If you own this pigeon please contact us so we can assign it under your breeder name.
We are very pleased with the health this year, it is holding well!
Everyone have a great Sunday with your friends and family.
Good afternoon Apple Cup breeders.
We just completed the chip and health checks as well as pulling the 9th and 10th flights. We really took our time going through the birds with a fine tooth comb pulling any broken feathers in the wing or tail of each bird. We removed a few birds that need a little TLC due to injuries and also found a few that needed new chips, one that was one number off and it will be fixed before the next inventory.
We will rest the birds for awhile now before they will start going back out of the loft hopefully next weekend. They will not be forced to fly, when the flights are nearly all the way in we will encourage flying more and start planning for the first training toss.
We had a unseasonably cool May and June and July has been cooler than normal, makes it much more enjoyable doing pigeon chores.
Health is great, never been better! We look forward to getting these guys flying again and running another inventory for you.
We are picking up the materials needed to start on the new trailer this weekend, we can not wait to show you it when it is done.
We are currently in the process of hand scanning each and every bird in the loft. We really take our time giving about 60 seconds per bird checking to make sure the chips are working and match the band number, pulling the 9th and 10th flights, lastly conducting a health check. Any broken flight or tail feathers are also pulled, we should be done in a few more days.
Once complete we will give the birds a break and let them start to grow their 9th and 10th flights before we start loft flying them again and then the next inventory will follow. Please be patient, health is great this year, we have pulled just one bird out of the loft in the last 10 days, incredible health this year and almost too good to be true!
Providing we do not have a bunch of smoke from these NW fires like we did last year, we should start road training in about 6 weeks.
Hope everyone has a great 4th of July!
Good evening everyone, hope you are trying to stay out of the heat!
Tomorrow we will run a complete inventory of all birds in the loft. We were going to do this over the weekend and start pulling flights today but it was forecasted for high 90s today and it did actually hit 100F. It is supposed to cool down over the weekend and also middle of this week so we decided to conduct the first complete inventory tomorrow and start pulling the 9th and 10th flights, checking chips and health, starting mid week when it cools back down and finishing up this weekend. We will start at daybreak and work as long as we can before it gets too hot for the pigeons.
Now that all birds have been settled and the last section on the west end of the loft is accessible to all birds in the loft, which has been blocked off to settle birds in the aiviary before they were moved down to the east end for trap training before being released for the first time, it is time to move on to phase two of their training. Now that all birds are settled and the very last section is open for all birds we have started running the birds out through the chute at the far west end. Once in the chute and closed off from the inside we are able to handle each bird outside accessing them through the top of the chute through flip up doors. We started their training a few days ago through the chute once all of the very last birds we just settled were with the program. The first day it took 60 minutes to convince them to go through a small hole at floor level at the west end, the next day 45, then 30, yesterday 17 it seems, today 13 minutes. The birds are literally running out on their own, they catch on quick!
The aforementioned is how we also in the past loaded up our crates on the outside of the loft before putting them on the trailer for training. Once we are done with pulling flights, checking chips and health, that entire west wall will be reconstructed. There will be a large normal sized door which will act as the release for just normal loft flying, for training our 20' trailer that is being constructed will simply be backed up to the door opening where the birds will be taught to walk in to on their own. This is the least stressful way of training racing pigeons, allowing them to self load.
If anyone has any questions please do not hesitate to contact us.
The last of the birds that are entered in the Apple Cup for 2022 were settled today. We will let them trap with the older birds for a few days and then we will run a COMPLETE inventory this weekend or early next week. Our appologies for not running a inventory last week but our youngest daughter just graduated and her older brother who lives in AL and older sister who is in TX along with her husband and our first grandchild were in town visiting.
Game plan is to start pulling flights next week, also checking chips to make sure they are assigned and working properly, lastly a health check. Once all flights are pulled we will just let them be pigeons, they will be forced out of the loft daily but not forced to fly. Once they are all flying well on their own again, maybe with a little flagging, we will start road training in August providing the NW fires are not too bad this year.
Olga and I celebrated our 20th anniversary a few days ago, without her support there would be no Apple Cup. I can not say there will be a Apple Cup 20 years from now, but certainly hope we get to celebrate a 40th anniversary together and many more after...
It has finally started to warm up here, birds seem to be enjoying it but yours truly sure wish it would drop back down in to the 60s and 70s. Ha Ha