Weekly training distance

[Barn Pigeon]

I know some people like to fly x about of minutes a day. I like to train 10-15 miles one day 30-35 miles next day. Then let them rest the day before a race. What do some of the rest of you perfer. I know one flyer that likes his birds to fly about 50 min to 1 hr . traininig time daily.

[ohiogsp]

1 hr toss 3 times a week, loft fly 2 days. But if I raced them the previous week I rest them, a day for about every 1.5 hours on the wing. Read my post and it was not clear so edited it.

[sky tx]

1 hour or 30 mile toss ever day but shipping day--Just open loft day after the race. Play time if they feel like it.
Just my way of doing things.

[Timber]

Here in my area, trying to contend with the masses from GHC, we find it better to road train them tuesday-30 miles and thursday-50 miles or so, some will let them loft fly the day of shipping if they couldnt get the thursday toss in. I myself like these days for road training, just to stretch them out prior to the race. If it was a short race (under 180M) then I like to loft fly them the night of the return and again on sunday and monday. To me this keeps some of them from cramping up if they had a tough time of it on the race course.

[MaryOfExeter]

Well my birds won't be flying at all today. Walked down towards the chicken house and up flew Mr. Cooper from the ground
The birds fly once a day during the week and get a semi-open loft + bath on Sundays during racing...
But my birds will be with yours tomorrow and thursday

[whitesnmore]

We Rest em the day after the race. Tuesday is loft fly 1 hr AM & PM. 30 miles training toss Wed, Thur, and Friday. Rest all day on Saturday the day of basketing. The only exception to this is they will not have a Friday training if the upcoming race is to be a hard 300 mile race, then we will loft fly on Friday AM. Any birds not on the race will get training 30 miles on Sunday AM.

[irishsyndicate]

Tue - Wed - Thur
50 - 70 - 50

Sun (rest)
Mon (loft fly)
Fri (shipping - rest)

For 300m races or previous week tough race - more rest is given.


A 30 mile toss during the racing season achieves what????

[SmithFamilyLoft]

Originally Posted by Barn Pigeon

I know some people like to fly x about of minutes a day. I like to train 10-15 miles one day 30-35 miles next day. Then let them rest the day before a race. What do some of the rest of you perfer. I know one flyer that likes his birds to fly about 50 min to 1 hr . traininig time daily.

Depends on how lazy I feel. If there is road training during the week, then it would be 55 miles. I debate with myself which is better, a 55 mile training toss, or 100+ minutes of actual loft flying ? One of my better years, they were doing flying around the loft in excess of two hours to 2.5 hours at a time. My orginal WWII pigeon corps mentor, never really did much road work at all. Then again, he was not real good at YB racing either. He was a 500 and 600 mile OB kind of guy, flying natural. IMHO, there are all kinds of methods which can work. I do have this personal theory, that if you do a lot of road work, it might be possible that you end up breeding a family of birds which require a lot of road work. A local guy here is old and in poor health, and does 0, none, zero, zip, road work at all, and is very competitive. But, then his birds are said to do a lot of good loft flying. Perhaps over the years, he had developed his family around birds which can succeed with only good amounts of loft flying ?

I'm trying to build a family of birds which can succeed regardless of my handling or loft management skills. I want to own some good race birds in spite of my poor training or management, and not because of my great skills. When they are sent to One Loft events, no telling how good or great the management or enviroment might be. Not trying to develope horses for my particular local couse. Simply trying to produce consistantly good horses which can do well on any particular course, under just about any type of management.

So, in conclusion, some can be sucessful training almost every day of the week down the road, or only letting them fly around the house. With the value of time, and wear and tear on the car, price of fuel, etc. After the races have started, I'm not all that concerned if they get down the road or not.

[MaryOfExeter]

I like my birds to loft fly as long as they want to Some days it may only be for 30 minutes, some days they may be up for nearly 3 hours. A lot of that depends on the weather/temps and weather we've seen Mr. Cooper