I had an ACE Middle Distance Champion?!

NATIONAL ACE PIGEON SUMMARY REPORT (Middle Distance) AU National Database 2014 Old Bird Season Printed on January 22, 2016 Qualified birds from Indiana        POS AVE UNIRATE    NAME             RACING PIGEON       CLR SEX   QUALIFYING RACE MILES    1 4.229%  Robert Threet           0319   AU 12 EVV    BB   H    224, 167, 224, 224.             2 4.953%  Mark Helfrich           0981   AU 13 EVV    BC   H    168, 225, 309, 225.             3 5.881%  Donald Goodwin          0967   AU 12 EVV    BB   H    227, 311, 169, 227.             4 6.085%  Randy  Bean             4836   AU 13 WII    BCH  H     98, 337, 141, 298.             5 6.111%  Steve Helfrich          11435  AU 11 HELF   RCOP      168, 283, 225, 168.             6 6.142%  Mark Helfrich           0459   AU 12 EVV    BB   H    225, 225, 225, 283.             7 6.434%  Mark Helfrich           0444   AU 12 EVV    BC   C    225, 168, 309, 225.             8 7.153%  Randy  Bean             6261   AU 09 IDA    BCH  C     98,  98, 337, 298.             9 8.462%  Randy  Bean             4849   AU 13 WII    BCH  H    186, 189, 337, 141.            10 8.509%  Steve Helfrich          0234   AU 12 EVV    BB        309, 168, 225, 225.            11 8.674%  Randy  Bean             0690   AU 10 IDA    BCH  H    186, 189, 298, 141.            12 8.738%  Mark Helfrich           4811   AU 11 EVV    BC   C    168, 225, 225, 309.            13 9.450%  Randy  Bean             6838   AU 09 IDA    BCH  C    186,  98, 337, 189.            14 9.588%  Steve Helfrich          0238   AU 12 EVV    BC        309, 225, 225, 168.

I have been scaling back, so I gave this bird and his father to other club members. 
I was not aware of this. Thanks Carl for pointing it out.

New Young Birds from Alaska

Just got four new young birds - very pretty young birds from a breeder in Alaska!  They got here pretty quick - two days - and looked good and healthy.  They settled in with the rest of my young bird team very nicely.  They are two light and two dark grizzles.  I especially like the darker grizzles as they have quite a bit of red.  I would call them almond or bronze.  Steve calls them tortoise.  They are actually redder than the picture shows.  I have 22 young birds banded with more on the way.  I am hoping for about 36 on the 2011 young bird team.

The Big Race - 42 seconds to win

3331 Click - Good hi-res

It was hard work. Two and a half extra hours before work boxing and driving the birds down for training - several days a week. I sat out the 225 the week before because it would start off with a head wind. I felt that would grind them down too much before the more important Futurity and Triple Crown race the next week. Instead, I sent them on the short race which was later, after the wind shifted into a tail wind. They coasted in real causal, obviously not too hurried or tired. The winds were westerly and my loft being 6 miles straight west of the rest meant the scores weren't anything to brag about.

Then came the week of the race. I really poured it on! I just loft flew them Sunday through Tuesday but Wednesday, Thursday and Friday they went for 42 mile flight before breakfast and were then liberated most of the rest of the day. The always did this in about 50-55 minutes (usually against a slight head wind) but on Friday - they took 1 hour 45 minutes. My guess is, the hawk was back bothering them. I noticed it likes to perch on the loft about that time of day waiting on them. Oh well, they got an extra hour of training and were then locked in until basketing for the race. I can honestly say I don't see what else I could've done for them. They were in great condition.

[Race Day: About 1:20pm] I was goofing off after feeding, watering and even bathing all the critters. Eating lunch while watching TV. I wasn't even thinking of looking at the loft clock until 2pm. The phone rang. It was Larry asking how many I got back. "What? You've got a bird already?!" "Got a bunch of them and they've been here a while. You'd better go check your loft!" So I ran out to the loft and I had 7 birds in! The first came in at 12:26:18! They had flown 308 miles in 5 hours and 11 minutes! I was amazed. What's more, I was 15 minutes ahead of a loft 6 miles shorter than me. "That's a pretty good indicator!", I thought. I didn't get too excited as this never seems to turn out.

RACE RESULTS: I got the first bird in! However, 12 seconds later 2 more birds came in together at Marks loft 6 miles east and almost 1 mile north (overflight) of me. They took 1st and 2nd place. I got 3rd place with a blue bar #3331. "42 seconds to win" the computer said. It was pretty cool and a little annoying at the same time. I've never scored higher than 3rd. 2nd would've, of course, been better. But 42 seconds from 1st place after 300+ miles was pretty cool! I'll take it.

National Database-1        EVANSVILLE RACING PIGEON CLUB         11/05/10-12:59
                                   Evansville IN
                                 Weekly Race Report                      Page 1
                            Open and Sportsman Category
Name: BIRMINGHAM 13               Young Bird Race             Flown: 10/23/2010

Release(A): 07:15  Birds: 134  Lofts: 9            Station: BIRMINGHAAL (0207)
Weather (Rel) Clear, SE-5, 57 deg  (Arr) PC, SE-15, 80 deg


POS NAME          BAND NUMBER        CLR  X ARRIVAL   MILES   TOWIN      YPM  WS Cus Pts  NDB Std Pts
  1 HELFRICH S/30 10145  AU 10 HELF  BB   H 12:26:28  309.191 00.00 1747.107    532         96  
  2 HELFRICH STEV 10172  AU 10 HELF  BB   H 12:26:30   2/30   00.02 1746.920    528         93  
  3 THREET ROB/15 3331   AU 10 EVV   BB   H 12:26:16  308.276 00.42 1743.103    524         89  
  4 HELFRICH M/30 2509   AU 10 EVV   BC   H 12:27:38  309.389 00.57 1741.737    520         85  
  5 HELFRICH MARK 2590   AU 10 EVV   BC   H 12:27:42   2/30   01.01 1741.365    516         81  
  6 HELFRICH MARK 2580   AU 10 EVV   BC   H 12:27:46   3/30   01.05 1740.994    512         78  
  7 HELFRICH STEV 10121  AU 10 HELF  BC   H 12:27:35   3/30   01.07 1740.866    508         74  
  8 HELFRICH STEV 10141  AU 10 HELF  BB   H 12:27:36   4/30   01.08 1740.773    504         70  
  9 HELFRICH STEV 10161  AU 10 HELF  BB   H 12:27:37   5/30   01.09 1740.681    500         66  
 10 HELFRICH STEV 10114  AU 10 HELF  BB   H 12:27:38   6/30   01.10 1740.588    496         63  
 11 HELFRICH STEV 10106  AU 10 HELF  BC   H 12:27:39   7/30   01.11 1740.495    492         59  
 12 HELFRICH STEV 10130  AU 10 HELF  BB   H 12:27:39   8/30   01.11 1740.495    488         55  
 13 HELFRICH STEV 10235  AU 10 HELF  BB   H 12:27:40   9/30   01.12 1740.402    484         51  
 14 HELFRICH STEV 10139  AU 10 HELF  BB   H 12:27:41  10/30   01.13 1740.309    480         48  
--------------------------------- Above are 10 percent -------------------------
 15 HELFRICH STEV 10191  AU 10 HELF  BC   H 12:27:42  11/30   01.14 1740.217    476         44  
 16 HELFRICH STEV 10147  AU 10 HELF  BCWF H 12:27:43  12/30   01.15 1740.124    472         40  
 17 HELFRICH STEV 10174  AU 10 HELF  BCSP H 12:27:44  13/30   01.16 1740.031    468         37  
 18 HELFRICH STEV 10154  AU 10 HELF  BB   H 12:27:45  14/30   01.17 1739.938    464         33  
 19 THREET ROBERT 3305   AU 10 EVV   BC   C 12:27:30   2/15   01.57 1736.159    460         29  
 20 HELFRICH MARK 2522   AU 10 EVV   BC   H 12:31:03   4/30   04.22 1722.908    456         25  
 21 HELFRICH MARK 2550   AU 10 EVV   BC   H 12:31:05   5/30   04.24 1722.726    452         22  
 22 BUTCH GARRI/9 2217   AU 10 EVV   BB   H 12:30:55  307.548 06.05 1713.386    448         18  
 23 BUTCH GARRISO 2214   AU 10 EVV   BCWF H 12:30:58   2/9    06.08 1713.142    444         14  
 24 GOODWIN DO/19 2664   AU 10 EVV   BLK  H 12:35:34  311.262 07.01 1708.866    440         10  
 25 GOODWIN DON   2699   AU 10 EVV   BB   H 12:36:32   2/19   07.58 1703.755    436          7  
 26 GOODWIN DON   2760   AU 10 EVV   BB   H 12:36:34   3/19   08.01 1703.552    432          3  
 27 HELFRICH MARK 2521   AU 10 EVV   BB   H 12:34:43   6/30   08.02 1703.148    428          0  
--------------------------------- Above are 20 percent -------------------------
----------------------- Below are the first birds from each loft ---------------
 45 GARRISON B/14 2767   AU 10 EVV   BC   H 12:35:04  305.564 12.14 1680.250    356          0  
 48 LARSON LAR/13 3036   AU 10 EVV   BB   H 12:35:37  304.857 13.30 1673.534    344          0  
 70 SIMPSON DEB/2 0449   AU 10 HKY   GRIZ H 13:15:03  321.742 35.56 1572.705    256          0  
 87 SIMPSON DON/2 2739   AU 10 EVV   BC   C 13:32:25  321.742 53.18 1500.319    188          0  

Good 225 mile Race - time for meds

This was the build up to the 500 mile race from the Gulf.  19 of 21 came in the first day (2 fast ones, 11 on time and 6 stragglers).  The other two were waiting on me when I came out this morning.  I'm racing the old birds out of the breeding loft so I gave the breeders baths yesterday morning and gave the racers baths today.  Then fed them extra raw Spanish peanuts and gave them the VitaiKing 5-1 treatment mixed with 1/2 strength Lime Gatorade.  As far as I know, they only make the powdered Gatorade in two flavors: orange and lime.  Using just meds - they barely touch the water.  By mixing it with orange - they seem to drink more.  After trying lime, I was shocked at how much they drank.  In fact, the 3 week old squabs looked like water balloons.  I wondered if they were pestering their parents for more Gatorade? 

Today, training stops here

I was hoping to get them out 12 miles to the river bottoms this morning (where I believe the break point is) but had to stop 5 miles short due to high water.  This is my tiny old bird team.  Down from 28 to 23 after dropping some late hatches and a couple others on a tough 225 mile race this weekend.  They are going to a combine with another club this weekend.  300 miles.  Looks like a tough race too.

Company Still Using Pigeons As Couriers

This is a neat story the AU was running on their blog: Pigeon post is still delivering. Aren't these birds awesome?! I had to bring more attention to this. It's a good story but why is it only covered by a UK paper? It's a US company in Colorado after all! Check out the link - it has some great pictures.

Beautiful Weather

It is so beautiful and sunny outside. Makes me feel bad for the young birds. They're acting kind of "cagey". They want out bad. If I fly them this time of year, the hawks will decimate them. Too bad the young birds have only the front aviary - unlike the old birds and breeders who have a winter flypen.

Join the Evansville Racing Pigeon club

If you love working with animals, being outside, going for long drives (training drops), and you're competitive, this might be the family hobby for you. Great for 4H'rs too. Check out our local club (Evansville Racing Pigeon Club) and the national organization we're part of (The American Racing Pigeon Union).

Race Season's Over - Pairing up Young Birds

I had previously thought you could simply pair up "fastest" to "fastest". I've seen guys that did that with success. But this article has me rethinking that. The author says out crossing causes chaos. Very interesting. I DO have two really large, apple bodied Houbens from Mark that are from the same family. Both are blue checks. I'm not a fan of blue checks and blue bars but I like their other attributes. Same for a pair of Ganus Janssen blue bars. Both are HUGE - very tall birds. They are also from the same family. So there's my first two pairs. 2619 and Splash are both throwing pretty good racers - that makes 4 pairs. That big old silver Ganus (I assume all birds from George are from his initial Ganus stock) always produces first bird on the drop. So, pair him with his daughter (his mate died). That's 5 good pairs. The rest, I will use on the old bird team or use as foster parents. So, that's the plan. I'm ready. Too bad I have to wait until December to pair them up and let them set eggs. Right now I really need to get them separated and rest them up.

Yup! I'm done

I sat out both 300's. 225 left me with 12 birds. I'm stopping ("No Whammy! No Whammy!). Time to separate the pairs for a while and let everyone rest. I'm not even going to do the 165 repeat of the earlier canceled race. I like the 12 I've got. A pretty bunch! They've all been to Alabama - that's good enough for an Indiana young bird, IMO. Just wish 385 would've made it back. It'll be interesting to see the old bird team next year. I have nearly 40. The largest team I've ever had.

Alabama bound!

I held back half for the shorter B race of 115 miles. A few had short #8 primaries. I sent 9 to the 225 mile Athens, AL "A" race. Three of them were the unbanded. The B race will be interesting. Our new comer entered 21 birds in it. Good Luck all!

Common

Crummy picture. I was hoping to demonstrate the HUGE difference between a common barn pigeon and a racing homer. The little head, the beady red eyes, the tiny frame. Next to the closer 8 week old hen, he doesn't look that different. Plus the picture is fuzzy. When they trap in and you catch them - they feel like a roller. Tiny and frail. A racing homer is twice the weight and has a strong back and feels powerful. It's the eyes and brain pan that really make the difference. I'd need a better picture and a mature bird to compare it with to make my point clear.

I didn't train today. Too rainy. I was going to take them 12 miles to the break point but it started sprinkling. I'd imagine this common will trap in the next time I fly the birds. He's been hanging around since yesterday.

Ms.Garmin Thinks The Sun Has Risen

Ha! I call her Ms.Garmin. I gave my GPS a female British voice. It's funny, right at sunset, the background goes from dark blue to off white - but it flickers back and forth first to get your attention. Neat. I've been seeing that happen a lot lately (not so neat). Even though i know exactly how to get back & forth, it's nice on the more unusual drops to know my ETA to work. Of course, I've got this one down cold. So does the 2009 Young Bird Team.

Training resumes - Working the break point

Short drop. I didn't set my alarm early. I figured I'd be awake anyway. Besides, there was a 40% chance of rain predicted. Even in the hourly forecast as I went to bed. Instead - it was beautiful so I took everyone on a short drop (12 miles) to work the break point. If the weather holds up, I'll get them 42 miles tomorrow and Friday (yes, the day we load for the 165 mile race again). Since I've been keeping them up during the day (due to hawk activity) they're getting lazy. I have to flag them in the air in the evenings or they'd just bum around on the other loft - or not even leave the interior. I have two hens who want to sit. I've given them dummy eggs to keep them from laying again but I worry about their conditioning. One was the first bird in, the other was the very last bird in and the only bird to come in a day late. She stopped setting at that point. Hopefully she'll be i better shape this time. No pics. I wasn't thinking. Still asleep I guess.

Need More Road Training - Back at it!

What a beautiful sky at 5:30am! The sun is rising so much later now. I got to the 42 mile drop just after twilight. The orange sun was just beginning to emerge above the tree line. It's going to get tough to get out this far, release after sunrise and still get to work on time. No problem today though. I was hoping they'd swing back towards the east so I could capture a picture of them against the sunrise but they new exactly where they were and headed straight home.

This weekend's race results were about what I expected. Close but I got 5th of 5 lofts for first bird in. All the rest were on the 2nd page. They sat out a race and I didn't get them out much. In fact, I kept them up the entire Labor Day weekend (which was also Dove Season opening weekend) - I didn't even loft fly them! Due to weather, they flew Sunday rather than Saturday and had great returns. Next week is a repeat of the 165 mile race. I'll be adding the 3 late hatches and racing (hopefully) 14 birds in the A Race instead of 8. Looking forward to another beautiful day of grilling out and waiting on the birds.

A Different Kind of Pigeon Race

I'm a UNIX systems administrator - a computer geek. I also raise and race pigeons. So, this article really grabbed my attention! It was an article about racing pigeons on one of my tech/geek blogs: SlashDot. Evidently, someone wrote an RFC (technical documentation) for the Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers. That is, sending data using racing pigeons! Of course, this has been done (for a couple millennium) but they are now applying the standards of TCP/IP (the Internet Protocol) to the data. That is, how do you handle packet loss? (Such as interception by Prairie Falcon). Although, it was meant as a joke, they were able to use it. In one example they sent a 4GB SD card by pigeon in 48 minutes.

So now, a company in New Zealand is sponsoring a race between ADSL and Winston the Pigeon. The link details the race and you can win Samsung Netbook NC10 (with built-in 3g networking). Pretty wild!

Missed a good race?

They said they cross winds were favorable and they "had 100% return". Go figure. That last 2 years the opening weekend for dove season has been bad. I saw a dove hunter 1 mile west of my loft. I didn't even fly my birds all weekend. Oh well, better safe than sorry. The weather looks good for road training. {yeah}

Waiting out dove season opening

I guess the clock will go unused for a while. Right now, just finishing up the training on the late 5 young birds. I feel like I have them out far enough I can train them with the others now.

The weather forecasting has been of again. I was running late as usual - stayed in bed too long. But I got both lofts fed and watered and boxed up the 20 racers for a training drop of 24 miles. By the time I got 3 miles, it started raining. In my haste, I had forgotten my personal phone and my work Blackberry (which is really handy for checking The Weather Channel website as well as taking and uploading photos from the drops). So, I stopped in at work and checked the radar. No good. It looked like it was mostly south (where I was headed) so I delayed a bit and took them, instead, to the breakpoint on this side of the river. It was only a 12 mile drop but it was just as well. The thunderstorms may have caused them some navigation issues. They circled a long time before meandering off in the right direction. I noticed it was calm - no wind. They made it back on time and trapped straight in. I guess they were hungry. I had fed them NutraBlend Gold pellets - mainly carbs the night before. They washed it down with 1/2 strength Gatorade mixed with VitaKings 5-1. They normally hate the 5-1. The Gatorade really helped. They drank it down pretty fast.

Got First Race Results

I didn't do as badly as I thought. My first birds got 29, 30 & 31 then I got 38, 42 & 44 and I gave up not knowing how well I was doing. My first 3 birds beat 2/3rds of the pack and the others followed close behind. The hawk activity might've caused my delay - or, I didn't work the break point enough - not sure - but I was really pleased that 11 of the 12 A Race birds basically all came in together! I didn't clock the last 5 (loft manager did) but if they had been clocked electronically, all of my birds would've made the first page. That's pretty good in my book. Plus, I know I wore them out on Wednesday and then hit them with meds Thursday (because they were out so long and looked like they drank from suspicious sources). So I know they weren't 100%. We'll skip this weekends repeat of the 115 mile (Dove Season Opening Weekend) and I'll get some fat on them (and some road training) before the 165 mile - when they will have 5 new members (the late hatches).

Also, I started the season with 22 young birds and after training out to 64 miles 3 times, I still had all 22! I dropped 1 on that final training drop from 86 miles (375) and then I dropped another on this race (388). Weird thing is - they were both blue checks - not the "colors". (Okay, they were pied).

Getting the 5 Reserve Birds Up to Speed

They're doing nicely. I will send them out with the rest from 24 miles Wednesday. After that, hope to get them up to the 50 mile drop before Dove Season. I'm not flying Labor Day Weekend so between dove season and their first race (165 miles) I should be able to get them out a bit further at least once. Whew! I'm sure glad gas is not $4.28/gallon like it was last year at this time.

Tonight we load the results into the computer it see how badly I did. With only 5 lofts (down from 12 lofts 3 years ago) I am by far the least experienced loft. Plus, I didn't expect my experiment to breed only "colors that can race" to bear fruit this year.