Young bird racing (part 2)

Successful pigeon sport includes more than a good loft, good pigeons, medical matters, feeding, training and so on!
These are, however important, only links in the whole. In the past I made pictures of well performing youngsters. You should have seen how the owners dealt with it. No jailing, not even searching, the boss knew how to sit them and blindly grabbed them from their perch.
And how manageable were those pigeons. With one hand you could put them in the desired position. These were not wild-looking creatures, 'escape ready', but the opposite. And of course there is no such thing as a kind of pigeons that can easily be photographed. Those pigeons were made in no time.
Because the boss knows how important that is. The trapping of my babies from a race is proverbial in the region. I will never chase pigeons, move in the loft as in a delayed movie, treat the pigeons with respect and... get a lot in return.

ANECDOTE
About Staf Martens, the blacksmith from Melsele, is a nice 'anecdote'. Maybe it's just an anecdote but no less interesting.
This blacksmith stood all week hammering on an anvil, which resulted in quite a lot of noise. When he once got an early pigeon, it remained, to the annoyance of the boss, on the roof. Because Staf had mastered sports, he felt how the pigeon felt: Awkward because of... the silence. He rushed into the forge, started to make a lot of noise and the pigeon recognized her old familiar surroundings again. She rushed in! Especially in the young pigeon game, the interaction is essential. It is a gift that some naturally master, others never learn.

HANDS
Especially the hands of the fancier play a major role in the relationship of trust between man and pigeon. With that, they are grabbed and held. Pigeons should not see hands as enemies that hurt them, that do not leave the plumage whole. Especially grabbing them should be done carefully. A fancier with frightened pigeons has hands of which pigeons are afraid. They don't have that fear naturally, they've been taught it. By the boss who roughly grabbed them. By the boss who has no feeling for dealing with animals.
Fanciers with willing pigeons also have hands. They look the same as those hands that pigeons can be terrified of. You do well if you can take your pigeons from their place with one hand. You are doing it wrong if you suddenly strike with two hands above your head. Such a pigeon feels betrayed, as it were. And fanciers who cannot hold a pigeon properly are more than you may think.

COMPLETELY WRONG
I get quite a few visitors and although I don't like to do it I sometimes handle them pigeons. Awful sometimes! And I'm not even talking about properly opening a wing, let alone opening the mouth.
The pigeon should lie flat and supported in the cavity of the hand. If you do not hold a pigeon properly, it will struggle and you will struggle because the pigeon struggles. In the meantime, you are busy forfeiting your credit.
Never get angry with pigeons and certainly do not hunt them. Pigeons have a good memory. One abrupt movement, one rough grasping can already damage confidence. Recovering that is not easy. That can take weeks. Sometimes it never works again.

LETTING GO
Even releasing a pigeon is a skill that not everyone masters. It should actually be superfluous to write about something banal like that, were it not for the fact that many fanciers do not do it well.
They just let a pigeon pop out of their hands or even throw it on the ground. Fanciers who handle pigeons so clumsily will never become 'a young pigeon specialist'!
If you throw a pigeon away or 'just' drop it, it requires a huge effort for that pigeon to spread its wings in time to land safely. Put pigeons down with softness. Or let them fly quietly out of your hands at the level of their perch or breeding box.
Are these all details? Quite possible, but important! From the way someone holds a pigeon you can sometimes see if you are dealing with a 'champion' or with someone who will never be.

POINTLESS
Actually, you have nothing to gain by letting strangers in the lofts. Certainly not in the babies' lofts. One knows how that often goes. These loft visits are inevitably followed by showing birds and I have often regretted that.
You show, out of a sense of pride, often those beepers that you like best, your favorites so to speak.
But repeatedly I found that the very baby that was frequently grabbed was soon gone.

RITUALS
To make pigeons bind to me, the same ritual takes place every evening in my loft. I am there with the feeder and each pigeon gets some attention. They get a mix of grit, sweets and peanuts, a few are stroked or there is some fighting.
I pretend that I want to get the pigeon from her perch, but at the same time I make sure that that does not happen, that the pigeon always has the upper hand in that fight with my hands.
They know that very quickly. When I enter the loft, they don't move at all. It's like they want to say 'Are you finally there?' A few even start cooing spontaneously. If I extend my hand to an empty perch, many a pigeon will fly towards it. Because they expect a sweet. With some fellow sportsmen the opposite happens: Sticking out a hand, the pigeon is gone.

GRIT
Grit is a very important by-product for pigeons! More important than vitamins and other things about which sometimes so important is done.
Why then does grit get so little attention? There is hardly any money to earn!
By the way, there is also little profit to ordinary feed and that is why other things get more attention. Things that pigeons can do without in many cases.
That so important grit, as contradictory as it may sound, does not belong in the loft. Dust will easily stick on it (and there is a lot of dust in a pigeon loft) and pigeons will not pick that up. Grit should be refreshed regularly.

REWARDED
If I hate anything, it's pigeons that don't trap after the race. Because I know that my young are rushing in, they are waited on from a race with peace of mind.
Why do other people's nerves run down their throats before the pigeons have to arrive? Because they know they have bad trappers. They know that because they themselves are at fault ... (To be continued)

The famous Ace Four. First provincial Ace as a young. Average entry 11,000 birds.