Accustoming period:
This is for some fanciers/keepers a precarious undertaking and for others something that almost costs no trouble at all. I do it as follows, at the age of 28 days. I’ll separate the young pigeons from their parents and put them in their own compartment/pen. The first two days they get a full tray of breeding/nursery mixture, so they learn how to eat properly. After that and if the weather is good I’ll put them in the aviary locked up so they can’t go in to their compartment/pen, they can get used to the area this way and take a good look at their surroundings. If you haven’t got an aviary you could try putting them in a wire netting cage you can easily make your selves, this will have the same effect/give the same result.
After they’ve spend a couple of days outside in the aviary (or wire netting cage) I’ll throw the fly-out planking of the aviary open so they can go outside. Mostly I also release a dropper as I open the planking, so the young tipplers will get curious en walk outside immediately after the dropper and stay ‘cool’ (otherwise, if the fancier ‘scares’ them out, they might not even dare to come back in).
As soon as they can fly up to the roof of the loft you absolutely may not walk away from the loft!
Between day 38 and day 42 they often will fly up in the air for the first time, make sure you’ll have droppers by that time that also are hungry, do you receive them back on the loft than release them again and so on, so they always will now very well where to find their loft, by than you already have made great progress.
Always feed scarcely is the motto (but not too scarcely) when they as a team fly their first circles/rounds. Three days without feeding I find much to barbaric.
Still keep the droppers available, if you don’t trust it immediately release the droppers!!
I only feed purification mixture as soon as they are going to fly in the air for the first time, when they fly together as a team for about a week and they do it very well you can feed them 25% flying mixture (=in my case Gaby van den Abeele food from Beyers in advise of Herman v.d. Broek. In this mixture there are no peas so they’ll get lesser protein and it’s also easy digestible food) and 75% purification mixture. After this fully flying mixture (Gaby van den Abeele mixture), but don’t forget the day after the training purification mixture!!
And now two times a week training and flying till dusk if they make it, two times a week a training of 7 hours really is enough for the young tipplers. After all this you REALLY can start with the training with the real matches in sight!!
You can feed them a little more and try to extend the training flights by still flying till dusk. (days are getting longer so dusk will be later and later). The first possible match might be at the 19th.of June or the 20th. coming up during the Long-Day match or after that the young animals matches!!
Don’t think you really accustomed them if they fly for a couple of weeks as a group/team. It very often happens that at the age of 8 till 10 weeks they still sometimes suddenly disappear, that’s part of the tippler sport, they are only yours again if you have them all sitting in your loft again.
My Accustoming story 2004 with my young Irish tipplers
* It happened to me this year that the young tipplers from the 1th.breeding round/tour went up in the air for the first time and almost immediately they were out of sight and GONE! But the next morning there was 1 sitting on the loft and there were 5 flying as dots in the air. That’s what they call luck!!
* Past Sunday the same with the 2th. round/tour young tipplers, it was the end of May 2004. Also for the first time in the air, droppers out, the tipplers don’t react. I think I feed them to well (too much, can’t stand a hungry tippler) so out of sight again and 4 out of 6 gone! Next day there are flying 2 very high above the loft, letting one old tippler fly, it went well but they didn’t got inside the loft. One was at the loft of an pigeon-fancier in my neighborhood who has his pigeons sitting at the top of his roof all day and where I have to pick up some of my young tipplers every year. The other one I never saw again. One was in Nijverdal (20 km = about 13,33 miles) and I could pick this one up mainly because he was wearing a name ring! So the damage luckily was limited.
If it is because of to far transitioned inbreeding they don’t seem to know the way home, could be??!! I don’t know!
One guess of mine is also the fact that maybe you keep the young tipplers too hungry during the accustoming period, if they than fly too far away from the loft they (because they are so hungry) don’t even have the strength to find back their loft. In my case where I was accustoming the young tipplers as if they were young homing – pigeons (not too hungry) there also is a chance they fly away (it happened twice in my case), but the chance of them finding the way to their own loft is much bigger because they still have the strength/energy (read fat) in their body.
Good luck,
Johan Makkinga
