Finally, success with young squeakers

[LamarshFish]

Ok, for all of those who have been following and helping my progress in starting a loft, yesterday, for the first time, I released young squeakers and got all of them to trap back into my loft with no losses.
Two weeks ago, I bought 8 new squeakers (to add to my remaining 5 who are about 2.5-3 months old each). I opened the loft door for them to fly yesterday and 6 of the 8 exited. I locked my older young birds in the loft so they wouldn't be too strong on the wing and lead the new ones too far. All 6 played around the loft, the loft roof, power lines above loft and grass for about 4 hours until they trapped back to the loft. No losses.

I think my success this time was due to the fact that I only settled these birds for 2 weeks, rather than 4. I get my squeakers at about 5 weeks of age, so they have feathers, but still some down fuzzies, so I've learned the window closes fast to get them out before they become too strong on the wing. When they are too strong on the wing on first release from the loft, I think I was taking the risk of some flying too far and getting lost.

Thanks for everybody's help. Hopefully this good luck continues. I am going to release again tomorrow early evening so as to keep this momentum going.

 

[biophiliac]

.....

 

[biophiliac]

 

[LamarshFish]

Here is a pic of all my current birds, 13 total, and hopefully it stays that way. 5 of them are my 2.5-3 month old young birds, and the other 8 are my new squeakers that are about 6 weeks old. The two that did not exit yesterday were the smaller silver and the black, if you can see them in this pic.

 

[biophiliac]

Yup, I see the pretty little black one

 

[LamarshFish]

Yup, I see the pretty little black one

That black one is a shy bird, has not been tamed at all. Will not touch peanuts. Hopefully that will change, and hopefully I won't lose him/her, because it's my only black bird and I like that color. It is a black bar, you just can't see the bars in this pic.

 

[biophiliac]

Blackie will come around by watching the others. They do have to learn that peanuts are good. [have your fiancee work with him, LOL]