Ideas to mitigate losses loft flying after locking down for winter

[Old_Strain_Lover]

Are these birds you had flown/trained on tosses out several miles, or just loft flown birds.

I know one racer who lives by me here in Michigan who sold a bird to somebody in Maryland, and 6 years later it flew all the way back to Michigan and into his loft. But this was a race bird, who had presumably finished multiple 300-400 mile combine races.

It varies. Some never even loft flew, some loft flew a couple times, some had been trained, some had been through races. The one which returned after 8 years actually missed young bird season as he was injured and then I sold him as a yearling so he never actually raced, but was trained. I no longer race, but still train all my birds. All of my birds are flown to at least 500 miles before I even consider them as breeders (there's a lot more to my selection criteria but that's part of it). I'm just basically maintaining a strain at this point, but they still have to be able to perform to some level otherwise it's pointless