- Mar 26, 2015
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As many know, I started a loft a few months ago. I started it with 4-5 week old squeakers that I settled for 4 weeks. When I let those out, I had losses (two times letting them out, two bird losses each time). I concluded they were too strong on the wing at that age, and I needed to cut the settling time in half if I was to keep getting 4-5 week old squeakers. So I got 8 more squeakers, settled them for only 2 weeks, then let them out the other day and all of the ones that exited the loft trapped back in. They could not fly well yet, so they just puttered around my yard and loft roof, etc.
That left me with a conundrum--should I fly my remaining 5 other birds that were about 3 months old, and from the same age class as the birds I had lost before? A few of these birds had been on some routing/tripping flights and still trapped back in, providing me with some confidence. But mother nature threw me a softball and gave me second chance with these older young birds! My older young birds are molting! They can't fly well! So I let them out last night and sure enough, all they did (even though they were previously strong on the wing) was putter around my yard, then all of them trapped back into the loft.
So, I am going to take advantage of this in order to firm up my trap door training and solidify my birds' desire to trap, and then move on to the next step of short distance drops.
Sometimes you get lucky with things!
That left me with a conundrum--should I fly my remaining 5 other birds that were about 3 months old, and from the same age class as the birds I had lost before? A few of these birds had been on some routing/tripping flights and still trapped back in, providing me with some confidence. But mother nature threw me a softball and gave me second chance with these older young birds! My older young birds are molting! They can't fly well! So I let them out last night and sure enough, all they did (even though they were previously strong on the wing) was putter around my yard, then all of them trapped back into the loft.
So, I am going to take advantage of this in order to firm up my trap door training and solidify my birds' desire to trap, and then move on to the next step of short distance drops.
Sometimes you get lucky with things!
..
