When using the darkening system, you need to start training rather
slow. A lot of short tosses. I had eleven tosses this year within
25 miles of my home. My losses were very low.
I gave the birds fifty or more tosses before the first race. I did
about eight tosses from fifty miles, two from seventy miles and
one
from ninety miles. My first race station is a 132 mile station. Altogether,
the birds had around 25 tosses before we started racing.
During the season, I train two times a week on Tuesday and Thursday.
I do 45 or 50 mile tosses for races up to 200 miles. After that, it
depends on how hard the races have been and the forecasted weather.
If it looks like it is going to be a fast race, I will train more.
For a hard race, I will train less.
I have trained more this year than ever before and it has really
paid off. When I take my birds out for a training toss now, they
don't even circle. They know exactly where they are and they take
off straight for home. I think that the increased number of training
tosses has really helped my pigeons learn their way home. They
come directly to the loft on the shortest course possible. I think
that the extra training tosses have really paid off. Just look
at this season's race results.
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