There is little disagreement that external training of racing pigeons is an important means to achieve ideal results, but when it comes to practice, how should the training be considered correct?
If there are different combinations of weather, direction, distance and frequency for external training, I think there are thousands of ways to do it in hundreds of pigeon lofts. The following only uses some of my own personal experiences to explain the functions, pros and cons of various external training combinations through objective analysis as much as possible.
In current 300-500 kilometer competitions, except for particularly difficult-to-fly conditions, the difference between victory and defeat in highly competitive competition areas is often only minutes and seconds, so we usually conduct external training along the competition route at the points that must be passed when returning home, so that Pigeons rely on memory to record road signs along the way. The purpose is that when the pigeon enters a familiar area during the race, it can save the time of finding the way and gain valuable time to win the race.
If you do a solid job at each training and release point, you will often see flocks returning in short distance races. In the early days, there would be three or two Taiwanese fanciers among the pigeons I raced, often in short distances of 200-300 kilometers. Sweeping the pigeon club's single-level interpolation group prize money in the competition.
What impressed me the most was that one of them never forgot to release a smoke bomb on the spot every time he collected pigeons to receive money, "Oh! The winnings are not enough to buy medicine!" which aroused everyone's curiosity.
years later, as the conditions improved, I also had the opportunity to carry out systematic training for the pigeons. As a result, I could also win the short and middle distance races. The Taiwanese are not so scary. (Tibetan friends who are familiar with the specific operation can read the pocket book by themselves).
So I can confirm that the medicine that can "help people win" cannot be bought in pigeon shops. What you win is just a little bit of energy and rigorous and diligent efforts.
But in all fairness, the biggest advantage of this training method is only limited to short-distance races in good weather. Once the weather is bad or the distance is lengthened, this kind of pigeon group that has developed conditioned reflexes due to long-term fixed-point training will easily be killed by a quick rush. This reduces the chance of correction on the way. If you fly in the wrong direction, you will eventually be exhausted and lost. Of course, there are also pigeons that have insufficient homing ability in the first place.
’s so-called homing ability is the ability of pigeons to return within a specific distance. This ability will not be improved due to training. To put it simply, fast pigeons whose directional range is only about 300 kilometers will not be improved by training. With good training, it has the ability to return home 500 kilometers away. The reason why
has such awareness is also due to the chaotic novice stage more than ten years ago. At that time, I just started working, and the teacher who took me to play with me now thinks that the concept of raising pigeons is not considered advanced. According to that According to Teacher Shi’s advice, if you can fly home twice a day in the morning and evening for a month before the competition and keep up enough exercise for an hour, you will actually have the confidence to win the prize.
"Is the competition really that simple?!" To be honest, I couldn't believe it at first. On the one hand, there is no opportunity to gain access to the knowledge of systematic training for pigeons, and on the other hand, conditions are limited, so there is no special car to cooperate with specific external training for pigeons.
So I can only supervise the pigeons and fly them at home. Whenever I want to feel the joy of the pigeons returning home, I can only ask the delivery driver in the factory to take them out to fly while the pigeons are being delivered. The time and direction of the release are It's all random, sometimes it's noon in Auge, sometimes it's afternoon. As for the weather, which I remember being the most outrageous, the driver was allowed to let it go even if it was light or moderate rain without knowing the benefit.
Because the factory's delivery range is only the towns of the city or adjacent cities, the farthest air distance is only about 30 kilometers, but there are still times when pigeons are lost. In the first two years of
's official membership competition, the training was basically carried out in such a random mode. The results of the competition can be imagined. During the short distance competition of 200-300 kilometers, I was often about half an hour slower than others, which is most unacceptable. What's more, I couldn't return on the same day in the 500-kilometer race for two years.
Of course, this is also the reason why the pigeon flock has not fully recovered due to improper treatment of adenovirus infection and for two consecutive years. But for the same pigeon group under this management model, there are also individuals who can not only return 700 pigeons on the same day as the distance is lengthened, but can also enter the top ten in races with a low return rate of 1,000 kilometers.
From the above personal experience, we should be able to see that short-distance training in any direction and time period will not only bring no bonus points in short distances, but will not damage the pigeons' innate long-distance homing ability.
Don’t underestimate the short distance. Pigeons will also be lost during such training, so I boldly speculate that training in different periods and directions is actually a process of screening the pigeon group. Only the judgment of the coordinates and orientation of the pigeon house can always be accurate. Only the pigeons can return on time during such training.
Pigeons that fly non-directionally have to re-explore the homing route every time they take off, which invisibly develops the habit of careful thinking about orientation. Therefore, it will be a disadvantage in short-distance races that require quick judgment, but it will become an advantage if there is bad weather.
On the contrary, pigeons that have been doing straight-line directional training along the racing line will easily develop conditioned reflexes after training for a long time. Once the cage is opened, they will easily rush in one direction without thinking. In short distances and on good days, they will show better group momentum. . However, if there are pigeons with poor homing ability mixed in among them, as the distance increases or encounters bad weather, such "unthinking and overconfident" pigeons will be relatively easy to fly away.
Pigeon fanciers who don’t believe it can do a test on their own by using pigeons trained in one direction to suddenly change the training direction. The results of the sudden change of direction and release can prove the impact of conditioned reflex training on pigeons and the differences in individual orientation and adaptability.
Although a large part of whether the pigeons can return home is based on the pigeons' own ability to return home, don't ignore the targeted implementation of different trainings for the pigeons, which can screen the individual's orientation ability in advance. The purpose is also to induce and cultivate different orientation habits of pigeons according to the needs of the competition.
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text | Lin Xuguo
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