2008 Season
We didnt think we would fly this OB season due to a possible move. I wasnt looking forward to it as we would be starting over again with the birds just like it has so many other times before. BUT, we have postponed it until after the 2008 YB season instead. Due to this "move" we didnt get the chance to train out out the OB Team as we had liked and time will tell if it was worth it or not.
So here we are starting the OB Season with 12 birds....The "Dirty Dozen"...LOL
We started off in fair position and though we did get a diploma or two we still ended up towards the bottom of the sheet for the special awards such as Champion Loft, Champion Bird, Etc. BUT what we are more impressed with is our results vs. the Florida Federation. I never expected to place on the first sheet but in the top 10%, especially at a distance we have been working on, 300-400-500! Overall, I think we put ourselves on the map. We can not only "hang" with those prominant fliers like Art Hees, Tony Melucci, Jack Manders, Pleasantview Lofts, etc, we can beat them. The 2008 OB Season has brought out the fire in us and I hope that we will do even better in YB's this year!
2007 Season
As planed we have been able to raise out 60 YB's for our young bird team. All of them have been raised by us here with the exception of a few special auction birds that we purchased at the N. FLA Combine Auction. We will handle those birds along with our own but at the end of the YB season we will be holding a special "Auction Race" in which only those birds purchased back in April will beable to compete for cash prizes. Likewise we have also participated in our club's "Gold Band Race" which are special designated bands and placed on birds bred by us and they too will be handled the same as the "Auction Race" birds. We will be training out 2 teams this year and hope to merge them together by the time we reach the 50 mile training toss.
We have slimmed down to 44 Ybs due to losses and hawk attacks. We are still in great shape as most of our fellow club members have lost 1/3 of their original team as well. So we are comfortable situated in the middle of the group. (For Now...LOL)
** We just got word this evening (8/22) that a YB (OCALA-147) sold in a YB kit to C. Parrish in Mauston, WI has taken 1st Place in the season opener at 161M. Congradulations Chris! This bird was bred by us here at Timber Lofts and is out of "Generation Wonder" when mated to "Point Determend". This is this pairs First Year breeding for us!! We currently have 4 siblings to #147 on our YB Team and though we still have 7 weeks to go until our opener we are very excited to see how they do as well. Lets hope that #147 continues to score well.
Our first race didnt turn out as we had hoped it would have. I was lucky to get the 3 that clocked within clocking time as the rest of the team took up to 2 days to return. It was a feed issue and we got alot of advise as to how to correct it which we did. As our results show we made the right choice as to the type of feed we were giving the birds. We where using a basic comercial feed but soon realized we needed less corn and more safflower in the mix. Plus rotating vitamins and minerals to the feed and water throughout the week. On some races we did provide a training toss out to 30M just to get them ready. And likewise on a few we didnt train at all durring the week.
Overall, we are in a very good position within the club, especially when compared to last year! We still have a few more races this year to complete and have already secured a few diploma's for ourselves. We will post our club standings at the end of the year and may have a few birds from the race team available due to limited space within the loft.
Nov. 23 we put our breeders together for 2008 season. And as always, they dont pair up as you would like. Within 2 days though, we have the 14 pairs mated up. Some matings are the same from 2007 but we did change a couple as we didnt get the results we liked out of them. Time will tell.
2007 Young Birds Results:
10-13-07 (121M) A: 9 Sent: 27th, 37th & 45th B: 8 Sent: NONE
10-20-07 (121M) A: 12 Sent: 2nd, 4th, 20th, 25th, 26th, 37th, 38th, 45th, 52nd & 53rd B: 12 Sent: 9th, 10th, 11th, 14th, 37th, 38th, 39th, & 44th.
10-27-07 (140M) B: 18 Sent: 7th, 8th, 9th, 16th, 17th, 21st & 23rd.
11-03-07 (140M) A: 15 Sent: 3rd, 4th, 11th, 29th, 31st, 32nd, 47th, 48th, 49th & 50th. B: 8 Sent: 12th, 13th, 26th, 33rd, 38th, 44th & 52nd.
11-10-07 (185M) A: 10 Sent: 7th, 21st, 22nd & 25th.
11-17-07 (221M) A: 10 Sent: 37th B: 12 Sent: 19th, 38th, 40th & 41st.
11-24-07 (185M) A: 7 Sent: 29th, 46th & 51st B: 9 Sent: 14th, 41st, 52nd, 54th, 55th, 57th & 58th.
12-01-07 (310M) A: 9 Sent: 15th, 16th, 17th, 21st & 22nd B: 4 Sent: 11th & 12th
12-01-07 (310M) GOLD BAND RACE 1 Sent: 6th
12-08-07 (185M) A: 4 Sent: 9th and 10th B: 5 Sent: 6th
12-14-07 (310M) A: 5 Sent: 9th, 10th, 11th and 17th B: 5 Sent: 7th and 17th
We took 2nd Average Speed and 3rd Champion Loft, CLUB!
2006 Season
We thought that we wouldnt be unable to compete this year in Young Birds due to not having enough birds that would be ready in time. We ran into tons of "red tape", as the weather was to hot in either location or no connecting flights available to get in the 70+ youngsters I bought while I was over sea's via the internet. I was able to get in a few here and there and at one point we where training out 50 or so birds. In numbers we had enough, as for the quality we look for and demand of our birds we didnt and are down to 24 birds.
So we sat out the first race and will pick it up from there. Hopefully we can make the sheet! The remaining birds we have look and feel great so I think we will do good. None of the birds are of my own stock as we where to late in our breeding program. We are really excited to get the 2007 breeding program underway in the following weeks as we will breed early to allow for training demands and the ever so important molt.