SlipSpur
62 posts
Jun 11, 2006
6:46 PM
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I've finally got my young birds up and flying and they are doing great... some are even rolling!!! What I've been doing is just letting them out in the mornings and leaving the trap open all day... every once in a while I'll go shoo the off of the kit box ( not very often cause it's 100+ here now ). I've got 34 birds flying... how many is too many for a kit? When they all go up they fill the sky... it's neat ta watch.
Mark
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maxspin
39 posts
Jun 12, 2006
8:38 AM
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Mark,
By letting your birds free loft, you are letting your birds develop some habits that will come back to bite you later. They will get into the habit of landing on roof tops or wires instead of flying when you want them to, and returning to the kitbox when you want them to.
Many people fly there young birds twice a day.
Let them out when you want to see them fly (always a little on the hungry side). Call them into the kit box when they are done flying. If you do not establish these habits you will become very frustrated later on.
I personally don't like flying more that around 25 birds in a kit. It makes it very hard to identify what individual birds are doing. If you only have 1 kit box then fly all 34 together.
Have fun with them
Keith
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SlipSpur
64 posts
Jun 12, 2006
3:09 PM
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Yer right... they do spend all their time out on top of the box... they've only been flying a little over a week... I think theye are used to being out because of the training cage I had on the kit box... what would ya do to fix this? I pretty proud of em so far, there's several that are rolling and a few are actually spinning.
Mark
Last Edited by SlipSpur on Jun 12, 2006 3:13 PM
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Velo99
480 posts
Jun 12, 2006
4:00 PM
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Hey Mark,
Try this. Start picking out the best ones, fly them together. Start breaking them into two kits. You can box em up and carry them off a little bit and release them to break the sitting habit. 3-4 days usually works for me.You can also box em up and hold one group`til the other group gets done flying. Toss a little bit of seed into the box every time and they`ll start climbing in as soon as they see the box. Then you won`t have to keep track of them lol
Seriously though this`ll work and keep you from having problems later. Another plus is you`ll handle each bird at least once a day. They`ll get used to you and you to them. Makes them much more fun to handle. My neighbor asked me yesterday why I was walking around the yard with a bird on my head. lol
yits
v99
Last Edited by Velo99 on Jun 12, 2006 4:02 PM
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SlipSpur
67 posts
Jun 12, 2006
5:27 PM
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I built a big kit box, it's 4' X 3' X 4' ft tall... it's got 45 roosts in it with a legde along the top of one, I figure it'll hold 50 easy enough. I actually built it for my breeders when I'm through raising for the season... I have plans to build one thats 8' square and 4' tall ( not counting the legs ), it'll have 4 sections that are 4 X 4 X 4... A, B, C & D teams... just don't have the time with remodeling the house.
I've noticed some of the birds holding their wings in a V and free falling... they drop 30 or more feet... is this something some birds do before spinning?
Mark
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Velo99
482 posts
Jun 12, 2006
6:06 PM
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Mark,
It is called a tail ride.
The point of having 22 or so birds in a kit is that is the size we compete with. I fly two kits together occasionally and it is too much to watch for indie performance and evaluating a a squeak. I usually let the A team out first. When they get to altitude(200 feet or so) I kick out the squeaks they usually top out around 100 feet or less. Only when they are circling to land do they fly together as a rule.
yits
v99
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