It has been seven days now since my baby pigeons were placed into the darkening loft where they will stay in there until the beginning of July. Since I'm not retired yet, I need to make sure these pigeons get eight hours of day light throughout a normal day. Well, what I did was, I made sure the lights turned on at high noon, and turned off at eight PM. I was asked by my wife, why am I turning those lights on when it is day light outside, well to her it just made no since. I explained, if there is no one to open the loft to let the birds out into the flight pen, at least the lights would still turn on and the babies will get the benefit of artificial day light. Most lofts are tightly closed, to prevent unwanted day light to enter the loft, and at this time most loft managers forget the most important equation "oxygen". I truly believe the pigeons can catch the same disease we catch like pigeon lung disease caused by the protein dust that is extracted from the feathers. At this time while using the Darkening System, is to have a ventilation fan installed to improve the oxygen quality levels in the loft. When entering the loft, one should not detect any odours released by the pigeons.
The other mistake that is made at this time is not knowing when to stop placing babies in the Loft. We all Make the same mistake year after year, just over crowding our loft. These birds should have at least 3.5 cubic feet of space per bird to ensure good health. We all know that only healthy pigeons win race, so why over crowd. Today it happened, I saw the first cover feather on the floor, and before you know it, another down feather dropped. In a couple of months down the road these baby pigeons will start to look like yearling.
