I finally have gotten my first team of babied to kit up, and fly without the worry of loosing any babies off the roof. It has been difficult to do, because of my shift work getting in the way. The only time I had to open the loft was during the hottest time of the day, and the babies would only fly for about fifteen minutes or so, only to return with their mouths wide open. These babies are not in shape yet, but getting there fast.

I'm noticing that, when they land with their mouths open, they still return back to flying, as the other loft mates swing around the loft. Now the first round of babies are have been treated against Trichomonas and starting to look great. They are heavy in their moult, because of the darkening system, but in a month or so these baby pigeons will look like adults.

Posted by The Valente & Evans Loft at 10:49 PM EDT

Updated: Friday, 22 May 2009 11:52 PM EDT

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I'm receiving alot of comments regarding one of my videos I have on U-Tube, ( Training Young Pigeons ( Valente & Evans Loft )3 ). I am getting comments like, quote " Those birds look very healthy and very tamed ". Well that almost says it all right there. Yes birds in this video are at their peak in racing competion. The health starts during the early months of winter, making sure the breeders are at their peak of health. I use very little medication, but I do medicate for the Canker parasite just before the breeding season. Together with the help of my good friends John Marles and Joe Ferreria's guidance, I basiclly followed these steps.

1. Improved the breeding loft, by reducing the amount of birds that is kept in the loft making sure they have at least 3.5 cubic feet of space for each bird.

2. Make nessessary renovations to improve the air quality, plenty of fresh air, never stale. having an open concept loft is best, in this video Training Young Pigeons (Valente & Evans Loft )5. The birds will show you that they are happy by being very active and always on the go. The only time they are still is while they are sleeping.

3.  During the breeding time the loft should be dry as a desert. If these birds are fed with a good breeding mix, there should be no watery droppings. I'm on my third round of babies in the nest now and the loft has no odors from wet droppings that has being sitting since the loft has been renovated.

4. Now the babies are taken out of their nest loft and placed in the racing loft. Yes, you are the new foster mother and father, making sure each and everyone learns to eat, and drink. Now, these babies will only eat out of the palm of your hand, not from the wooden feeders. Teaching the babies to drink, I place a few Maples peas into the drinking water, and before you know it, they try to peck the peas, and start to drink.

Another comment quote " wow very Tame. I should hang out with my birds more so they get use to me. How do you do it? hand feeding when they are still young? "

This is how I do it. It takes alot of work, and I have always said, if I will spend a lot time with these birds, then I want them to really shine. So! I would need to have WORLD CLASS PIGEONS, to be on top of the race sheet week after week. That is what we did.

Posted by The Valente & Evans Loft at 3:42 PM EDT

Updated: Friday, 22 May 2009 11:49 PM EDT

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Its has been 23 days out of the nest now, and the babies are looking just fine. Today on May 3, and my babies took flight for the first time. It is everyone's dream to have their baby pigeons to take flight and watch them fly without the fear of the hawks making an appearance around the loft, and this morning was my lucky day. A small group of babies took flight for about two to four minutes, which seemed like forever. I just wanted them to land again so I would not loose any. Just like a mother hen, I was hoping they would land on the board, and boy that is what they did, and made me proud.

We had a few days of dirty cool rainy days which made it unpleasent to stand in the backyard to watch the babies do their thing on the board, and the babies displayed no ruffled feathers or standing in one spot. Well we are getting in some nice weather now, and I think it is time to give them their first treatment for the parasite called Trichomonas gallinae. This treatment will be the only time they will be treated for this parasite before the Young Bird races start, unless something major attacks the babies body. Treatment should be full term, for five to seven days, and don't forget the changing of the grit, every second day, which is very important for them to digest their food .

Posted by The Valente & Evans Loft at 10:00 PM EDT

Updated: Wednesday, 6 May 2009 8:25 AM EDT

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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.

Posted by The Valente & Evans Loft at 9:23 PM EDT

Updated: Wednesday, 15 April 2009 10:50 PM EDT

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Today is day three, and their lesson is to go through the trap using just the love to return back into the loft. I'm using this method of modivation for trapping because, I want to teach the babies to return from a race not for food or water, but for a mate or me, anything that you notice even a habit that they picked up like defending a perch on the wall. In this case I have a space over the trap which only has room for one bird. When these pigeons are racing home, I've see them fight for least 5 minutes or more for it.

Posted by The Valente & Evans Loft at 11:47 AM EDT

Updated: Friday, 10 April 2009 12:21 PM EDT

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click on "My Babies In Action"

Babies Eating their Grit & Minerals

Patience is a virture, and how much do you have? Teaching my first new team of babies how to eat and drink feels like it will be a challange. and is it? It is written in their genes of these lovely pigeons from the begining of time, to survive and I'm here now getting these babies to trust me. I'll talk, whistle, anything, what ever it takes to get these babies to eat, and drink in front of me. In the past I never used to place the grit pot in front of them until they started to fly, and when I did that, I never gave them fresh grit daily. I place the pot of grit in front of them, and replaced the grit only when the pot of grit was empty. Yes, the birds looked heathly, but were they, I think not. I'm not an expert in this field, but I look at the droppings and it looks fine for a few days and then the droppings turn for the worst.

For a few years now, after talking to John Marles, I have only put just enough fresh grit with minerals in front of them to last a couple of days and then replace it, because the grit becomes contaminated  with time combined with damp weather. So do yourself a favor and replace it, because the grit is just as important as food, and you'll notice the dropping will be drier, tighter, and the babies will become more livelier. I truly believe these first steps taken, HAND FEEDING, BONDING with your babies, and FRESH GRIT ever second day, is a good start to a healthier relationship with your babies.

I will feed these babies with Maple Peas for the first week, together with Primalac in the water spiked with apple cider vinager three times week, and the following week I'll treat these babies for the canker-causing organism. Canker is the name of the disease caused by the tiny parasite called Trichomonas gallinae. I'll treat these babies for 5 ~ 7 days, depending on how the weather will look like during that week.

Posted by The Valente & Evans Loft at 1:16 PM EDT

Updated: Saturday, 11 April 2009 12:33 AM EDT

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The idea of giving the breeders eighteen hours of artificial day light is to have all of the cocks and hens mated with hardly or as little as possible of fighting between the pairing pigeons.  Also, to have all the mated pigeons together at the same time so, these pigeons can lay their eggs at the same time. Boy! was I close. I paired eight Stock Pairs and four Feeder pairs at the same time and had thirteen pairs of pigeons that laid on the same day, with three pairs missing by intervals of three days apart.

I do not like to count my babies before these egg hatch, but the idea is to place these babies on the landing board and settled so I can have them in the air on their own and ranging for at least for one hour.

I always get motivated at this time, working close together with the breeders making sure they have fresh minerals and supplements in front at all times. Keeping a close eye on their droppings, (not too wet) and their general health. If you have nest fronts that have swing doors on them, you need to tie the doors in the open position. The reason for this is you do not want at any time to have trapped pigeons in other birds nest. Trapped birds can result in a de-faced birds, broken prize eggs, and or dead babies with special bands on their legs. The hardest thing for me do is to have to destroy a baby that just stepped out of their nest to look at the new world, that means I've waited too long to remove it from the nest. What I try to do is to remove the babies at an early age, just as the tail feathers start to appear through the tail cover feathers.

Posted by The Valente & Evans Loft at 6:15 PM EST

Updated: Saturday, 28 February 2009 7:51 PM EST

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Finally the year book has arrived, with some more good news. Who says hard work will never get you anywhere, well they are wrong. Without even knowing, I received more than one AWARD OF EXCELLENCE in Group 2 of Young Birds Flying.

- Overall Champion Loft 4th with 188.68 points.

- Long Distance Champion Loft 5th with 118.59 Points.

- Short Distance Champion Loft 2nd 149.85 Point.

- Overall Champion Young Bird 2nd with CU 08 SYLVAN LOFT 204 with 44.59 Points.

- Long Distance Champion Young Bird 2nd CU 08 SYLVAN LOFT 208 with 28.47 Points.

- In Group 1 Overall Champion Loft Joe Ferreira Placed 3rd 125.16 Points.

- In Long Distance Champion Loft Joe Ferreira placed 3rd with 100.99 points.

- In Middle Distance Champion Loft, I placed 2nd with 115.74 Points and Joe Ferreira Placed 4th with 101.44 Points.

This was a great season for both of us and a learning experience as well. My focus is to improve on health, modifcation and racing skills. I think when the birds have arrived onto the landing board from a race, the pigeon shows us certain body malfunctions and we need to pickup when they communicate to us. Yes! we are happy to see them home and hope they could be winners, but we as pigeon fanciers need to identify and give back so these Champions birds so they can regain what they have lost during the stress of the race. 

Posted by The Valente & Evans Loft at 9:39 AM EST

Updated: Sunday, 22 February 2009 10:55 AM EST

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