The Federation has special rules to cover birds clocked during the hours of darkness (see for details) Feeding them after dark is also a big help in getting them to home during darkness. There is no twilight here, in the middle of winter sundown is at 5pm and it is dark by 5.30pm. The so called “old Brisbane family” of pigeons are renowned for their ability to home during the night and fanciers go to a lot of trouble to enhance this ability. Also a lot of our longer races are won during the hours of darkness. We have been doing that for the last 60 years, particularly for the long races. I am often bemused to read where Europe is starting to at last race their hens, realising that they are just as competitive as the cocks. If you keep the birds at it, sooner or later a falcon will take the bird, hence the reason why we mainly race yearlings and hens in particular! QRPF Release Sites North & West (click to enlarge) The peregrine falcon is our biggest challenge, falcons are quite common and they have a major influence on our racing and releasing pigeons in general. We race mainly young birds or more correctly yearlings, 9 to 12 months old and have no need to “darken” the loft to delay the moult, rather the opposite is true, we need to get the birds completely through the moult before the first race. It is far too hot to race during our summer and so our aim is to get the birds through the moult and ready to race from the 1st of May. We start at approximately 140 klms and race out to 1000 klms. Here in Brisbane we race during our winter months, from May until October.
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January 2023
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