Young Bird Training Tips
When we start road training our young birds there are a couple of things we do that we feel helps them have successful training tosses.
First of all borrow some shipping crates from your club. For several days after you fly your young birds call them in to food but no water. Let them eat and then basket them in the shipping crates, complete with waterers. Keep them in the crates over night and fly them the next day out of the crates. Do this for 3 or 4 days. This will teach the YBs where the waterers are and where to get a drink when they start racing. When you start racing watch your birds. They will automatically go to the back of the crates where the water is.
When we start road training and get to the release point we always give the birds some time to "Locate". In other words set your training crates on the ground and let them be for 10 or 15 minutes. Be sure to keep an eye on them incase of dogs or something. Have a cup of coffee or something. This gives the birds time to locate them selves so they know where they are and which way to go. This eliminates circling. Watch the birds, they will tell you when they are ready to go. When you first set them down they will go quite, as they are locating them selves. After a few minutes they will start playing and fighting they are telling you they know where they are. That's when they are ready.
Also we never let them all out at once, at least not during the early first tosses. If you released your whole team and they ran into trouble you could lose them all. We first release 25% of our team and when they arrive home in good time Linda calls me on the cell phone and I then release the rest. If that first 25% struggles or doesn't come home I bring the rest back. Every day can have different conditions that we don't know about. This way if you do have a bad toss you will never lose more than 25% of your team and will probably be less than that.