General Feeding for the Novice Flyer

By: Ken Burgess / England
Date: 2001
Category: Feeding

Once you have settled your tipplers that you intend and hope to enjoy their
flying performance, you will select a kit of the better performers. I would
suggest you try for a five bird kit in that way you will have lee way should
any go off form when you approach your intended long flying day. I train my
birds for about five hours every other day, weather permitting. The flying
birds are housed in flying boxes about 18" square and are fed once a day at
the same time of the day.

During the training period, the birds are fed on good barley, not farm
feeding barley, but good meaty malted or malting barley, dry and clean. The
birds get 1 oz. of this during their evening feed, but after they have
completed a training fly their ounce of barley will have the addition of one
teaspoon of linseed. My birds have a cod liver oil capsule every Tuesday. On
this diet, providing you have decent tipplers, your kit will fly well and
look and feel good.

If you wish to increase your flying time without going into the teens of
hours, mix the barley with a percentage of wheat or white dari. My birds are
always flown on an empty crop. Many fanciers are now using growers pellets,
the poultry type and the birds that I have seen fed this way looked well and
have flown good/very good times. It is a matter of choice, but I would
suggest anyone who decides to use the pellets seek advice from flyers who
have learned the hard way.
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