Mangosteen for Pigeons 100 % Pure Organic Mangosteen Juice.

The best for your pigeon performance!

Our 100% Pure Organic Certified Mangosteen Juice for Pigeons helps you get the edge with improved pigeon performance in your racing.

Mangosteen Juice has taken pigeon breeders by storm since an article appeared in the Racing Pigeon Digest in 2005 and later in British Homing World in 2008.

The following articles have been provided by and reproduced with the permission of Rick Tozier from Oakdale, MN, USA and give you an insight into how Mangosteen Juice has been used successfully to get better race times.

A summary of the effects of using the Mangosteen Juice and some great quotes:

Race Timing

A trial was done by Al Coury with two groups of birds. Group A were fed mangosteen juice in their water, the other just normal feed. They went into a number of races.

"Group A (mangosteen group) arrived 13 minutes ahead of Group B. The second race showed the same results.

For the third race Al decided to add mangosteen juice to the drinking water for Group B at one ounce per gallon, just the same as for Group A. He was shocked to find that Group B arrived only 5 to 6 minutes behind Group A. The following week both groups arrived together clocking into the electronic timing system within seconds of each other. He kept both groups on the mangosteen for the next couple of weeks and both groups were coming in neck-to-neck, side-by-side for all of those races. Al then took Group A off of the mangosteen juice to see what would occur. Not to his surprise, Group A did not do as well as Group B, which were still being given the mangosteen."

Bird Condition

“The birds were in superb condition. Their keels were bone white, and they had pink scaleless breast flesh, bright clear eyes, chalk white wattles and sears, scale free feet that were clean, red and warm, and they had oil spots all over the flights. They felt as if they were filled with helium, and blown up like we can only dream of. The guys putting them on had to use two hands, as they were strong and full of power and vigor.”  - Rick Tozier.

Even for the Pigeon Keepers

"Mangosteen is a natural anti-inflammatory agent and it is my belief that it could help those of us (I being one of them) that suffer from Hypersensitivity Pneumonitis, better known as Pigeon Lung Disease. Pigeon Lung is caused by the ingestion of the bloom from our birds’ feathers that becomes airborne by the fluttering around of the birds inside the loft or from scraping perches and floors when cleaning the loft." - Rick Tozier.

Mangosteen Juice is rich in naturally occurring Xanthones which are the "Key Actives" responsible for the multitude of health supporting benefits for which Mangosteen has been revered. There are over 200 xanthones that have been identified and many of these xanthones are found in the pericarp of the Mangosteen fruit. Our Organic Mangosteen for Pigeons provides naturally occurring minerals, vitamins, antioxidants, phytonutrients and bioflavanoids.

Our Mangosteen Juice is the BEST QUALITY and the BEST VALUE on the internet. You can buy three bottles of this top quality Mangosteen Juice and get one EXTRA FREE giving you about four months supply. This includes NEXT DAY delivery anywhere in the UK.

Total cost per bottle is £17.96 each for this offer. Cost per feed when used daily is about 58 pence!

If you can find this quality of 100% pure organic mangosteen juice for delivery to the UK cheaper anywhere else, we'll refund the difference so BUY NOW and do your shopping around later. You won't be disappointed! Remember our prices include courier delivery to your door so no nasty surprises later and no need to go to the hassle of going to the shops. This quality mangosteen juice probably isn't available in the shops anyway.

For the fastest service order you can order online, but you can also call us on our Freephone number 0800 007 5150.

Orders by about 2.30 p.m are usually sent out the SAME day - START tomorrow!

Mangosteen Juice - For People and Pigeons

Mangosteen, Xanthones, Condition and Form

Pigeon Lung disease - Can Mangosteen Help?

Pigeons using Mangosteen, The Results

Pigeon Performance with Mangosteen - Al Coury's Secrets

Mangosteen Juice - Beneficial For People and For Pigeons

First you may ask, just what the heck is mangosteen and if it’s so great why haven’t I heard of it before? Well, a brief history of this tropical fruit will help explain all that. In Asia, the mangosteen is known as "The Queen of Fruits". In scientific language it is known as Garcinia Mangostana but more commonly known just as mangosteen. About the size of a tangerine, the mangosteen has a smooth, dark purple rind, encasing a delicious snow-white fruit.

Even though it is largely unknown in many parts of the world, the mangosteen has been utilized both as a food and as a medicine in Southeast Asia for many centuries. It has been transplanted into Central and South America, India, Southern China and the Caribbean where it is also used as food and medicine.

Healers from these areas have developed an enormous folk medicine repertoire treating diabetes, diarrhea, inflammation, eczema, urinary tract disorders and fever, just to name a few.

Globally, university scientists became curious about these claims. Validation occurred when the mangosteen was observed to help people with a variety of health challenges. Scientists wanted to know why the mangosteen was so effective! Subsequently, more than 50 scientific studies have been published and more studies are ongoing.

Science has identified approximately 200 different naturally occurring phytonutrients called xanthones. The mangosteen fruit alone has over 40!  In addition, mangosteen has some of the most potent xanthones studied to date. No other fruit even comes close! Science has also discovered xanthones to be a much more powerful antioxidant than those found in vitamins and that they assist the body in many areas.

The majority of the xanthones found in the mangosteen are located in the rind or pericarp (outer shell) of the fruit. A company located and headquartered in the United States has discovered that by milling the whole fruit into a puree, and transforming it into a liquid supplement, a xanthone-rich, and tastefully delicious beverage was created. The process they use to create this beverage has now been patented and the product is being distributed worldwide.

Here are just a handful of the most profound benefits of drinking mangosteen juice: anti-fatigue – a natural energy booster, anti-tumor and cancer preventive (six of the xanthones found in mangosteen were capable of killing cancer cells according to a preliminary study), anti-oxidant (protection against free-radical damage), Hypotensive - lowers blood pressure, anti-diabetic – lowers blood sugar, lowers (LDL) cholesterol in the blood, anti-atherosclerotic - prevents hardening of arteries, anti-microbial, anti-viral, antibiotic, anti-depressant, anti-arthritic, anti-inflammatory and much, much more.

Mangosteen is a natural anti-inflammatory agent and it is my belief that it could help those of us (I being one of them) that suffer from Hypersensitivity Pneumonitis, better known as Pigeon Lung Disease. Pigeon Lung is caused by the ingestion of the bloom from our birds’ feathers that becomes airborne by the fluttering around of the birds inside the loft or from scraping perches and floors when cleaning the loft. Usually after years of exposure to this dust our body becomes chronically allergic to a specific protein that is present in pigeon bloom and it begins to create antibodies to fight the infection. This in turn causes severe inflammation in the lungs that results in a loss of lung capacity and extreme shortness of breath. General practice to fight this kind of inflammation is to prescribe an anti-inflammatory drug such as Prednisone. These types of corticosteroids however have serious and lasting side effects. The regular use of a good quality dust mask that can filter down to about three to five microns such as the 3M model 8511, coupled with the daily use of mangosteen juice could enable many of us to keep our birds and continue to enjoy the sport of racing pigeons for years to come, while at the same time maintaining our health.

Okay, we can see what mangosteen can do for people, but what can it do for pigeons? That was a question that gave birth to an interesting experiment. Al Coury, a racing pigeon fancier living in Gilbert, Arizona had heard all the hype about mangosteen from an associate of his, but he was skeptical. So, he decided he would put all that hype to the test with his racing pigeons.

He split his race team into two test groups. One group (i.e. Group A) would be given one ounce of mangosteen juice (about a shot glass full) to a gallon of water in their drinkers on a daily basis and the other group (i.e. Group B) would not be given any mangosteen and would only be given the normal additives in the water (vitamins, etc.). The two groups were kept separated and raced from separate lofts, both located on his property. The birds in both groups were full brothers and sisters off of the same breeders, receiving the same feeding and training program with the only exception being the mangosteen juice added to the drinking water for test Group A. The results were astounding.

As you may know the metabolic rate of a pigeon is much faster than that of a human being and their body temperature is much higher and so the mangosteen elevates their white cell count and boosts their immune system which wards off any of the natural diseases that pigeons are subjected too such as canker, coccidiosis and other diseases that pigeons may pick up as they undergo stress during a race and which can slow down their performance. The first race showed a significant difference. Group A (mangosteen group) arrived 13 minutes ahead of Group B. The second race showed the same results. For the third race Al decided to add mangosteen juice to the drinking water for Group B at one ounce per gallon, just the same as for Group A. He was shocked to find that Group B arrived only 5 to 6 minutes behind Group A. The following week both groups arrived together clocking into the electronic timing system within seconds of each other. He kept both groups on the mangosteen for the next couple of weeks and both groups were coming in neck-to-neck, side-by-side for all of those races. Al then took Group A off of the mangosteen juice to see what would occur. Not to his surprise, Group A did not do as well as Group B, which were still being given the mangosteen.

All of Al’s pigeons are now on the mangosteen and he has also started to hydrate his race team prior to shipping the race by using a syringe and squirting a little mangosteen juice (approximately ½ cc) down into their crops and he has had quite a successful season in 2004.

The Grand Canyon Futurity this year was a tough one with rain and wind all along the course, and Al is on the long end 30 miles deep. That means that his birds had an extra 30 miles of 15+ mph headwinds and rain. He missed winning it by only 54 seconds! His team of 14 sent gave him 4 birds on his end, and the first 3 were on the drop (2 in the same second, and 1 only three seconds apart). The flyer that won the race sent 65 birds and had eight up front. Another short end flyer (30 airline miles shorter) sent 37 birds, and clocked 6. Al’s team of only 14 kicked butt for loft performance, and mangosteen is what he believes gave them the edge. Season overall performance left him 2nd average speed (by only two minutes) from a guy on the short end, and 4th champion loft in the entire combine. The amazing thing on this is that Al shipped the team back to a 310 only five days later from the 300 and 380 mile stations the week before. Not only did they come home, but took 2nd combine with repeaters!

The birds were in superb condition. Their keels were bone white, and they had pink scaleless breast flesh, bright clear eyes, chalk white wattles and sears, scale free feet that were clean, red and warm, and they had oil spots all over the flights. They felt as if they were filled with helium, and blown up like we can only dream of. The guys putting them on had to use two hands, as they were strong and full of power and vigor. The anti-bacterial and anti-oxidant benefits of mangosteen are enormous to a racing pigeon. Couple this with the high body temperature and metabolic rate of our pigeons, and it's a win-win combination.

Al’s Stock Loft is receiving Mangosteen juice as well. One astonishing thing has been that the birds, which usually have to go through a pre-breeding season medical regimen no longer need one. They went through the nicest molt in years, and there are no signs of any canker, light birds, or any other maladies. One thing Al observed this past season was that he was able to successfully breed out of birds that were as old as 1988 and 1989. Some of these old birds had produced Federation Champion Bird, and other top performers for him, so he kept them around just in case they might "get lucky". Well what he found in this was the old hens which possibly had ovarian infections and wouldn't lay and the cocks that were no longer fertile, started going again! His thoughts are that the natural anti-bacterial benefits of the mangosteen had cleaned up the levels of infection in the reproductive areas of these birds, and got their juices flowing again. Another experiment was conducted for a fellow flyer that had an old hen with a large tumor in the vent area. By injecting ½  cc of mangosteen juice directly into the tumor mass in a daily series over a period of a week, the mass became noticeably smaller, however in this case the hen would still not lay.

Al has also been drinking mangosteen juice daily. He drinks an ounce in the morning and an ounce in the evening. He had suffered injuries to his knees from playing football, and had a cervical spine injury caused by an auto accident several years ago. He has found that now he rarely has to take prescription drugs or painkillers as he had been doing before using the mangosteen and that his fluid movement has also greatly improved. For years he also had problems with bronchitis and would end up with bronchial pneumonia several times every year. This would start about the time they would be "ginning" cotton in the area. Chaff and dust from the gins would get into his lungs and agitate his bronchial tubes eventually causing pneumonia. Since he began drinking mangosteen juice, Al says he has yet to even catch a cold.

Al’s experiments and true-life testimonial proves that beyond a doubt, mangosteen juice is beneficial for people and for pigeons!

In my previous article I wrote about Al Coury’s fabulous results giving mangosteen juice to his pigeons. The fact is that mangosteen helped to bring his birds into form quicker and kept them there longer. We all know that to be competitive in the sport of racing pigeons and to win races our birds must be in superb condition and above all superb form, no matter how hard we train them or what systems or methods we use. I believe that even a mediocre pigeon can win a race if it’s in superb form and condition and a great pigeon can win a lot of races but again only if it’s in top form.

So, what is condition? It is the mental and physical fitness of our birds brought on by the proper feeding and training regimen. How do we achieve it? To discuss this subject in any great detail could be an entire article in itself and people with far more knowledge and experience than me have already written many.  My purpose in writing this article is to discuss, and simply share the knowledge of how mangosteen can help in this regard and not to promote any one feeding and training program. However, we all know that for our birds to be in top condition we need to give them a proper diet consisting of a good quality feed that is formulated for racing or breeding and at the right amount so that we don’t overfeed or underfeed them. We need to give them plenty of fresh, clean water and grit daily and to give them a few vitamin and mineral supplements. We need to keep a clean, dry loft with proper ventilation in order to promote good health not only for our birds but for ourselves as well and we must never overcrowd them. We also need to train them properly and give them the proper amount of exercise and rest.

What about medication? Shouldn’t this be a part of my conditioning program? No! Too many pigeon fanciers over medicate their birds by using these medications (i.e. drugs) as a preventative. There is no such thing as preventative medications. Any reputable veterinarian or avian vet will tell you that this is not good for our birds and by using these medications improperly as a “preventative” we only help to propagate stronger mutated strains of the viruses we are trying to avoid in the first place. Don’t medicate unless there is a real problem, period! Do you take a dose of antibiotics every so often just in case, or to prevent your getting sick? Ask your doctor what he or she would think if you decided to put yourself on a schedule of  “preventive medication” to kill any bugs that might be in your system. If they are an ethical person and I’m sure they are, I’m sure you would have some difficulty getting them to write the prescriptions. Why should it be any different for our birds? Learn to use a microscope to check droppings if you need too, but don’t use the shotgun method every spring to get rid of something that may not be there in the first place. We should however vaccinate for PMV and some may choose to vaccinate for Pox. These are the only kind of “preventatives” we should be using. Enough said.

Now, what about form? This takes place over time and is evident when our birds have progressed to their best performance level through conditioning, training and actual competition. But to describe a pigeon in top form I have to quote my friend Al Coury in Arizona, whom I think summed it up pretty well. He said, “The birds were in superb condition. Their keels were bone white, and they had pink scaleless breast flesh, bright clear eyes, chalk white wattles and sears, scale free feet that were clean, red and warm, and they had oil spots all over the flights. They felt as if they were filled with helium, and blown up like we can only dream of. The guys putting them on had to use two hands, as they were strong and full of power and vigor.” That my friends just may be the best description of form I think I have ever heard. Al has pioneered the usage of the mangosteen in racing pigeons. He also says “ The birds become more eager to fly, and seem to enjoy flight as if it were playtime, and when returning from a race, to still have surplus energy as if they quite enjoyed the racing home.” I could have used that little tidbit of information years ago when I was a new flyer and had no idea what was meant by the term “good form”.

Now, how can mangosteen help to bring your birds into form and why? This fruit and in particular its pericarp or rind is abundant with biologically active plant phenols called xanthones. Xanthones are very powerful and highly effective phytoceuticals, which can assist the body in many areas. There are only about two hundred of these xanthones that have been identified by science and it has been discovered that mangosteen contains about forty of them and several of those in mangosteen are among the most potent. Two of these xanthones, alpha mangostin and gamma mangostin have particularly caught the interest of hundreds of scientists and medical personnel. Scientists have proven that alpha and gamma mangostin limit the body’s production of the Cyclooxygenase or COX 2 enzyme, which has been shown to be the major cause of inflammation, such as that in the joints of arthritis sufferers. These xanthones also inhibit the oxidation of low density lipoprotein or LDL (cholesterol), a cause of atherosclerosis and heart disease. Suppressing the cellular production of COX is an important factor in reducing inflammation, pain and fever.

A new laboratory test known as ORAC (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity) has also shown that an ounce of mangosteen has twenty to thirty times the ability to absorb free radicals than an ounce of most fruits and vegetables. Several other studies have shown that polyphenols – also found in mangosteen were five times more potent as antioxidants than vitamin C, which is commonly regarded as one of the most powerful know antioxidants.

Just what the heck are free radicals you may ask? No they’re not the draft card burning, longhaired, dope-smoking, agitators of the sixties, shouting anti-war slogans and promoting free love. Free radicals are molecules with a missing electron, that enter our bodies and wreak a lot of damage, resulting in illness and disease, as they attack stable molecules in an effort to achieve stability. Where do free radicals come from? Well, the sources are many, but they are found in air pollution, water pollution and chemicals in our environment. We breathe them in, we drink them down and we eat them with our food, and therefore become host to these free radicals on a daily basis and so do our birds as well as every other living thing. Anti-oxidants (molecules with an extra electron) are what come to the rescue by providing these free radicals with a much-needed electron. As shown in the chart above, mangosteen is our best source of antioxidants.

Mangosteen is a natural anti-inflammatory as mentioned previously. The body responds to injury with the production of the COX 2 enzyme, which involves pain and inflammation. This is a normal process for the most part, but not when there is chronic or long-lasting inflammation and swelling. This type of inflammation has been linked to many serious diseases such as arthritis, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, breast cancer, colon cancer, Crohn’s, uterine cancer, osteoporosis, respiratory disease and much more. Xanthones in mangosteen reduces inflammation in every cell in the body. This is beneficial to the musculo-skeletal, cardiovascular, respiratory and gastro-intestinal systems.

Xanthones in mangosteen are also able to rid the body of parasites and bacteria. Laboratory studies have shown xanthones in mangosteen to produce anti-bacterial, anti-viral, and anti-fungal activity. Therefore mangosteen juice is beneficial for the immune system and can help prevent salmonella, coccidiosis, and canker in our birds to name a few, not to mention what it can do for us.

Mangosteen is a natural energy booster! Every cell in the body has a bio-lipid or fat layer surrounding it, which acts in the form of carbohydrates, fats and proteins as a gateway for food molecules to enter the cell. Xanthones help the body to convert food into energy by reducing the bad fats in the body, allowing the cells to become more soft and permeable to food molecules needed to create energy.

Mangosteen is the juice that Al Coury has been using with his pigeons with outstanding results. Al recently sent me an email with the results of a race flown on April 9, 2005 from a distance of 425 miles. He had 10 birds on the drop taking 4th through 13th place. In another email from Al he sent me the results from a previous race flown on March 26,2005 from a distance of 382 miles. Al had 8 birds on the drop taking 2nd through 9th place and he took 11th and 14th place as well. Al will be a handler for the Dual in the Desert series to be flown in November and December. The birds in his loft will all be given mangosteen juice. I’m sure that if he has the same kind of results in those races there will be a few happy breeders out there that will be glad they put birds in Al’s loft.

There is over thirty years of research on mangosteen and xanthones that helps to support the health benefits of drinking mangosteen juice. There are no guarantees that everyone will have the same results. I can only recommend that a person try it, if not for yourself then for your birds. You just may like the results.

Pigeons Performance on mangosteen - The results.

Would you like to have that “secret edge?” Would you like to put your team at the top of the results sheet week after week seeing six or even ten or more birds on the drop? Or, how would you like to have your team get better and finish stronger as the races get longer and harder? My friend Al Coury of Gilbert, Arizona did just that. What was his “secret edge?” Well, he pioneered the use of mangosteen for pigeons, but he has made no “secret” of it. In fact he will tell you exactly what he’s doing, from feeding and training to what “system” he’s using. There really is no such thing as a “secret edge” folks, just a good, sound system and diligence in using it.

So, did Al win every race? No, but here’s what he did achieve for the 2005 Arizona Alliance Old Bird season: Third average speed in long distance races with 19 lofts competing, second average speed in short distance races with 20 lofts competing, third overall average speed with 20 lofts competing and Loft Of The Year for a total of 2295 accumulated points and 84 clockings. Let me emphasize that Al’s loft is thirty miles deeper on the racecourse than the first place loft in the Arizona desert. I have looked at the WinSpeed results sheets for the Arizona Alliance and I noticed many of the same loft names are in the top ten percent every week and Lazy AC Loft was consistently in that group and near or at the top, but also with as many as ten birds on the drop in several races. His team performed extremely well and most of them were just yearlings! I was most impressed with two races in particular. Al took second through ninth, eleventh and fourteenth places from a distance of 382 miles (25 miles deeper than the winning loft) with 267 birds and 18 lofts competing. In another race he scored forth through thirteenth places from a distance of 425 miles with 152 birds and 14 lofts competing. In almost every race he had six, to ten birds on the drop and in the top ten percent clocked! How would you like to have a team of birds coming like that consistently week after week? I’m looking forward to seeing his results for the Young Bird season.

Now, what system does Al use and what is his feed and training regimen? Well, here is the Al Coury / Lazy AC Loft Widowhood Flying System: First and foremost it is imperative to remove the existing widowhood cocks from their loft and close off their boxes completely. Place the new candidate cocks in the loft to find their box on their own. Take care not to have more cocks than boxes, as you will only be adding “candidate” cocks to utilize the remaining boxes in the loft.  The existing widowhood cocks will be returning later to their boxes. 

Use a "running board" system on the boxes, which is about 4" wide with the actual nest fronts set behind the 4". Keep in mind, it is very important staying out of the loft except to feed or water only (leave the birds alone).  Close the boxes so the cocks can utilize only the running board as a perch. Do not have any other “perches” for them to roost.

Feed and water in a common area. After a day or so they will find their "pecking order" and take a position. This is when it gets interesting. Open the box on the one side only “half box”, so as the cock gets a little more territory to claim. Do not feed anything on this day.

The next morning pre fill a feed cup or pottery bowl with 1 oz (about a tablespoon) of feed mix per bird. Take the cups into the loft, and place one cup in the back of the 1/2 open box per box, and leave the loft immediately. All hell will cut loose. Let them be alone to deal with themselves.

The next morning as you enter the loft use your whistle or whatever method you use to trap. (I just whistle and they know what it means) Put 1/2 tablespoon in each of the cups and be sure to slide it to the back of the box, and leave the loft.

Multiple birds may be in one box...that's ok, and part of the learning curve. An hour or two later, repeat the process and feeding once more. The cocks will start hunting you when you enter the loft, and running to the boxes.

On the evening of day four lock all birds up on the property and close the lofts. Open the windows of your widowhood loft and let them all go out on their own about two hours before dark. Do this more or less as an "open loft" exercise. If you have lights in the widowhood coop, turn them on. The cocks will go out, fly around and try to get back into their previous young bird loft, etc. Leave them alone to do their thing.

As darkness comes, the cocks will find their way back into the widowhood loft, and go to their boxes. One or two cocks may need coaxed to go in (this is what the lights are for). After they are all back inside, close the loft.

The next day feed them 1 oz per bird (in their cups) in the morning only, and do not let them out of loft. This is the day to have the “first breakfast” with the cocks. Stay in the loft with a three-foot long, one-inch thick dowel and tap it on the floor while whistling and tell them to get into their boxes.  It's amazing how fast they learn this exercise. At this point, the cocks get very territorial, and fight to eat in "their" box. After they go to the boxes, leave the loft, and let them tend to their business. Repeat this day for three days in a row… and they will be real sharp on what to do (the “stick” is a great control tool “point at the cocks” to make them get in their boxes and close them in from a distance). They will look at the end of the stick as a threat to “take” their box, and stand their ground as you back them into their box.

The next morning is the one-week mark.   Let the birds out early in the morning to fly. Close them out of the loft with their bath pans for an hour or so to scrape the loft and get it clean.  Before calling them in place 1 oz. of feed per cup per bird in the boxes.  Open the loft and start whistling them in. They will trap very quickly now. The ones that don't trap will get no feed (they will be the first to trap the next morning).

On about the tenth day, go through the same morning drill but after dark sneak into the loft with dark clothing and close the cocks into their nest boxes. When this is done, use a flashlight to read the band numbers and lock the cock back into his box for the night. Check each cock, and write his band number on a template of the box locations noting the box they have chosen. After a night or two of this, you will have a very solid idea of whose box is whose.   If you have a cock that can't hold a box, eliminate it from the team. It will never have the tenacity to be a widowhood cock. Post the “final” box diagram on the wall of the loft in your plain sight, so as to know who goes where. Any time you don’t have a cock for a box close the box off completely.

Week two, after releasing the new cocks to fly, and not until they come in to eat, release the old cocks back into the widowhood loft, and have their boxes opened to 1/2 box as well. The new cocks will hold their boxes, and a little pecking order will take place from the old cocks (keep in mind that they already should know the “system”). Stay out of the loft and let them figure it out themselves. This is the most important part of flying widowhood! This is why the older cocks’ boxes were sealed off with absolutely no access or “running board” for the new cocks, and they will move back into “their” boxes. Should at any time you have a cock taking more than one box, lock all the cocks in “their” correct boxes, and let the cock or cocks that were pushed out reclaim their box.
After a couple hours of this, lock them in their box, and let the rest out to do their thing. Eventually they will all take just one box. Now that all the cocks are in place, figure the date that is 61 days before the first race. Give them hens at this date to start their cycle.  If you had hens in those boxes before, those same hens will work just fine. The reason to do this is the “hens” also have a tie to these boxes and it helps in getting them to settle in. Place the hens in the closed 1/2 box and the cocks can freely access and woo them.  After a couple hours, lock the cocks in their 1/2 side with the partition between them.  Remember to the “hen” this is a strange cock in her box, and she will need to be wooed and dominated by the new cock without being confrontational. 

Let one or two pairs have the loft to themselves at a time with open boxes to go up and down. This is a bit of a chore but will pay you back very well in having them mate up quickly and painlessly (using this system in a stock loft also works well). In a day or so of this exercise, you will be able to let them all out in the loft together, and they will each know their boxes, and mates.

Now feed in a community feeder. This is the time to give them the bath pans and open loft for the first half of a day. By now the hens are getting amorous, and the cocks will start wanting to build nests. Put the bowls in on the one side, and let nature take its course. It is wise to have plenty of good “clean” nesting material (pine needles work great) for the widowhood cocks to bring into the loft, and allow early morning “open loft” for about ten days. In about ten days all should have started laying, and the cycle begins. You will get your first round, and then the second set of eggs. 

Train during this period, and have the birds on the feeding system.  Widowhood cocks will be trained till the first race (train the cocks 50 – 75 miles for seven to ten days in a row, one week before the week of the first race). Now go to the regular training the week leading up to the first race as scheduled in the “Day by Day” feeding and training system, then no more road training.  They will blow holes in the sky after they are widowed conditioning and training themselves.

The first week of widowhood pull the hens on Tuesday night, and leave the cocks with the week old or so eggs and babies.  Ship this race without the “show” of the hen.  Pour the feed to them and they will become "Super Daddy's" to those babies.  After shipping, pull the babies and put them with the hens, now housed in a hidden location from the view of the cocks, in a common box filled with shavings and pine needles.  When the cocks come back from the race, have the babies back in the nests but without their hens.  Do not give them their hens now.

The night the cocks return, again pull the babies and put them with the hens to feed (back to community feeding in a box of shavings, and pine needles on the floor). The cocks will abandon the eggs in a day or so. When you let the cocks out to fly Tuesday morning, (if you fly races on Saturday), close up the loft, take out the nest bowls, throw out the eggs, and give the loft a good cleaning. Close the boxes up to just the “running board” and do a “take away” on them. Give the cocks only the running board to perch on. 

Fly the cocks each morning Tuesday through Thursday (they should give you an hour of free flying) and feed in the community feeder until Wednesday’s flight.  Now you can open ½ box position, and go to the individual feed cups that in the meantime have been cleaned and sterilized. Increase the feeding to about 2 oz. per bird now, as the birds will be “working” as flyers.  When they are getting the correct amount of feed they will “tell you” by leaving a few grains of barley.

On Friday (shipping day), after feeding the birds give the cocks their nest bowls (rub just a drop of anise oil on the bottom of nest bowl). This will come in handy later on when you DON’T SHOW the hen, as the aroma of the anise will excite them.

About two hours before basketing the cocks, feed the hens ”widows” a high energy feed (all they want) and let them drink. Lock the cocks in their boxes by tapping a stick or dowel to get them into the boxes without chasing them around. In time they will associate the nest bowls and anise aroma and race to their boxes.  Give them a pinch of patty rice, or white millet to eat as they calm down in their boxes.  Eventually as they grasp the “system”, they will begin calling their hens at this time