News and Updates
Mar-13-2024
WEATHER AND LOFT FLYING High Desert Breeders,

Nasty weather today but the forecast for the next week is looking awesome! All groups are starting to route again and birds are up for an hour plus. Another couple of weeks of good weather and routing, then we will start road training. Once we are ready for road training we will separate the yearlings and two year olds. The two year olds will continue to loft fly as we do short tosses with the yearlings. Once the yearlings are out 25-40 miles we will start to road train the two year olds as well. Sexes will be separated once we hit 40 miles. 

Two big groups collided the other day hurting several wings with the ones that made it back. Birds overall are looking very good and are getting in good condition. Looking forward to nicer weather for the birds and road training. 

Until the next update.

Kenny and Corey
Mar-05-2024
WINTERY WEATHER THE PAST WEEK

Good Afternoon,

 
The past week has been typical winter weather; snow, wind and rain. The weather should be looking more spring like in the coming week. With that we will be able to get the birds out consistently again. The team is ready for warmer weather and hitting the skies. 
 
Until the next update.
 
Kenny and Corey
Feb-24-2024
LOFT FLYING High Desert Breeders,

The birds have had a great week of weather and have progressed very nicely in the air. Birds are up 45 minutes now, with a large portion flying for over an hour. This next week it is looking like half the days will be good flying weather and the other half have high winds or storms projected. We are very happy with where the birds are at. If this weather continues the birds will be on track to start road training end of March. 

Until the next update. 

Kenny and Corey
Feb-18-2024
UPDATE High Desert Breeders,

Snow covered fields this morning and chilly. Next week's weather is looking to be decent so we can keep making some progress with the birds. This past week they were out all but two days because of weather. This time of year and spring one thing we have to watch out for in this valley are winds. Birds are making slow and steady progress after sitting for over a month. Forcing them to fly a few minutes currently. That will increase rapidly as they add a little tone onto their muscles. Some birds fly the minimum while others are up flying 45 minutes +. Don't worry about trapping at this point since the birds are at all different levels of flying time.

We updated the website. Most pages have been revamped and edited. We also added a page with a Google Map of the Release points. We added a Rules 2024 page and a Rules 2025 page. Everything is the same other than we are increasing the Entry $50 for next years race, to $250. Trying to increase the payout but also we want to stay "affordable." With having the birds for a whole year and the continued increases of the basic supplies we needed to create a little more revenue to offset the costs. We have debated on whether to increase perch costs for the initial intake or to have a second perch cost after activation. We decided to keep it simple and cheaper with what we started this year and have our extra perch fee come in the form of the 10% deduction from the Entry Money. We will see how it goes this year and if more people want them separated, Perch and Entry, we will be happy to do that. We post a google sheet of all the money and payouts so you can see where all the money went. You can see last years Payouts Here. 

For the Two Year Old Series, in 2025, it will be a Two and Three year old series. And that Entry price increased from $150 this year to $200 next year. We are happy to adjust and change based on what the breeders would like. 

A couple of other reminders:
Sexes are separated once we get out to 40 miles. Trying to create an even playing field for all. We have always separated the sexes.

We do Hand Scan the birds before every race. Always have done that as well. Facebook has really evolved and changed the game over the last few years for One Loft Races. We are a little late to the game but we will utilize Facebook more this year. We did create a Facebook Page for the High Desert Yearling Classic last year. Our goal is to be more active posting videos this year. 

Yearlings and Two Year Olds will run the same series this year. The two year olds will be released a half hour after. 

That is all for know. Best wishes for your breeding season. Sorry for the long update. Until the next update. 

Kenny and Corey
Jan-29-2024
WINTER UPDATE High Desert Breeders,

The birds are enjoying a few nice days of warmth and sunshine. January has been the normal, cold and lots of precipitation. Birds have been locked down since the beginning of the month due to the weather. The goal will be to start getting the birds back out here in the next few weeks. It all depends on what we are seeing in the forecasts. Once birds are back out we will start posting weekly inventories. 

Our goal is to start road training sometime around the beginning of April. That is dependent upon how long winter is and how they are doing with loft flying. We like lots of ranging and all the birds flying for an hour plus. Some years we have started road training before April and others at the beginning of April. All decisions we make are always dependent on how the birds are doing.

Hope breeding season has started well for you all! It is always fun to see the next generation being raised. 

Kenny and Corey
Dec-30-2023
LOFT UPDATE High Desert Breeders,

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Quick update on your birds. We completed a hand inventory last week. Checked flights and overall health. Had around a dozen with broken flights or flights that had failed to grow in. Those flights were pulled and should be ready to roll once Spring time hits. Overall health is good. The cold does affect the bottom percent of the birds.

In terms of loft flying we have been able to get the birds out quite often the last two weeks. A couple of negatives of loft flying in the winter is this year we have had the most hawk problems we have ever had in 14 years. When it is cold and the air heavier the one loft birds do not like to go routing. So we have more tight circling around the loft which can lead to a few more collisions and colliding with buildings. And the last negative is we always have more wing injuries in cold weather. But we do believe in the power of natural selection. 

The website is up to date for the intake of birds for 2025. Everything at this point is staying the same. No change to perch money or entry money. And the acceptance period is the same as it has been. We will be rolling the two-year-old series into a two and three-year-old series for 2025. More information about the two-year-old series can be found on the website under the rules page. We will work out all the kinks this year with running the yearlings and the two-year-olds together this year. 

Until the next update. 

Kenny and Corey


Dec-05-2023
WINTER TIME High Desert Breeders,

Hope you are all enjoying the Christmas Festivities. Winter came earlier this year than in years past. Thanksgiving gave us 6 inches of snow and then a frigid week to follow. Birds will get out as the days allow. This next week is looking much nicer than the previous 2 weeks. We will post inventories as the weather allows. The next couple of months are usually pretty slow. 

Before the bad weather all birds were flying 50+ minutes, with a group of about 200 flying around 2 hours. Birds were routing nicely and looking like a team. 

Best of luck as you are pairing up birds for 2024. 

Kenny and Corey
Oct-26-2023
HAND INVENTORY High Desert Breeders,

Flying, the molt, and the health of the birds is progressing nicely. 90% of the birds are flying 30 minutes plus. Most are grouping up nicely. More and more groups will be routing in the next few weeks. Birds are looking good after their body molt. They are continuing to work on their primaries. Overall birds are nice and healthy. 

We have posted a hand inventory of the 2-year-olds. We will also be doing a hand inventory of all the 2023 birds under the same inventory. That will be completed in the next day or so. 

Other than that things are going well. Enjoying getting the birds in the air. 

Until the next update. 

Kenny and Corey
Sep-27-2023
INVENTORY High Desert Breeders,

We posted an inventory on Wincompanion, on 9/21 of all the 2023 Birds. We will complete a hand scan in the next month and might find a few that did not scan. But that list should be 99% accurate of what birds are in the loft. 

Birds are looking good. Old group is flying well. New group, slow and steady wins the race with settling. But we are making progress each day. Looking forward to getting all the birds up in the air and routing. 

Until the next update. 

Kenny and Corey
Sep-21-2023
SETTLING High Desert Breeders,

Thanks for your patience as we work on getting the late arrivals outside and settled. This Sunday we will start letting out the last group for the first time. By the first part of October we will start kicking all the birds out of the loft and will get an inventory posted on Wincompanion. Sometime in Mid October we will start forcing all the birds to loft fly. 

The first group is really starting to fly well and grouping up. With the cooler weather the birds are doing well. Health is looking good for the vast majority now. Appetites are starting to increase. Hoping for a long lasting Fall to get these birds lots of air time. 

Until the next update. Thanks.

Kenny and Corey
[1]2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Next »