Congratulations to Tory for another outstanding science fair – her second of two award-winning projects involving our racers. This year, she won first place at her school and just yesterday she won 7th grade district champion. We are very proud of her and wish her the best at regional competition.
This year, her project was comparing diets high in fats and carbs to see if they affected the flight speeds of our birds. She tested them at pretty short distances, but the results were still very interesting. Below is an excerpt from her abstract.
What is the effect of a diet high in fats or carbohydrates on the flight time of a homing pigeon? My purpose is to help pigeon racers like me decide what types of food make the pigeons perform better. My hypothesis is that the pigeons that ate the high carbs diet are going to be quicker because carbs give you energy quicker, whereas fats are a more long-term energy source and don’t burn off fast. From the results of my experiment, I learned that a diet of high fats makes the pigeons fly 0.45 miles per hour faster on average than on a high carb filled diet.
