Racing Pigeon Pedigree

Image via Wikipedia

Pedigree is all that matters! It is for that reason why great sums are paid for children of champions. It is for that reason why birds whose generation is closer to the foundation are more expensive than birds of later generation. It is also the reason why a 10th placer in an International race sold more than a higher ranked pigeon. Why? Simply because the 10th placer is a validation of its bloodline and the higher ranked pigeon may come from less known origin.

Pedigree ensures a greater chance of breeding success. It tells you how a bird is bred. It tells you the method of breeding great fanciers use. It will guide you in your breeding choices and pairing decisions. Most importantly, it will give information about the origin of the bird.

I don't know why some "famous" local fanciers will not issue pedigrees when you buy birds from them. Is it because they are lacking in confidence about the birds' pedigrees or is it that they have something to hide and that you may burst the bubble of claims, images and beliefs they projected? I cannot understand this, more so, if I consider a fancier dishonest just by omitting the name(s) of the breeders(fanciers) in the entries that are not of his breeding in the pedigree he issues.

Never will there be a poor pigeon with a super pedigree. This will always be true if the pedigree is issued by a reputable fancier. In the first place, a reputable and well respected fancier will never sell a bad pigeon. Second, one can always demand a DNA test when in doubt.

For a serious fancier, quality pigeons with great pedigree is a must. The essence of our sport is not only to have great results in the races but to further develop and improve our thoroughbreds that they become better as the years go by. As the saying goes, "breeding is gold. racing, silver"

Here are the tips on how to acquire good pigeons with great pedigrees at a less cost.

1. Buy youngsters from yearlings. In Europe, the great lofts breed from well selected breeders based on lineage and from the champions. For the youngsters from the champions, they are mostly sold out from the long cue and demand for them. From the true breeders, youngsters are expensive. These champion lofts rarely breed from the yearlings and when they do, the champion sees something special in these yearlings to merit breeding from them! The youngsters from the yearlings will cost a lot less and their parents may become champions in the future.

2. Buy the old hens. Hens fill up the eggs. Cocks only plant the seed. In Europe, the fanciers believe that to produce super pigeons, the hens should be super healthy and surely younger hens should normally be more vigorous and healthier than the old hens. For this reason, many fanciers will let go of hens past their breeding prime. Many, many years back, I was offered 10 old hens by Aime van Bunderen because of a disastrous season experienced in Belgium and many racers are lost leaving an excess of hens. I did not hesitate for one moment as the pedigrees of the hens offered were fantastic. When the birds arrived, I sold 4 of them to a friend and kept 6. These 6 hens all produced 1st place winners! One of them, a daughter of van Bunderen's "Boxer 68" was to become the mother of my "South Express" 1st OA and 1st Tacloban by 45 minutes. His clocked time of 1:45pm from a 6:30am release remains the record unbeaten to this day.

3. Buy indirectly through reputable breeding stations and collectors. The likes of Robert Venus (Ardens and other long distance families), Koen van Roy (Koopman, Soontjens, lately Ludo Claessens and de Rauw-Sablon), Roger Debusschere (Brockamp, Claessens, Florizones and many other great families).

Lastly, Given a choice between a less perfect pigeon with a super pedigree and a perfect pigeon with bad pedigree, always go with the first option because little imperfections can be corrected by compensation breeding with the good genes retained. Whereas, the perfect pigeon with bad pedigree may breed well but still retain its doubtful blood. Honestly however, I doubt if there ever will be a perfect pigeon with a bad pedigree.

Baby pigeons stop being fed by their mother and start eating seeds

One of the best ways to try to get them to wean is to sprinkle the seed on the ground and not into a bowl. The roundness of the seed apparently kicks off the pecking instinct.

I've hand reared literally hundreds of pigeons over the years - as the bird gets to about four weeks old, I begin to cut the morning feed and leave them to peck around during the day as they get hungry -- it's really no different from their parents beginning to cut back on the feeding a bit as they get to about 34 days or so - I always give them a full evening feed.

How do racing pigeons choose a mate?

The strong survive tells all to your question, the Pigeon you see Strutting, head bobbing, charging type of behavior is the male, he is trying to woo a hen into submission, I am a Pigeon/Wildlife rescue & rehab person, I have many pigeons here, I have nesting boxes and watching the males try to lure a female into a nesting box is fun to watch, Males will also compete for a hen, some fights can become vicious.
The Pigeons do mate for life, however the (for life) issue can be looked at differently, If something was to happen to a Pigeons mate the survivor will except another mate in due time.
One is a lonely number.
They will only have 2 babies at a time, depending on the weather they will have up to 3 clutches per year.

Good Food Formula for Racing Pigeons

Image via WikipediaMy dad used to have racing pigeons and he fed them a seed mixture called Kaytee #5. It has most of the seeds they will need. Corn, oats, barley, millet, peas, and etc. They should have a good pigeon grain mix at a feed store. Also, they will need some pellets which are separate. If you cannot find actual pigeon pellets(not all feed stores around here carry them), buy pig pellets. Ingredient-wise, pig pellets are the closest. Good luck, pigeons are great!

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Racing Pigeon - Paratyphoid and Coccidiosis

Image via WikipediaGo to the medications for Paratyphoid (Salmonella) and Coccidiosis. Read the descriptions of the illness that they treat. This is what it sounds like to me. Pigeons get sick when they are stressed. (raising babies) If at somewhere down the line you pigeon feed had mice or rats crawling all over it you have a good chance of getting Paratyphoid. Never buy feed that has any kind of stains on the bag. Also Foy's will take poop samples and analyze them for $20 they will call you on the phone and tell you the results. If you ask him to he will recommend a medicine or medicines. Some diseases in pigeons take to medications to eradicate.

The best course of action is to keep your cage clean. Change the water twice a day in warm weather. No so necessary in the cooler months. Give them water in a type of vessel that they can't bathe in because they will. They will also poop in there. They will throw crap in the water no matte what kind of device you use. It is best to put the water in some kind of container that covers the water. They have them on the Foy's web site.

Make sure that when it rains that your cage doesn't get wet inside. Pigeons need lots of fresh water,dryness, air and sunshine. There should be a way that they can lay in the sun at their will. Which means that they also need shade afforded to them at all times. They need individual perches so they can rest good at night. I could go on since I have had lots of experiences over the last 50 years of keeping sporting pigeons, but I need to close. I hope this helps. There is also a fantastic book at the library by the name of The Pigeon, by Levi, published by Levi Publishing. It is a pigeon keepers bible, check it out!

You have three cock birds, one hen and a baby. Do you see anything peculiar in that list? You should always keep even pairs. Never keep two pairs in one building. You can put one pair, or fifty pairs in any size building. If you only put two pair in the same building they fight all the time. One cock will become dominant and neither pair will raise any babies. If you keep an odd number of one sex or the other then you are asking for trouble. If they are all together the cock bird that is mated and feeding a baby is also fighting off the other two cock birds. They are under a ton of stress. The hen because the odd males are going to be chasing her relentlessly and the baby also. The odd cock birds will chase it so relentlessly that they will peck the feathers off the back of the head and tear the skin open. It is called scalping. It is a common occurrence in lofts with too many
cock birds.

The first thing you want to do is to remove the hen so she will no longer be mated to the roller. There are tens of thousands of pigeons culled each year for minor things. These crosses you are breeding are useless mongrels. People spent hundreds of years breeding and improving pigeons to get both breeds that you have. When crossed they are no better than a feral pigeon.

Ask Foy's for a catalog. It has descriptions of diseases and other really good information. It will help you with keeping your pigeons.

Motivating Racing Pigeons

Image by PigeonRacer via FlickrFor 10 years I have been racing pigeons and all you have to do is give Your birds Food for a couple of weeks And they will fly back if it is a older bird 1 or 2 years old
it may take a few months before your bird will fly back to your home after a few months or weeks depending on the age of the bird take your birds out side and let your birds go they will stay around home than they will leave home for a few hours but they will come back

Training and Managing Racing Pigeons

There are a lot of different opinions and methods of training to get good results in the races. The most important thing is that your birds are healthy, in good condition, are comfortable with the loft (for motivation), and are of good breeding.
I like to start training early (as I start breeding early), and take it a bit slow at first to make sure the birds are comfortable with the experience and know where they're going, at first. Usually a couple weeks after they've started coming out, I'll release them several times in various places around the yard. Helps them get used to the crate and work on flock formation in flight. Then once they've been loft flying for a decent amount of time and I feel okay with taking them, road training begins. We're surrounded by trees so I have a couple short stops before the technical 5 mile mark. Then I go to 10, and then increase the distance by 10 miles from there on. If I have a bad toss, I'll give them a day off and loft fly, then jump back into training, 10 miles shorter from the bad place. Then keep going.

This is all just my own ways. You'll find out what works for you as you go. I like training down the center of the race course the best I can. Usually that means just releasing off the highways. I also like using major landmarks to my/their advantage by training near/at them. Just keep your birds in shape, and they should do fine. That doesn't mean training them constantly. Just fly them everyday from the loft if not training. Also talk to some club members and get their opinions too. Then you can take pieces from 'him' and other things from 'her', put them together, and make your own training plans.

ROC Racing Pigeons

Image by Atomische • Tom Giebel via FlickrThe Taiwanese very much enjoy racing Homing Pigeons over long distances. the military picked up on the idea, and made good use of it.

Could it be that China is afraid to fire those 1200 missiles pointed at the island of Taiwan because they know about the "Homing Pigeon" weaponry the ROC has? It's a signal sent at inbound missiles (yes, the ROC has the means to do that) which reprograms the missile's assigned target code and make it "return to base". Nifty trick.

We have here the queen of lies and CI has the gall to say something is not true!!!!! This has got to be a first!!!! The US is talking to Taiwan about a few old diesel electric subs and a dozen or so old F-16's, if Taiwan is so weak why are the PRC so pissed about this? All this stuff is old and I think the aircraft were only to be used to gather up the pigeons and bring them home if they got lost. The subs were only to save any pigeons that fell into the salt water.

Male Racing Pigeon

Racers of all shapes and sizes can win or lose. The best thing to do is breed the breeders and race the racers. Then you can judge if they're worthy or not, based on their race results. If there was an easy way out, such as by looks, then everyone would be winning.
How built up the pectorals are, depends on how well you exercise them. I fly mine twice a day, and train on weekends or during the week if I have time.

How often do pigeons lay eggs?

they lay eggs about as much as they can and all you want them to. keep males and females seperated in till you want to breed them .keep a watch on them when you put a male in there because they can sometimes hurt or kill the female. if you see him biteing her to much, take him out and try another male. look in the phone book under fowl they should be able to help you.

Racing Pigeons

Image via WikipediaWhere oh where do some of the folks who answer these questions come from????

What you're asking is which "family" of racing birds is the best. Well, now, the question becomes what do you want them for? Sprint races, middle distance races, long distance races? What?

The best family is that which will accomplish what you want them to do. I'm going to let you in on a little secret - don't always get caught up in strain (family) names. However, they exist because some families tend to do better than others at particular distances.

Janssen is one of the top families of all. Janssen birds have won pretty much at all distances, but remember, it's also the fancier and how he trains, flies -- natural, widowhood, etc., that allows a bird to develop to its full potential.

Also, remember that a bird that is great on a course like California, might not be so good in Nebraska or in G Britain over the Channel and vice versa.

Basically, your question is unanswerable without more info. I'm glad to see that you're trying to find out more about race birds - I seriously suggest that you try to check out more local sources for you.

As I think I told you before - check out the AU site and try to find a local club to see what the flyers in your area are breeding and winning with. http://www.pigeon.org

If you're in an area where the IF (International Federation of Homing Pigeon Fanciers) is more common then check out http://www.ifpigeon.com

Here's a link to just one site in Australia where the man flies various family lines (Aarden, Leen Boers, Janssen, )
http://www.pigeonstud.com/index.html


Here's a link for pigeon racing in Philippines. http://racingpigeonclubofangeles.wordpress.com/