THOUGHTS ON BREEDING

 

by S. Dalton (Dawlish)

 

 

                       Reading thrugh the Newsletter etc. we. We are told not to keep large ntunbers of birds. Yet, we read of lofts that have 10, 12, 16 pair of stock birds. Why? I never keep many birds and find that I get more pleasure out of my tipplers by being able to spend more time with each bird. Almost every loft has at Ieast one pair of pigeons unrelatexi chat have good flying abilities and handle, wind look like the ideal flying tippler to tlhat fanciers taste. Looking back ova 60 odd years, as a youngster in Belfast all my relativies were pigeon fanciers and I picked up the feeling myself! The following method has been put in a very simple way so as not to get bogged down in genetics. Every pure bird, dog, or any other breed of livestock started like this. Selective in breeding. You pair cock 'A' to 'Hen B' and let them rear 2 rounds of youngsters, when the hen lays her third pair of eggs put these eggs under another pair of pigeons, take the hen away and let the cock finish the secatd round on them on his own. You will with a bit of luck rear 5 or 6 youngsters. All these youngsters will carry 50% of blood lines of cock 'A' and 50% bloodlines of hen B".

                   Now you must be utierly ruthless ruthless. Put Utese youngste>s into training and any that are not equal or better than their parents, cull them.

                   The following year you pair the best young hen back to cock 'A' and the best young cock back to hen 'B'. This time you are starting two families, train the offspring and again be ruthless and cull yungsters not coming up to scratch. 'The bloodline this time will he 75% from cock 'A' and his daughter, likewise 75% from hen 'B' and son..

                   Repeat the third year best young granddaughter to cock 'A' and best young grandson to his mother hen 'B' The bloodlines this tune will be about 93/94% on the youngsters from their respectve parents you can repeat this pairing once more but the bloodlines this time will not be more than about 97/98%.

                   By now you will have 2 families of pigeons with most if not all their faults elimated. Not only that, but all the young birds bret down from cock 'A' are as near as possible 100% pure HIM and all youngsters from hen 'B' ane pure HER. This is a unique situation because you are now back where you started from  and as they are practically unrelated you could start this method all over again. As you will have got rid of all the birds that were surplus you will have more space, fresher air, less fighting, more time for each birds welfare, and last but not least a big saving in food bills.

I hope this article gives you something to think about, good flying in 1993.