By the time October comes, fanciers all over the United States are enjoying the young bird racing season. Of course, geography dictates what is going on in our lofts now. In the south, there are still a few weeks of races left. In the northern part of the United States, we have seen the end of the racing season. What your friends are doing in other parts of the country will be different from what you need to do with your birds now.
To you fanciers in the north who are at the end, or nearing the end, of the racing season, now’s the time to evaluate your race team as well as to evaluate your breeders. You need to plan for plenty of time to acclimate any new birds that you want to bring into the loft before the breeding season begins.
What birds should be held over from the race team for either the old bird races or for the breeding loft? This is the key question in evaluating your racing team. And then, how do you decide which pigeons make the grade? I have always believed that consistency in the races is far more important than one good performance. I have long believed that a bird that comes early week after week, race after race, has far more breeding potential than a pigeon that delivers only one spectacular win.
If you think of two birds as being equal, but for whatever reason you are not able to keep both, study their pedigrees. Which bird is linked to more winners? Which bird has better background and genetics? Which bird or birds do you like more than others? If you’re looking for a breeder, keep the inbred or linebred over the outcross. If you are looking for a racer, then keep the linebred or outcross over the inbred.
Remember that there could be some “sleepers” in the loft. These are birds that always come home but haven’t managed to find their true form or their ideal distance in the young bird races. These birds may be better at the long distances, and you might want to consider keeping them another season.
A super young racer, cock or hen, that is out of an old breeder should always be considered for the breeding loft. You don’t want this blood to die out. Throughout the best lofts of Europe, many champions cherish the first set of eggs out of a super racing young hen. This should surely be reason enough to check this out for yourself!
There are specific health measures that you should take at the end of the racing season. In our lofts, we start by purging the birds for one or two days before starting our medication routine. This means that we give only water, no food. I think this is the ideal length of time for purging, although fanciers in Europe purge their pigeons for up to a week. Now is also the time to vaccinate breeders for PMV and salmonella.
Get your general health program under way for breeders by treating for coccidiosis, canker, and worms. I strongly recommend Turbosole for canker. Aureomycin Sulmet powder is also a good tool for fighting coccidiosis, as well as a number of other diseases. Göpolex Worm Tablets work well for individual worming, and for many years Eqvalan has been a fine wormer for flock treatment. Since Dr. Colin Walker developed Moxidectin and Moxidectin Plus (which also targets tapeworms), I have been keen on these two Australian products for their effectiveness on the worms and their gentleness on the birds.
Immediately after we dip our birds in a 57 percent (1/4 cup to 2 gallons of water) Malathion solution, we vaccinate them for salmonella with Sal-Bac, and for PMV with Lohmann Animal Health International’s PMV-1. The skin on the neck shows well for easy vaccination when the birds are wet.
Line up heaters now for your drinkers if you live where freezing weather can affect your ability to keep your birds watered on a regular basis.
To you fanciers who live in the southern part of the country, you will want to follow this end of the racing season regimen as soon as your races have finished. But if you are still racing, you need to consider how to train your team for the last few important races. I believe that much success results from focusing on those few birds that have already given you the best performances. What you want to provide for these few birds now is rest, medication, retraining, and motivation.
Why is rest so high on my list? Superior-quality birds generally fly to their pedigree if they have the opportunity. For example, pigeons that would compete best in a 300-mile, 1,200 yards-per-minute race won’t fly “to their pedigree” if they only participate in 100- to 200-mile, 1,600 yards-per-minute races. It’s a fact that racing pigeons stay in top form for only about three weeks. My method is to set aside the young birds with the most potential and keep them out of the races during the middle of the young bird season simply to rest. Then, I put them back into the races for the last three weekends. After resting, these high-potential flyers will come back into top condition for the next one, two, or three weekends.
It would be smart to look through your entire race team for this kind of potential. You’ll start to see “levels” form on the team–those with consistent ability and those that race “hot and cold.” Keep those with consistent ability for the last or most important races of the season, and focus the most attention on them during that time.
Assuming that the inconsistent birds are in excellent health, try to continue to race them during the middle of the season to assess their quality. It is only by racing them that you can determine if they are flying to their pedigree. It really helps to know the background of the parent birds to make this evaluation.
It is also important to decide what your high-priority races are. Are you racing for average speed, money, or for other reasons? You’ll want to target your best birds for these races. Make sure you are putting a large percentage of your birds in the races where their pedigrees indicate they should be capable of competing well.
Medication in the last weeks of young bird racing season is another subject. You want to look for young hens, which mature faster than cocks and are thus often better young-bird flyers. You can also motivate young hens more quickly. Set aside the young hens and widowhood cocks, or spare cocks during this late part of the young bird season. You might want to think about saving the young cocks for the old bird season if you are a widowhood cock specialist.
It is a fact of genetics that breeding two extremes together gives the largest degree of uncertainty in the results. The savvy fancier considers this when he’s pairing his pigeons. As an example, pairing a long-distance bloodline bird whose parents and grandparents excelled at two-day races to a bird with hereditary factors that point to ability at short-distance speed events will produce a large percentage of young with a huge variation in ability. So as percentages go, it is best to pair sprinters to sprinters, middle-distance to middle-distance, and long-distance to long-distance birds.
Motivation and training come next. After these six to eight hens have selected a mate, let them stay with the cock for a week. This is long enough to mate, but it’s not long enough to be ready to lay. Then put the young hens back on the young bird race team. Give them an hour or two with their mates before shipping when you’re ready to send these young hens to a race.
Begin training only after a week of complete rest. In those seven days, you are medicating and motivating the birds. When you sense that they’re ready to come back onto the race team, take them for just a few short tosses. Then increase the distance to a few 70- to 80-mile tosses. By then these young hens will be in top form to compete during the season’s last few races.
No matter where you live, these suggestions about rest, medication, re-training and motivation can be carried out in the middle of the racing season.
October in the loft by Ed Minvielle
To you fanciers in the north who are at the end, or nearing the end, of the racing season, now’s the time to evaluate your race team as well as to evaluate your breeders. You need to plan for plenty of time to acclimate any new birds that you want to bring into the loft before the breeding season begins.
What birds should be held over from the race team for either the old bird races or for the breeding loft? This is the key question in evaluating your racing team. And then, how do you decide which pigeons make the grade? I have always believed that consistency in the races is far more important than one good performance. I have long believed that a bird that comes early week after week, race after race, has far more breeding potential than a pigeon that delivers only one spectacular win.
If you think of two birds as being equal, but for whatever reason you are not able to keep both, study their pedigrees. Which bird is linked to more winners? Which bird has better background and genetics? Which bird or birds do you like more than others? If you’re looking for a breeder, keep the inbred or linebred over the outcross. If you are looking for a racer, then keep the linebred or outcross over the inbred.
Remember that there could be some “sleepers” in the loft. These are birds that always come home but haven’t managed to find their true form or their ideal distance in the young bird races. These birds may be better at the long distances, and you might want to consider keeping them another season.
A super young racer, cock or hen, that is out of an old breeder should always be considered for the breeding loft. You don’t want this blood to die out. Throughout the best lofts of Europe, many champions cherish the first set of eggs out of a super racing young hen. This should surely be reason enough to check this out for yourself!
There are specific health measures that you should take at the end of the racing season. In our lofts, we start by purging the birds for one or two days before starting our medication routine. This means that we give only water, no food. I think this is the ideal length of time for purging, although fanciers in Europe purge their pigeons for up to a week. Now is also the time to vaccinate breeders for PMV and salmonella.
Get your general health program under way for breeders by treating for coccidiosis, canker, and worms. I strongly recommend Turbosole for canker. Aureomycin Sulmet powder is also a good tool for fighting coccidiosis, as well as a number of other diseases. Göpolex Worm Tablets work well for individual worming, and for many years Eqvalan has been a fine wormer for flock treatment. Since Dr. Colin Walker developed Moxidectin and Moxidectin Plus (which also targets tapeworms), I have been keen on these two Australian products for their effectiveness on the worms and their gentleness on the birds.
Immediately after we dip our birds in a 57 percent (1/4 cup to 2 gallons of water) Malathion solution, we vaccinate them for salmonella with Sal-Bac, and for PMV with Lohmann Animal Health International’s PMV-1. The skin on the neck shows well for easy vaccination when the birds are wet.
Line up heaters now for your drinkers if you live where freezing weather can affect your ability to keep your birds watered on a regular basis.
To you fanciers who live in the southern part of the country, you will want to follow this end of the racing season regimen as soon as your races have finished. But if you are still racing, you need to consider how to train your team for the last few important races. I believe that much success results from focusing on those few birds that have already given you the best performances. What you want to provide for these few birds now is rest, medication, retraining, and motivation.
Why is rest so high on my list? Superior-quality birds generally fly to their pedigree if they have the opportunity. For example, pigeons that would compete best in a 300-mile, 1,200 yards-per-minute race won’t fly “to their pedigree” if they only participate in 100- to 200-mile, 1,600 yards-per-minute races. It’s a fact that racing pigeons stay in top form for only about three weeks. My method is to set aside the young birds with the most potential and keep them out of the races during the middle of the young bird season simply to rest. Then, I put them back into the races for the last three weekends. After resting, these high-potential flyers will come back into top condition for the next one, two, or three weekends.
It would be smart to look through your entire race team for this kind of potential. You’ll start to see “levels” form on the team–those with consistent ability and those that race “hot and cold.” Keep those with consistent ability for the last or most important races of the season, and focus the most attention on them during that time.
Assuming that the inconsistent birds are in excellent health, try to continue to race them during the middle of the season to assess their quality. It is only by racing them that you can determine if they are flying to their pedigree. It really helps to know the background of the parent birds to make this evaluation.
It is also important to decide what your high-priority races are. Are you racing for average speed, money, or for other reasons? You’ll want to target your best birds for these races. Make sure you are putting a large percentage of your birds in the races where their pedigrees indicate they should be capable of competing well.
Medication in the last weeks of young bird racing season is another subject. You want to look for young hens, which mature faster than cocks and are thus often better young-bird flyers. You can also motivate young hens more quickly. Set aside the young hens and widowhood cocks, or spare cocks during this late part of the young bird season. You might want to think about saving the young cocks for the old bird season if you are a widowhood cock specialist.
It is a fact of genetics that breeding two extremes together gives the largest degree of uncertainty in the results. The savvy fancier considers this when he’s pairing his pigeons. As an example, pairing a long-distance bloodline bird whose parents and grandparents excelled at two-day races to a bird with hereditary factors that point to ability at short-distance speed events will produce a large percentage of young with a huge variation in ability. So as percentages go, it is best to pair sprinters to sprinters, middle-distance to middle-distance, and long-distance to long-distance birds.
Motivation and training come next. After these six to eight hens have selected a mate, let them stay with the cock for a week. This is long enough to mate, but it’s not long enough to be ready to lay. Then put the young hens back on the young bird race team. Give them an hour or two with their mates before shipping when you’re ready to send these young hens to a race.
Begin training only after a week of complete rest. In those seven days, you are medicating and motivating the birds. When you sense that they’re ready to come back onto the race team, take them for just a few short tosses. Then increase the distance to a few 70- to 80-mile tosses. By then these young hens will be in top form to compete during the season’s last few races.
No matter where you live, these suggestions about rest, medication, re-training and motivation can be carried out in the middle of the racing season.
October in the loft by Ed Minvielle
