Feeding prior to pairing up

Hi what do you do to prepare your stock birds for pairing up feed wise not treatment, Do you increase the feed ,weaken it, add barley or what?
Lets hear how you do it. phil

hi phil, some fanciers have their birds on a winter/resting mix over the winter......then before pairing they go onto a full breeding mix, this is only what ive read/heard so maybe wrong......

at present i have mine on 50/50 super diet and best all round corn, and before breeding i will alter it to some sort of breeding mix....altho im not sure what yet

I just feed my birds normaly in fact they are not parted yet i will seperate next week for a week and hope to put them down for boxingday if the the weather is all right as my birds are natrual they stay together all the time i take the pots out after raceing I get some that lay but not a lot the only reason i spilt them up is to see what cocks and hens Iv got and sort some of them out ie old or change a piar mind you I dont like to seperate my birds anyway and they go out every day snow gales you name it and go out thats the way I do it I dont care if joe blogs down the road wants to keep his in hedose what he likes

hi ginger, so do you fly all your old birds natural ? no widowhood for any of them ? when you take the bowls away do you close the boxes up too, also when you let them out in all weathers what do they fly like,? do they fly much ?


do you fly the ybs natural or dark ......?

They fly allright thats becuase they are hawk wise they take off if anything flys over yes I do darken the birds from the 1st of march to 1st june but not so they molt better its becuase i wont send a bird to a race if it is molting its bars thats the only reason i darken

this year was the first time ive tried darkness, and noticed that they all only moulted the top 2/3rds of the bar..........the bottom part has just moulted now in the big moult. does this happen with all dark birds or just some ?

just some i had some of my youngsters like that thats why I coudent put them in the show in fact some of my birds went through a second molt

ginger, do you think distance birds fly better as naturals rather than widowhood/roundabout..........?

Thats a very diffecult to say some fly that way and get good results and others put them back together for the long ones like I said mine stay that way I get some good results but i get some bad ones as well

so is it that you have tried widowhood in the past and found they race better as naturals, when i flew widowhood many years ago i always thought it was a waste of potentially good hens.

that is why widowhood is for hens now

Would put the birds on a good moulting mix then add 40% more barley for a few weeks then pair them up for a few days then seperate for a week but put them on full corn no barley

Helped them to pair up better the 2nd time of asking

birds are now on 80 percent barley and will stay on that until paired and down on eggs

No I have not tried widowhood and prodaely wont I have allway been natrael like I said be for I get my wins if I didnt get any it would not make any differfrenc as now Iv been there done that and got the tea shirt and it dosent matter to me now as long as I get the birds home these that have to win every race to me they are doing the clubs no good if one cant baet them they will give up pigeons and thats one good to any body win what you want to win and leave the rest to the others that way there will be a club to fly in give and take thats what I say

hi ginger, why dont you just try half a dozen widowers just to compare them against naturals...? its all part of the excitement.

No Im quiet happy with what I am doing widowhood or roundabout at the moment dont intrest me one little bit I have flown against these birds they do well but I would like to fly till the end of my day with pigeons I dont want to see any club fold because of it it come day go day Im one of the lucky ones I dont realy have to try a lot of the lads say they dont no howe I get em home I dont no myself but they come for me all I do is go into the loft and pick which ones I want and send them I no Iv given them a chance and ill wait for them and sometimes get dissapionted if they dont come home but thats live

sounds like an article i read the other week ginger, the man who was also into distance racing said " all his birds were bred for the job, so all he had to do was choose the ones each week who were in condition/on form and they would do the rest" sounds similar to your methods ginger

ginger, do you add vitamins/potions etc to the water and corn or is it mainly just clean fresh water and good clean corn.....and keeping the management simple ?

I do ad a bit of stuf when I think they need it but no regular things for young birds I give them mangosteen three times a week but thats all they get

i enjoyed reading all that info lads .as you know i dont fly racers but take an interest in birds in not just the feathered ones

bet you do billy

general

av been out beating up at wooler today ian still 2 foot ov snow mate it was a hard day for the dog shes knackered so am i mind you

hear youve been getting some fantails

aye but just to float a few eggs mate i settled them the day i got them .

great feeders fantails and great parents