Malcolms Place

Malcolm, i know you have lots of experience, so i thought of some questions i wanna ask you, you doesnt have to answer all of them at once.
Other members could maybe also put some questions on, thanx a lot.

1) How do you choose your breeding pairs, what do you look for?
2) Do you believe in the eye theories, if so, what do you prefer?
3) How would you describe a sprinter pigeon, and a long distance pigeon?
4) How do you know if a pigeon is on form?
5) What is best, inbreeding (building a family of birds) or outbreeding?
6) How would you train your youngbirds?
7) Which strains do you prefer?
Do you feed your birds peanuts?
9) How can i test my youngsters if they are followers or leaders?
10) How would you encourage your pigeons to get home
11) Natural system or darkness system?
12) How do you feed your birds, in all circumstances.

For now, i will settle with this 12 questions, thanx a lot.

[quote="Grizzle cock"]Malcolm, i know you have lots of experience, so i thought of some questions i wanna ask you, you doesnt have to answer all of them at once.
Other members could maybe also put some questions on, thanx a lot.

1) How do you choose your breeding pairs, what do you look for?
2) Do you believe in the eye theories, if so, what do you prefer?
3) How would you describe a sprinter pigeon, and a long distance pigeon?
4) How do you know if a pigeon is on form?
5) What is best, inbreeding (building a family of birds) or outbreeding?
6) How would you train your youngbirds?
7) Which strains do you prefer?
Do you feed your birds peanuts?
9) How can i test my youngsters if they are followers or leaders?
10) How would you encourage your pigeons to get home
11) Natural system or darkness system?
12) How do you feed your birds, in all circumstances.

For now, i will settle with this 12 questions, thanx a lot.[/quote OKAY this could take some time and space but here goes.

No. 1. I think the best way to match pairs is always winners to winners, having said that, I think you always have to bear in mind that you are aiming for a type of pigeon that suits your liking. For me it would have to be Apple bodied with plenty of front but with good thick feathering and a proportionate wing. I do not like weak tailed birds i/e where the tail points up when handled and I am not in favour of a bird that is too deep in the keel. But I have had channel winners with such a keel.
No.2 I am known to be radical in my thinking and theories do not sit high on my list of 'things I should know' I do believe that most of the theories are thought up by fanciers who 'talk a good pigeon' but remember that these are only theories and not an exact science. I have never known in my 60 years of pigeon keeping any theory to stand up to logic.
No. 3. Take notice of human athletes. All sprinters are powerful and well developed with lots of muscle, your long distance athletes are always thin and sinewy, hard as nails but carry no fat.
No.4. My practice as always been to sit in the loft on a stool and observe what the pigeons are telling you. Pigeons that are coming into form do not remain still, they are always demonstrating how well they feel. It is not unusual to find that fit pigeons will fly alone gliding around the sky. Very often the eye cere will take on a pink or lilac colour and the feathers will carry lots of bloom. Very often you will see that the body feathers have little 'tufts' on them I have known celibert cocks to be in fantastic form when these are present.
No. 5. Inbreeding in itself is okay and will give some really startling results but, in the end, it will only weaken and deplete the 'vigor' in the family. That is why today there are no pure strains left because all the fanciers who could recognise what 'damage'inbreeding could do to a strain realised that, at some point, crosses had to be introduced. The old Belgian, French and German fanciers realised this and it is well documented that nearly all of the famous names introduced other families into the lofts. I cannot think of one famous name who failed to introduce a cross on a regular basis.
No. 6. I would prefer to write something at length on this subject as I have my own trusted and well tried ideas. Training is, perhaps one of the most important aspects of pigeon racing and a subject which I have my opinions on. I will write on this in the next couple of days.
No. 7. Difficult question this, as we all have our own favourite types, colours and expectations of what strains are performing best. Myself, I flew Fabrys for many years. These birds I brought back from Germany in the 70's. I built a complete family around 4 pigeons that were gifted to me by the Ace fancier Jakob Palm of Dortmund. They did for me, and many others all that could be expected of a family of birds and they still are held in high esteem in the far east and America. I like the Hansenne too and indeed many other of the older strains that we allowed to disappear by following the fashion of 'importing names' at the expense of our own tried and tested families.
No.8. Yes, all the time. My birds are like children with sweets and you can get them to do almost anything for a peanut. Peanuts are a good addition to the diet of any bird flying the channel for the liver fat content they have.
No.9. and 10. I will give my opinions on later as these are subjects that require longer and detailed answers. Cause and effect are two factors which have a lot of bearing on how, when and where training should take place for maximum effect.
No 11. This is a subject which I have given a great deal of thought to and to date have done some little research on the method. I would, again, like to come back to this subject because I believe that there are considerations that we must make when deciding whether to fly dark or natural. It would appear that the darkness system is the way to go but for reasons, which I will write about later, I come down on the side of Natural.
No. 12 Barley, Barley and more Barley! I would feed as much as 50% Barley for the shorter distances together with 50% of a good protein mix. The longer distances require Carbs and Fats with the introduction of Maize.

May I point out that these are only my opinions which have served me well over the years. Should your opinions differ from mine then be assured I respect your views too.
Chanco.

good topic you have started niel, i might as well ask malcolm a question too....hope you dont mind malcolm, as soon as you become a member we are bombarding you with questions.......

friend of mine in goole has canker in his ybs and is finding it very hard to get rid of, dont know what he has given them but any thoughts as to the best way to treat please?
thanks malcolm, david.

hi again malcolm, just reading through your reply above and when you say birds in condition flies on its own and cant remain still. when widowhood cocks are in form do they fly seperately in all directions similar to ybs and keep landing and striking off all the time?
thanks malcolm.

Malcolm brill what you have written hope we can see more articals from you in the future

Brill Malcolm keep use posted

Thanx for taking the time Malcolm. I will follow this topic , as i know there would be a lot of exellent info coming its way.
It is veterans like, you who gave younger fanciers hope to persevere.
Have a nice day.

DAVID wrote:

good topic you have started niel, i might as well ask malcolm a question too....hope you dont mind malcolm, as soon as you become a member we are bombarding you with questions.......

friend of mine in goole has canker in his ybs and is finding it very hard to get rid of, dont know what he has given them but any thoughts as to the best way to treat please?
thanks malcolm, david.

Hi Dave,
Concerning your friend who 's birds are suffering with canker.
Whilst it is difficult to advise what to treat with, not knowing what he has already used ,if anything. My advice would be to obtain any of the well know canker anti-biotics and try a course of 5 days dosing. There are many such remedies on the market and I am sure he will be able to pick up a good one locally. However, should he be finding that in spite of the treatment he has tried he still has a problem then I would not hestate to call upon Veterinary advice and get it sorted quick.
It could be that he has treated for canker with an Anti-bi but has failed to take ALL GRITS AND MINERALS out of the loft during treatment. It is well known that grits and minerals will inhibit the Anti-bi's effectivness by wrapping itself around the drug component thereby reducing its' effectivness.
After treatment I would recommend lots of Probiotics i/e Yogourts and such together with two or three days of Vitamin dosage.
It would be helpful if he were to describe what he is seeing when he examings the birds.
Hope this helps
Malcolm.

The other questions from fellow posters I will get round to very shortly.

Hi All.
Here goes my attempt at answering the outstanding questions. For the moment we will deal with the training of Young Birds and the Follow my Leader syndrom.
TRAINING YB's.
Sometimes I think we have little respect for the intelligence of our Yb's by starting them off on their first training toss of 1 or 2 miles, this is really silly because if your ybs are ranging properly they will be gone out of sight for 1 or 2 hours during which time they will be covering anything in the region of 10- 15 even 20 miles of the surrouunding area, and they do this every day for a couple of weeks, just imagine what knowledge they have of the locality which makes our first training toss of 1-2 miles seem rather usless and only underlines the fact that we are frightend of taking them any further in case they get lost! let me say that any that get lost so near home come under the heading....First Lost best Lost!
I would suggest that a first toss of about 10-12 miles would be just about right to get them thinking, however, let me stress and this is important so please note: Always take your birds for a training toss AFTER they have had their normal round the loft exercise, were you to take them before they have exercised then they would be full of flying and will take the opportunity of going for a spin or flying off with another pack going in the opposite direction. Get rid of their spare energy first.
I think it important for the fist few tosses to take them as a complete pack
always believing that whilst they are in the initial stages of training there is safety in numbers. I would keep them at 10-12 miles for about 3-4 tosses by which time I would expect them to beat me home. I would then have no hesitation in jumping them to 25 miles or even 30 miles if everything is going okay and at this point I would keep them going to this same point for a couple of weeks. I am in favour of as many tosses at this distance as you can get in as opposed to 1 or 2 at 50 miles. Now this is where I put my radical hat on............................... I think we are overly concerned about the weather when we start our training, we watch the clouds, look for the Sun, note the wind direction, is it going to rain, is it cold, is it hot I could go on and on but in the end, come the racing programme, these YBs are going to have to contend with all these weather hazards.
Where possible I try to ensure that they experience all these types of weather and I am not opposed to training Ybs in conditions that sometimes look 'iffy' (uncertain) Yes I have had losses but I think they were birds that wouldn't have made the grade anyway and it is my experience that once you gain confidence in training in these conditions your birds gain that confidence too and they become more difficult to lose. As an example of how YBs cope with adverse conditions: Yesterday I took my Ybs on a 20 mile training toss, noting that the wind was very strong and coming from the North West ( almost on the nose) indeed the wind was strong enough to race the clouds across the sky, however, when I dropped the flap and the YBs took to the air they were immediatley picked up be the wind and blown approx 1 mile in the opposite direction to home and any attempt at turning into the wind blew them in a wide arc in the opposite direction, after that I did not see them any more and drove off.............the result being that they learned a lesson but better still they beat me home! When you get your YBs to this degree of confindence they become difficult to lose!
I will continue this post later this evening when I will cover training from all points and training at dusk, hopefully touching on the Follow my Leader syndrome.

In answer to Davids' question concerning W/hood cocks and there display of form. If they are not charging about all over the place David then I would say that form has not really arrived with them yet, just hope that it doesn't come all at once or your season is short lived. If you are thinking of flying w/hood read every book you can on feeding because thats' the key to w/hood and if you cannot get the feeding right then you will struggle to get them going. I cannot remeber the Belgian fanciers name but when asked about feeding and what he does he replied that he feeds them with the back of a spoon!
Back Later.

Incredible , they beat you home chanco, with that headwind.

Hi All,
To continue with my thoughts on Yb training let me turn my thoughts to sorting out Ybs that always seem to rely on others when it comes to finding home. First we have to remember that there will always be birds that take comfort from seeing a pair of feet in front of them!
Sorting these birds out from the leaders sometimes takes care of itself i/e when the pack gets split and it's every man for himself, this is where you would expect to have your first losses and I never, ever regret these believing that any bird that gets lost from a training distance would never have made the grade anyway.
However, I would attempt to sort these out from my'Leaders' only when I have had all birds down the road a few times and I would do it this way as I have done many times before.
By the way, the fewer birds you have the easier it is. Firstly, I would release my birds in 'fours' ensuring that each four clear the area before the next batch go. This can be a long process and requires dedication to the task.
When all birds are coming okay reduce your releases to 'three' birds and follow the same pattern as before, I would expect losses now.
However, the hard work now starts. Now we get down to 'TWO'S' picked out at random but always taking notes of which two are released together and they should not be released together again. Now chances are that you have picked two leaders or you hope so because they have both arrived home! but how can we test that one wasn't a follower? Easy, next time you ensure that each bird always goes with a bird it has not flown with before and so on. Eventually, you will have both birds getting home or they both go missing, those are the followers. It is possible at this stage to have followers still within your team and now we get to the most nervous time of all and we start to 'single up' what is left of our original team, be assured that any followers will now be found out and will fall by the wayside. Or on the other hand it will shock them into thinking for themselves and could be the making of such a bird.
Usually,your birds are now very difficult to lose and the time has come to start to mould them into a team of racers that will suit your chosen system.
I can hear those who say well surely if I just send them to the races I will sort them out rather than spend all this time 'two and threeing them up'
That will not happen. because you can still have birds coming from races week after week following my leader and lulling you into thinking they are trying and deserve another chance and you will send them each week and they will give you nothing. I have tried the method I have out- lined and I can vouch for it that the work you put in will reward you time and time again.
Remember, it's the fancier who puts in the most work who picks the most Roses.
If you fail to prepare your YBs at this stage then you will only get mediocre results from them. As an example of how well this works let me recall that many years ago I was shown this method of YB training, and I only had eight YBs that year. These were trained as described and were flown natural.
The first race they all came within 30 seconds and the pattern continued in later races. Every Yb flew to the coast(200+ miles) I was in the top three every week and won 5 races out of 8 being second in the other 3 races. These birds took the YB averages and flew the whole programme in spite of the moult. They were nursed as yearlings and made outstanding 2 year olds.

Later I will explain how to put a polish on these YBs and their training and we wil go into Training at Dusk. I consider that after this training you will have pigeons which are now 'complete' and will come when its dark which is excellent for the channel races.
Chanco.

hi malcolm, really glad you joined our group.....you are a celebrity already. us other memebers are keen to hear some other opinions, which hopefully will give us that little bit of info we might just need to get them winning.

keep the info coming please Malcolm.....

Chanco this is brill and spot on and to the point about the young birds

If members use this system they will have top pigeons as i have already said it is spot on


FIRST CLASS INFORMATION

yes i totally agree don, excellent reading.......

Hi All.
In reply to the question about my thoughts on the darkness system I have to admit that I cannot establish my opinion as fact, but if the reader applies some thought to this reply then one must admit that there is food for thought and it begs the question do we do darkness purely for the racing results or because we think there is some advantage in kicking nature in the teeth and claiming that we know best.
I would like the reader to imagine that he is looking at a clock face square on and the front of his loft is facing the clock.
Now under natural circumstances your young birds, even from birth recognise that the sun is rising in a certain position on that clock and shining into the loft which is educating the birds and establishing orientering skills within its brain. At dawn ( lets say 5 am)the sun will be in a certain and recognisable position and the bird will know exactly where it is in relation to the sun. If the bird is flown natural then this fixed point will remain all its life in that loft and only change as the sun rises at different times.
Now in the case of yBs that are to go on the Darkness system, the first part of the last statement still applies....at birth and in the nest the Ybs recognise where the sun rises and it establishes its orientation skill with that position.
However, what we are going to do by putting the bird on darkness is to suddenly change the position of the sun at dawn ( in this case when we lift back the curtains) and lo and behold, the sun is not rising at the 9-0clock position as with the natural bird, because the first time the darkenes bird sees daylight is when the sun is, according to the clock, at 10 or 11 oclock
Totally confused? so are the birds. to make it simpler. Imagine the clock to be a compass and you are looking at it to read East at the 9-0 clock position
and west at the 3-0 clock postion. Now the natural Yb sees the sun rise in the east ( say at 5 in the morning) but at 9am or 10am when the blinds are removed for the darkness birds the sun is more over toward the North position which must give it a false sense of the suns position at dawn. As you can imagine, this must be very confusing for the YB having had to get used to two different changes in rising sun position. However, to confound it even more we are now going to take it OFF darkness and ask it to regognise that the sun now rises in a different position than it did the day before! Then we wonder why since we started this Darkness nonesense that we have losses that we have never had before and which defy explanation?
I have heard it said that birds that have been on darkness struggle to make good old birds, this might be so and remeber they go into the yearling stage with nest flights and a moult which is upside down.
Just my opinion but food for thought.
Chanco.

hi Malcolm, just reminded me when reading about pulling feathers.....one of our members Amanda(dark chequer) was asking if anyone knew about the light system as she had watched a dvd on the subject, it said that the flights and tail feathers are pulled for some reason to help in performance, amanda and all of us didnt like the sound of it and said we wouldnt practice such methods. do you know anything about it and is it along similar lines to what you have researched?
thanks malcolm
david.

DAVID wrote:

hi Malcolm, just reminded me when reading about pulling feathers.....one of our members Amanda(dark chequer) was asking if anyone knew about the light system as she had watched a dvd on the subject, it said that the flights and tail feathers are pulled for some reason to help in performance, amanda and all of us didnt like the sound of it and said we wouldnt practice such methods. do you know anything about it and is it along similar lines to what you have researched?
thanks malcolm
david.

Hi Dave and Amanda,
will try and answer this ASAP for you. with other outstanding topics.
Chanco.

Chanco my new name for you is going to be THE WIZARD as everything you are posting is brilliant and to the point

hi Malcolm, thanks...look forward to your reply.
david.

Hi David have the same dvd

It is about the smith brothers in america and the flits are pulled so they can start the moult earlier

oh right don....seems a bit barbaric doesnt it , i couldnt be that desperate to win where i would pull flights out.

But some people will do anything to help them win

Don Webb wrote:

Chanco my new name for you is going to be THE WIZARD as everything you are posting is brilliant and to the point

If one follow an oldtimer's advice you CANT go wrong, thanx for your effort chanco, i think all members apreciate it.

yes niel, good topic you have started.....

Thanx David, but all the credit must go to chanco.