Another loft going up

After careful consideration and chatting to a few pigeon people who know stuff, I have decided to build yet another loft!

I was making a start on it when the accident with my fingers happened which, as you can imagine, has slowed down the creative process a bit.

This loft is going to be for a few young birds out of our very best stock birds. We have four birds (three cocks and one hen) from the Vandenabeele Olympic line, direct children from Mr Olympic and Olympic 500. We also have two cocks and two hens which are direct children of Champion Indy, which was sold at the Blackpool Show this year for tens of thousands of pounds.

I am very well aware that the price of a pigeon bears very little resemblance to what it may produce. Having said that, all the parents of the birds mentioned above have bred several winners already. My intention is to keep back maybe a couple of rounds from each of these stock birds, even though they will be later bred. They will not be raced and they may not even be trained much, if at all, but they will be able to fly out on a daily basis. My intention is to use them as the breeding stock for our future race team.

It would be very interesting to know your opinions on my plan. I just feel that one day we will be going back to the UK and we may have to start again as far as building a race team goes. If I have a nucleus of pigeons all out of good stock birds, then I think I should have a chance.

What do you guys think?

Phil

i would do that when I got back to the uk else yer gonna have to break them birds when ya get back also it may give time for them to show on the road then ya know if its all worthwhile jmo

blueskylofts wrote:

After careful consideration and chatting to a few pigeon people who know stuff, I have decided to build yet another loft!

I was making a start on it when the accident with my fingers happened which, as you can imagine, has slowed down the creative process a bit.

This loft is going to be for a few young birds out of our very best stock birds.  We have four birds (three cocks and one hen) from the Vandenabeele Olympic line, direct children from Mr Olympic and Olympic 500.  We also have two cocks and two hens which are direct children of Champion Indy, which was sold at the Blackpool Show this year for tens of thousands of pounds.

I am very well aware that the price of a pigeon bears very little resemblance to what it may produce.  Having said that, all the parents of the birds mentioned above have bred several winners already.  My intention is to keep back maybe a couple of rounds from each of these stock birds, even though they will be later bred.  They will not be raced and they may not even be trained much, if at all, but they will be able to fly out on a daily basis.  My intention is to use them as the breeding stock for our future race team.

It would be very interesting to know your opinions on my plan.  I just feel that one day we will be going back to the UK and we may have to start again as far as building a race team goes.  If I have a nucleus of pigeons all out of good stock birds, then I think I should have a chance.

What do you guys think?

Phil

For me Phil I suspect you have ample loft space there as it is etc from your discussion on site here from my perspective. If planning on being in froggy land for only 2/3 years I would put my effort into stitching up the froggy brigade "Big time" more so than building another loft as such. Do it for the Queen & country thing & you may never quite know what rewards may come your way .  

more loft space = more pigeons kept = more time consuming = management / performance suffers.

I started with 6 pigeons and a 6 x6 shed..........now ive got 32ft with 5 sections and a boat load of pigeons, sometimes its a bind looking after them all, and takes the pleasure out of the hobby, ive another 14ft loft to go up with a view of making more room to even the numbers out, but in reality it will be 14 more foot to fill with pigeons......

tbh good breeders are hard to find irrespective of the parents worth/performances/breeding/cost ,so for me I would be breeding as many ybs to race out of the principle birds to see if the parents are producing before breeding stock from them ,atb

oldstrain wrote:

tbh good breeders are hard to find irrespective of the parents worth/performances/breeding/cost ,so for me I would be breeding as many ybs to race out of the principle birds to see if the parents are producing before breeding stock from them ,atb

Very good shout Darren.

On reflection, I think it is much better to test these young birds before making any long lasting plans.

After all - the old adage is right - "Let the basket sort them out" - or something like that anyway.

Trustfully, tomorrow I might be able to take some photos of the new bit finished - or nearly finished.

Then we can think about filling it with some quality birds, or at least as good a quality as we have right now.

As we all know, quality is relevant. If you have only been back in the game a very short while, as we have, and don't have the financial resources that some others have, then we can only do what we can do with the birds that we have. Who knows, they might turn out to be a load of rubbish, but I am trusting that they won't. We have got to start building a family somewhere.

Phil

yes you are right phil, build a family on proven racers......as we all know, most pigeons are crap , when you work out the % bred and the % which win / race well / breed well.

For me Phil I would do what you say but I would not keep all of them for stock I would pick the one's that I like the shape of and would breed the type that will pair to anything I hate birds that I have to find mates for to match up

David. Agree. Have a 24 x 8 footer plus a 12 x 6 footer. Intended to scrap the large loft this year but as I did not race young birds last year I kept it up. Stock birds (apart from one ) are all ex-racers and all fly out. Apart from the stock birds all will be raced. The best few will be kept. The rest go for meat. Have about 60 to race. 20 of them unraced yearlings. I give them points. 1st back to loft 10 points, 2nd back 9 points and so on. Ones with most points stay. No allowance for tough races or other variables. Have to fly to nest as do not have room for widowhood hens anyway. Due to weather have not trained yet. Mostly open loft and they are flying good. May 6 first race. 155 miles. If I can get them trained to 20 miles then 40 it should be enough. Not looking forward to catching them all for training but has to be done. My predictions are the best birds from the last few years flying will also be the best this year. Unless some unraced yearlings surprise me. Regardless, I need just enough birds so I know them individually. Lot less work and expense.

Be careful or you will end up like those peel bros lol

peel bros wrote:

Be careful or you will end up like those peel bros lol

If I had to follow someone's example - then the Peel Bros would not be a bad place to start - lol.

'fingers'

I had the second lot of stitches out of my fingers today, the first half came out on Sunday, MAN did it hurt! it was like I had sawn them in half all over again.

you wont be shop lifting for a while then eh phil............

David wrote:

you wont be shop lifting for a while then eh phil............

Very droll, David

P

peel bros wrote:

Be careful or you will end up like those peel bros lol

Shock horror frightning but I suspect you speak words of wisdom Ray etc .