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i wondered if any of the members of the forum had any views on the make up of present day mixes as opposed to those used say 30 years ago.
the reason i ask this is because during the season just finished,i had a young bird reported by a fancier from the dumfries area.upon hearing his name it immediately registered with me as some one who could be respected for his comments & advice.
during the conversation that took place,he asked me what i fed my birds(which at the time was a young bird mix containing quite a lot of smaller type seeds & pulses)
he said to me ,you"ll kill them,the bird i have reported would win in a show pen but you"ll never win a race with it"!
give them beans or a high proportion of beans in their diet he said,they will only eat what they require & you"ll keep the weight of them.
i decided to give it a go,i had never fed beans for the last ten years,prefering to opt for the commercial mixes, now freely available.
i added 50 % beans to my young bird mix,within that first week i noticed a change in the birds droppings,they had gone from the slightly soft droppings that i notice is a trait when feeding mixes with a lot of small seeds & pulses in their makeup to droppings like small firm marbles.
i continued with this 50/50 mix until i stopped my y/birds due to the moult,they won 2 out of the 3 races i sent them to on this mix.

BILLYMAC,LIKE YOURSELF I DECIDED TO GO BACK TO FEEDING BEANS ABOUT 2 YEARS AGO AS I WAS BEGINNING TO THINK THAT THE COMERCIAL MIXTURES WERE GETTING SMALLER AND SMALLER.ALLTHOUGH I STILL GET THE MIXTURES TO MIX WITH THE BEANS I USE 50% BEANS ALL THE YEAR ROUND AND HAVE BEEN VERY SUCCESSFUL FEEDING THIS WAY.

hello pigeon man,thanks for replying.i noticed a lot of the mixes produced nowadays contain lots of safflower,red dari,wheat etc and you wonder if this is for the good of the pigeons or for the good of the pockets of tjhe feed manufacturers ie,cheaper ingredients= more profit.
as i said in my previous post,i have noticed that when feeding these mixes in the past you always seem to have birds with softish droppings and since taking this elderly fanciers advice the birds droppings have been perfect and you know how we fanciers are obsessed with firm droppings as a sign of our birds wellbeing.
as i saidi too will revert to more beans in the diet from now on,at present my birds are well on in the moult & are on 50/50 moulting mix/beans.

very interesting i remember when all the best food around was prince which contained alot of beans now the corn we buy has so much smallers seeds ive been giving my widow team gerrie plus with very good results think beans are ok but birds will need more goodness from other products ie things in water to give them the goodness they are not geting from just the beans.

ive heard alot of distance racers to hopper feed beans woth good results

i will be giving beens ago next year for my channel team.i sometimes feed different birds different food to see which is best result as all fed in seperate boxes.

ybs fed on widow mix with gerrie plus added later in the week again with good results.

does anyone use diet mix i use it for all racers on return from the race till monday evening

a friend of mine was buying food from the same place as me he was buying a mix which the farm owner mixed him self which was asgood as bags we buy but without the added cost. later this season he noticed his yb birds wasnt well he got the vet in & had there droppings tested he later found out there were traces of rat wee in them!!
the vet said it was the food he was giving em.

his old birds were fine even though on same food vet said yb imune system are not as strong as his old birds hence them to get sick.

he changed there food big difference birds were ok within a week.

i beleive in differnt feeding for differnt racing, also   during the moult a higher protein diet, also when feeding young, youll notice the birds wont even eat the maize whilst feeding young, i remember trying these white protein peas   3 pound a bag,from the farmer, reared cracking ybs,[ mixed it with maples and beans, and very little maize] i would say the fancier from dumfries is spot on,, one thing is , idont think the quality of feeding is as good as 30 years ago, my personal  opinion is , thats where a lot of our trouble pops up.

hi speedbird,i too have tried gerry plus,what haven"t i tried over the years?but the point i am trying to make is do pigeons really need all these grains or all or any of the supplements that are thrown in front of us maintaining to do this and that and are birds fed on these any better health wise as the bird which just has say beans water & grit in front of it
one thing i have noticed over the years is that in general winning velocities seem to be a lot higher nowadays in spite of the losses and odd disasterous race.
now whether this is due to better feeding,better stock or all of the supplements available now than years ago ,i do not know!

yeah your right billy times have sure changed

Maybe that is why there so many losses with birds old and young ex wen tough race, look at the distance men the extreme distance men at that, most feed beans at different % some feed 100% and there probaly got the best returns of anybody wen it comes to the sticky races exp, They go on about lacking in this vitamin and that mineral, but way back wen that was not herd of, they flew well with beans, my father was 100 % bean man wen rearing and racing, and you would be hard pushed to see better reared y/bs. He fed 100% barly in the 2 months before pairing then 100% beans then on, his last year of looking after them, he won 6sts and scored out of rennens 540 mile had 7 out of 10 from sartilly 500 m wen most of the club either had 1 or not timed in. Some times ignorance or lack of so called knollage is no bad thing.

Our distance birds are 100% hopper fed beans except when they go to the race and they are fed 100% maize by the International organisations my sprinters are on all beans now and they will stay on them now until when i start racing them next year totally agree with stucky u will find it hard to find better ybs than those reared on beans

are your best results at distance rose?

times do change my dad was a pro rugby player & use to eat steak on friday before match on sat now they eat steak earl on in the week & lighter food towards end of week!!!

Hi speedbird I would say so we did have some pretty good results when we were club racing but that was 20yrs ago and i not done too bad since i started up couple years ago

are beans best for distance though rose?

What kind of beans are ya'll talking about? I hate to sound stupid but if you don't know you have to ask.

hi johnny, we are talking about tic beans or sometimes called carse beans up here in scotland,bye for now billy.

Hi speedbird would definately say yes or they certainly are for our birds if u can get the horse beans all the better only thing u got watch is that u get good quality beans there is some rubbish around once we find some good ones we usually by a ton so they are kept on the same ones all year

Hi Rose

Reading the book by the great man himself Alf Baker he recommends staying away from Beans for rearing as the adults take on board too much water and become "Wet Feeders" What is your experience of this?

John

Hi johnny e got 1 out the whole lot  of our birds that is wet feeder but he is  like that whatever u give him to rear on  never found it to be a problem with our birds

Rose

How many people do you know fly natural with their birds for races 300mile plus?
How do the results compare to widowhood for the same distances?

Thanks

Just a note to support Billymac and Johnny11 experience / info on beans & water.  

On moult mix just now, mostly 'small seeds' and as you say Billymac, droppings are formed up but definitely not firm. Curious thing though is my water consumption's gone down. Normally feed a mixture high in beans, peas maize etc, water consumption is a lot higher, yet droppings are firmer?

Is there fibre in beans which is 'indigestible', while seed is bland and almost totally digested? Going back a bit now, but a good human diet was supposedly high in fibre (roughage).

Us johnny our distance birds are natural never flown widowhood and never likely too our results as good as any of the widowhood fliers if u got your hens right they will take a lot of beating out of the long races especially if they turn out hard

tried them on beans but found they struggled opening the tin..

Er, thats actually maize in that there tin, Ribble.  

one i heard at at moot,bit of fun i thouhgt.but go on then what tins that.......

It's still a bit of fun, Ribble.  

That there tin of what we call 'beans', is really a tin of maize, wot the Americans call 'corn'. All tastes the same to me though.  

Next proof of how stupid I be.  

Noted 'pulses' mentioned. Je hisnae a clue pas what pulses are and apart from beans peas, wheat , maize wouldn't know most of the grains / seeds even if they fell out the sky one-by-one and hitted me on me napper.  

Anybody recommend a publication 'with photies' of grains and seeds, each labelled with its name and a summary or breakdown of the food types each contains(carbohydrates, vits, mins, etc). I would also be interested in knowing their gross % salt content.

Hi Bruno,

In fact in your last posting you happened to list two pulses !! Peas and beans are both pulses, and to keep it simple pulses are mostly another name for the seeds of pod bearing fruit/vegetable plants viz ;peas,beans,lentils etc. The only book I know where various grains are pictured and summarised is in 'Keep Your Pigeons Healthy' by Leon Whitney ( unfortunately they're in black & white ) Another good read is 'Feed To Win' by Andre Christiaens......especially the bit on powdered milk !!!

Sincerely,
Paul.

Thanks Showman, remember Witney's book well from the 60's.  

Think it might be out of print now though. Local library has his "the pigeon" avialable in the Reference Section. Maybe try a photo copy there or ye olde parchmente and truste pen, whichever mood I happen to be in : lazy or really lazy!    

Thanks too for clarifying what pulses are.  

another good book is  wendell levi     the pigeon. mines is lent out never to return. but if i remember right there are photos in that on various grains.

Trust White to give me a right showin up.  

Did you an Showman plan this together?  

Spot on Jimmy. The pigeon was by Levi, and not Whitney, and that is the book in my library.    

But I was nearly right - they both have "L & W" in their names - somewhere.  

honestly sorry bruno, didnt mean it like that, didnt want to raise your pulses  

The grain photo / labelled is in the back cover of the Verse-Laga booklet that they give out at blackpool. If I had mine with me, I'd scan it in for you Someone must have a copy lying about

The site I use most is below, just key in to the search, whatever grain you want to see and up pop's both picture(s) and history.....Check it out.

http://www.foodsubs.com/GrainCorn.html


Yours in the Sport - Bill.

I bought the book feed to win and found it very intresting with all the grain content etc in there defo worth a read.

Back in the 60s bruno i thought u were miles too young to remember that far back  

Bacl on the 60s bruno i thought u were miles too young to remember that far back  

so with beens how the birds get the other goodnesss the so call need from all the small seeds in gerrie plus & widowhood mix?

Back in the 1860's Rose.  

Actually a clone (I think that's how its spelt or is there another W in there somewhere Jas White esq keep schtume - you've been warned   ).

Good one raised by Speedbird, Rose. Beans only. How do you supplement the distance birds' diet to make sure they've everything they need.?

We dont bruno and they obviously arent lacking anything or we wouldnt be seeing them from 700ml races the only thing they do get occasionally is bit of mixture seed or peanuts as titbit to get them in grit pink and black minerals and iron tonic and metatone in there water my birds i tend to stick to the garlic and cider vinegar in the water with my sprinters and they are raced on gerry plus when i start racing them

thanx for that rose so when do you changed to the beans?

Thanks Rose.    Maybe I should have said 'what else to they get' rather than supplement, would have come across a bit better.  

Iron tonic and metatone. Think I know what the tonic is, but never heard of metatone. What is it?  

hello bruno,iused to give the birds metatone years ago ,used to get it from boots the chemist,but then they stopped stocking it for some reason,i believe it to be a pick me up tonic used to give to people recovering from operations or other periods of ill health.i used to use it  combined with cytacon vit b also obtained at that time from boots.hope this helps billy

I put mine on beans soon as i finish racing them speedbird next year im thinking about trying mine on all beans as i have decided not to race inland anymore or as i am going to race roundabout put one on beans and one on mixture and see if it makes any difference you can still get the metatone i get it from our local chemist