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Quoted from Ronnie

well i have Van reets ,Braspenning's and boshneid flyers and jones bro's birds in my loft.This year i have paired how i wanted to ive crossed several breeds to each other and there now my breed.Simple as that.If i win anything or produce a champion pigeon i wont be saying its a van reet cross Jansen i will be saying its a Ronnie Dazzler.Just looking forward to reading the louella pigeon world advert .Ronnie Dazzler's young birds now available all bred from direct Ronnie Dazzler stock.

Well said ronnie,and agree,ive been looking at top class winners and breeders on the internet on pigeonparadise and its opened my eyes to see how many crosses and good pigeons have gone into making that champion.

all the big names are buying ace birds regardless of strain and blending them into a family ,a lot of it comes down to the fancier ,you could give a bad fancier the best birds and he still won,t win on the other hand you could give a good fancier average birds and he'd beat the other guy every week , i myself have many diffrent strains in the stock loft but they've produced plenty of good birds for me and others including scoring in every old bird race last season and the average price paid for my stock birds is less than £100 each(36 stock birds) and i started flying yb's 2004

Most of the birds these days are well enough bred. I think pairing winner to winner is the best way. Forget about strain. No such thing as a pure bred pigeon anymore.Condition,contentment and control. You wont go far wrong.

How many years of breeding and cross breeding before the "strain" could rightly be called yours. I know that many of the masters brought in a cross to make their strain more robust most done it every two or three years but only for the proper reasons.

irrespective of who owned or bred the pigeons aquired by the great George buscheart i think his words were ' once they are in my loft they are buschearts ' was he right ??????

i would think the management more important than the name of a so called "strain"

i think it all depends on location, location,location as well as the own management style some people will have no luck with the best va reets in thwe world but will maybe win everything with the janens

'............Condition,contentment and control. You wont go far wrong...'
Well in the right order I certainly agree. and Contentment has to be first to acheive anything after, I believe...

How come if someone in Belgium / Holland buys a pigeon it takes their name at once. Yet look at people like Chris Gordon etc. How often have you seen a Gordon for sale? It would be sold as a Chris Gordon Vanreet or whatever. Why?

The best pigeons kept in the UK are the ones managed by the best fancier.

Back garden fancier it's because in this country image/ brand is more important than substance. Because of that fact British sellers have realised they are better off maintaining the link with the 'known name'. Let me give you a classic example and an example of one of the finest partnerships of all time who are trying their damndest to break the mould and even they are struggling to change perception. I'm talking abut M & D Evans, their birds are in incredible demand, they are breeding fantastic pigeons and as I suggested about 3 years ago on PIPA much to the disdain of some of the continental fanciers, they are actually by their fantastic breeding skills improving the Vandenabeeles. NO they are improving the M & D Evans strain but how many Britsh fanciers refer to the M & D Evans strain?? None that I am aware of most of the adverts you see will state they are selling Vandenabeeles, a lot will give credit in the smaller print but the advert will say Vandenabeeles (I'm probably speling this wrong). Look at the Lycett's sale (and it is very sad to see this family leaving the sport) they talk about the Vandenabeles not the M & D Evans (I appreciate they give full credit and am not in any way trying to be critical of them).
Back garden fancier let's look at Chris Gordon.......this man at the moment is hot, red hot, in fact in my eyes phenomenal. How is he doing it, he actually is creating I understand/believe a strain, he has crossed the Busschaerts as supplied by Pearson & Dransfield with the old English strains particularly of Eric Fox of Bakewell, if you look at the results he is beating fanciers flying 150 mile less than him, in many classic races and at good velocities not smash races.
Le's take this a stage further, if there were 6 YB put up for sale on this site from Chris Gordon, out of birds that had flown 600 mile but with no fancy names in the pedigre, and there were 6 YB put on by Jos Thone, with named birds in the pedigree but none nearer than grandfather. Which would sell the best I'll bet the Jos Thone...........where as i can honestly say if you gave me the choice of any YB from any long distance fancier in the world at this moment in time, the only loft I would consider taking above Chris Gordon would be possibly Wim Muller.
Other top distance men in this country have suffered because they do not 'adopt' a fashionable name. It is a malady of this country that we put more value on designer name than the actual goods.
I't been over 30 years since I stopped playing rugby. I took my 7 yo last week to buy him rugby boots, do you think I could find him a decent proper pair? No I had to end up buying him a fancy pair of football boots, not fit for purpose. That's what's happening in the world of pigeon sales, look at the birds for sale on this site, the ones that are selling are generally designer names and the dearer end. One well known fancier who I count as a friend once told me, overprice rather than underprice. If you put birds on cheap fanciers will think they are no good..........add deigner name to price with superb performance by one pigeon in the pedigree and by heck you may make a couple of bob. but if you have for sale birds of the Wurzle family of Wiveliscombe with both parents having scored at 500 mile, you may be pushed to sell unless you add some Sheppy's cider to the deal!!!

A lot of truths in your post albear the names definately sell pigeons some of the names in the pedigree are so far back they are distant memories maybe thats why pedigrees are getting longer

albear finally someone talking sence rember when u buy thse fancy breeds of pigeon some of these pigeons were kept in lofts with loft mangers cleaners cleaned maybe 4 or 5 times a day with lofs that most of us can only imagine heating plates u know u all seen the videos for most of us we cant copy there work effort lofts with our day time jobs of course there are top quailty birds to be got in belgum and germany and rember to see where hes liveing and who hes flying aganist i was looking at birds with many 1st prizes in holland and when i done my homework he was liveing in the perfect area and was raceing aganist mostly disstance men yes there was big birdage in the races but the disance men were mostlly useing them for traning tosses

the best pigeons are those that belong to a winning family , closely bred family and are true to type and can be motivated without problems, to gain wins every week.

good birds, good fancier correct feeding and motivation... keep them healthy and you will become a champion !! not hard is it really... not rocket science.

Quoted from timbarra

good birds, good fancier correct feeding and motivation... keep them healthy and you will become a champion !! not hard is it really... not rocket science.

If it is not hard nor rocket science -- what were you the champion of if you don't mind me asking  ?

Theory is good, but Practical validates theory! Its extremely hard to reach the top, and once there, its even harder to stay there. Here in the North East, we don't have rocket scientists, but we do have some extremely top class and competitive pigeon men. I am sure they all found it "not hard" as they worked their way up to earn their Champion status! If it was as easy as suggested, why arent we all the top fliers?

Quoted from 2299

Theory is good, but Practical validates theory! Its extremely hard to reach the top, and once there, its even harder to stay there. Here in the North East, we don't have rocket scientists, but we do have some extremely top class and competitive pigeon men. I am sure they all found it "not hard" as they worked their way up to earn their Champion status! If it was as easy as suggested, why arent we all the top fliers?

could not agree more about the north east and indeed scotland, both contain some of the best fanciers in the world and i include Belgium and Dutch in that comment

Crossed strain is better racing, as far as management is more important

Quoted from CS

Crossed strain is better racing, as far as management is more important

i agree craig but try even giving away a crossed pigeon

I have always been told -

cross them to race and keep them pure to sell

Although what is a pure pigeon these days a lot of the families go back to the same pigeons

the Peter Van der merwes for example when i look back around four generations on my pedigrees on some fo my birds they contain the same birds as the merwe pigeons.

Quoted from TAMMY_1

If it is not hard nor rocket science -- what were you the champion of if you don't mind me asking  ?