OLDYELLOW

How do you choose a bird to go the distance is it purely family and/or breeding or just process of elimination ??

When selecting birds what type of pigeon do you look for small /medium/ large long cast, deep keel , apple body ?

When would you consider retiring a top performing bird to stock ???

Do you look for birds with a certain wing beat for the distance ???? And what do you consider to be the best wing condition for your type of racing ??? and when would you consider the wing state not to be good ???

Do you feed the same feed for a sprint , middle and long distance race ???? If not what differences are made to the feeding ????

On the birds return from the longest race how do you treat them ie : feed and water / supplements and are Electrolytes used ???, Also when pairing what is your preference do you inbreed line breed or cross breed ???

I'm sure Frank Sheader has these at his .......

Obviously your a good allround racer so to just choose one type of bird would leave a lot of information left out . So I'll ask which cocks and hens in your stock have played the biggest part in forming your (1) sprint team (2) middle distance team (3) Distance team and what's the breeding behind them and from what sources

How many years did it take you to build a good team to fly 500 plus miles ?

Do you have any problems with hens laying with been on the roundabout prior to been raced ???

When do you exercise your birds round the loft and what times and what order ???

You mentioned you raced your birds on roundabout do you pair up any for the big races and send them sitting in various nest states or just stick to the roundabout ?????

What preparation do you do the week of a big race what feeds do you use and what products if any ???? Do you feed peanuts ? or high protein foods ?

So basically your setting them up for 2 year old's and letting them mature as these will be the future stars of the loft but valuable training for there Channel racing career ahead . Moving on to 2year old's what racing would these see and when would you start them off ???

Moving on to your Yearlings , what racing would these yearlings see and when would you start them off , or are they treated the same as the rest of the old birds ???

Do you feel it's important to race the young birds in the year that there bred ???

Do you do anything special to help them through the moult ??? or do you see it as a natural process that requires no intervention ???

At what age do you remove the young birds for weaning ??? and do you use the darkness system to fly your young birds ???

Do you vaccinate for pox and Paramxyo at this time ???

What do you mean by total disinfection ? and what feed supplement do you use ?

Well it's that time of year again when thoughts turn to pairing the birds up and breeding new champions , when do you pair up ???? and what preparations do you do to get the birds paired up ????

I would like to thank Budgie for agreeing to do a question and answer session with me . Budgie is of the partnership Eadie & Kelly of Bellside Lanarkshire , with a mighty impressive record at all levels , when did you get started with pigeons and tell us a little bit about yourselves.

:emoticon-0137-clapping: :emoticon-0137-clapping:

Cold and windy but nice to see a bit of sun even if blinds ya when driving lol

Just to clarify this class is a show racer / Unflown any age class , so in effect a mixed class which covers unflown young birds and stock birds , this means they haven't been entered for a race however owners may have intended to race these birds and therefore had ets assigned or may have trained them up and had ets on to watch the training sequence . I've a few stock pigeons myself with ets rings on , just not got round to taking them off Please use this thread for voting only as intended many thanks Mark