similar to yourself John ,i write them all down ,when i first started i used the ring numbers to correspond to the parents ,if there last digit was 5 ,used yb ring numbers ending in 5 etc. as for racing ,used to list there return to loft in sequence ,at season end total up the returning numbers and then divide by how many races they had . E.G. 7th ,3rd ,14th ,2nd = 26 divide by 4 races =6.5 and the ones with the lowest numbers stayed in the loft .