Sylvan

I would like to have some opinions on the following: How do birds get grey/black tongue? In your experience do certain families of birds breed more grey/black tongues than others? Is it treatable? Have you raced any champions that exhibited the grey/black tongue?

It is always interesting to delve into the background on the 'eye sign experts' and to see how well they were able to capitalize on their skills. Growing up in the 50's we read and re-read Bishop's book a hundred times and studied the eyes and numbers until we knew them well. I started my library in the 60's and lo and behold I purchased a book written by a Belgian who ruthlessly attacked Bishop for being a liar and more. In this book were actually photocopies of letters by Bishop basically asking the Belgium to send over some birds and he would whip some eye sign on them and sell them. I have Flemming's book and the only mistake he made was trying to race in California. Like feather merchants they should leave the racing to people who know how to. Most recently I was visiting in the hot bed of racing in the States,Spring Hill and checked out Pete Pobor's results.(he also wrote a book on eye sign). In a word they were poor. If it works for you great..but I'm skeptical after 50 yrs.

A lot depends on how cold it gets. When the temperature remains above 0 deg. Cels. the birds really don't need more than 1 oz. per bird of a varied mixture. Although our temps. can get down to -20 and more so you really need to be receptive to their needs. When it is that cold I add corn and extra small seeds like canola(rape) which are high in fats along with the regular mixture. Also 2-3 times a week add brewer's yeast so they are getting the B vitamins along with a vitamin mixture.