Floating eggs

[jimmy_84]

Hi every1 i have heard of this before and i am wondering why it is done and is it worth doing i was told that if you are keeping ybs and want to breed from them they may try to pair to nest mate therefore inbreeding if all my doos lay at saimilar days would it be worth switching egg's betwwen birds

[jimmy_84]

Hi every1 i have heard of this before and i am wondering why it is done and is it worth doing i was told that if you are keeping ybs and want to breed from them they may try to pair to nest mate therefore inbreeding if all my doos lay at saimilar days would it be worth switching egg's betwwen birds

 

has any1 got any advice on this

[Guest bigda]

why would you want to  mix them up its still the same outcome  

[jimmy_84]

it was something i had heard i knew the outcome would be the same and after i posted it and then read it again i realised how silly it is so sorry for thinking like a simpleton

[Guest IB]

Don't think its anything to do with being a simpleton  ;D there are many strange sounding terms in pigeons, and they differ between regions and countries. There was another thread on floating eggs - literally  ;D  ;D  in a bucket of water - to find out if they were fertile? - and that was definitely a first for me.  

 

Floating, or switching eggs is done when you want to breed only from certain pairs. The basic set-up is one breeding pair, and one feeding pair. Both pairs don't have to lay exactly on the same day, its still OK if its within 5 days of each other. You need to have the feeders producing milk for the hatchlings, so provided they have been sitting for 2 weeks, you'll have that.

 

As soon as the feeders have laid their second egg, you ditch these and replace them with dummy, plastic eggs. After the breeders have been sitting for 10 days, you check to see if the eggs are fertile and if they are you take their eggs away and 'float' them under the feeders. The breeders then go back down, and the hen will lay again within 10 days. Its normal to let them hatch and rear that round. You wait the 10 days because if the hen goes back down before that, you risk damaging the egg-works.  

 

There are variations, and you can float one egg of two under another pair, so that you have 2 pairs of feeders each rearing a single youngster. This is called single rearing. Single reared youngsters get a better start than a nest pair, but you have to leave a plastic egg in the nest with the youngster for about 7 - 10 days, for support and safety, to make sure the parent birds don't sit too tight, and cause a condition in the youngster known as splayed-leg.

 

The other thing to watch out for in single reared youngsters is a condition called angel wing. The primaries as a group lie angled away from the bird's body, it does correct itself in a few days as the muscle and 'bone' strengths catch up with each other.

 

 

 

[jimmy_84]

thankyou very much IB a great help now i know i am going to leave egg's under the layers of the egg's thanks again

[Guest redlad24]

i floated a pair 0f stock eggs under a pair of racers, there was 4 days in the difference with laying dates, the stock pair being first, they hatched out thurs, everthing grand, went in tis morning and the two ybs were squashed in the nest, any1 know why? do you think i should have floated with a pair that layed within a day or the same time??

[pjc]

the feeder pair may not have started produceing milk and not been prepared for the eggs to hatch or could have been disturbed from the chicks.

[Guest redlad24]

was thinking that, she would have only bn sittinf 13 days and they hatching, whats the earliest ud get away with?