breeding relationship question

[symbro]

how far apart do two birds need to be related when you breed?  

 

i have two really good pairs.  the hen of the second pair is off of the first pair.  

 

i breed a bunch of babies off of the second pair (daughter and unrelated bird) and was thinking about breeding the young i get off of the next generation back to young off of the first pair.  yes i know this is confusing...  basically, great grand child of the foundation cock back to the foundation cock's latest young.  

 

I had also considered breeding two "cousins" together.  but i didnt know how much relationship is "safe"

 

any help is appreciated

[peterpau]

Sounds fine to me. You need to be sure of the orriginal cock though 'cos if there are any weakneses then you will just make them worse. Any strengths on the other hand could improve. I would think it would be worth a try. Breed at least six young before you decide weather it has worked or not. If you keep all six babbies after racing you've got a good pair!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[schouwman71]

There are that many genes in a pigeon it will take a long time for inbreeding to show its good and bag sides,basically if you have very good pairs then yes go ahead and do it,just look at the sootjens base pigeons pedigrees they are very inbred but still breed fantastic pigeons,not sure but i think M&D EVANS use this type of breeding method.  

[birdman55678]

I believe from the way you are describing it that you plan to inbreed, (related birds), it is my thoughts that line breeding is better (Stud Cock to daughter/g-daughter etc)   As far as inbreeding is concerned you will notice the birds getting smaller as time goes on, at first sign of this you will need to outcross.  Hope this helps.  Ed

[jimmy white]

i have found that a very inbred bird from great racers crossed to very inbred birds of great racers of a differant family have produced good pigeons for me , in the past

[westy]

i would say dont pair brother to sister.

[Mike Lycett]

Hovell & Roberts MNFC National winner was bred from a pair of NESTMATES.  He bred bomb loads of good pigeons himself too

[Guest rodders]

iv had a lot of good racers from half brother n sister pairings

[symbro]

that makes me feel better... thank you guys (and gals)

[jimmy white]

:) topped the fed with a yb bred off two nestmates [paired by mistake,in a way] a few of us got together and bought pigeons from a stud,my klack jansen cock was a reall cracking racer, one of the other chaps had a klack jansen hen which had done well for him, so we decided to put them together and split the youngsters , when i topped the fed with a young bird off them , i asked to see the pedigree of the hen,,,,,,,they were both nestmates :)

[Mike Lycett]

I wouldn't worry too much about how close they are.  It's not a practice we really follow to be honest. Just try & concentrate on the quality that's the main thing

[ACE LOFTS]

my uncles paired there best racer "cock" back to its mother and bred 2 youngens from it in 03 iv got 1 in my stock loft and she is my best breeding hen.

 

[birdman55678]

I hate to seem dumb here but what is (/b) quality (.  Hopefully this isn't a stupid question..  Wait for a reply.  Ed

 

[/b]quality   

[Tim.Farr]

He just accidently hit the bold option twice I think.  It's the bold B above the reply box.  Clicking it does this around the words you have selected.  Silly Ed!  

[birdman55678]

Thanks Tim,  Just goes to show ya its never to late to learn.. LOL..  Ed

[Guest]

One of the best books on 'performance' breeding I read was via an internet subscription to Steven Van Breemen's Winning Magazine. Steven had translated 'The Art of Breeding', the work of the Hungarian Professor Alfons Anker, into Dutch and then English. Anker constantly refers to the breeding methods of champions in both the horse racing and pigeon racing worlds. Here is a short sample from the internet book :

 

"

84. Breeding with pigeons of different origin.

 

Because of the heritage mass and the multiple choices available in a population of different origin, breeding a family of pigeons from, and fixing desired hereditary qualities in it is determined by luck.

 

Let's say we start with 20 – 25 racers. When the season is over, first identify the good performers (maybe 2 or 3). Then identify their parents and concentrate your breeding on them. This gives us 4-5 good flyers for following years against only 2-3 in the first season. Proceeding this way for 2-3 years, we gradually develop and build up a useful racing loft, and with a bit of luck end up possessing special racers, or a breeding pigeon whose youngsters are especially useful.

 

Inbreeding is the next step, when we try to anchor the qualities of such pigeons within our own population. Don’t inbreed with unproven birds - it makes sense to inbreed only after the pigeon has demonstrated its special value. Then its inbred youngsters are reserved for future breeding. We cannot expect race performance from them but with their help we spread our best pigeons’ qualities, slowly but surely ensuring that our family receives its own character traits. Inbreeding will be dealt with later, next is line breeding.

 

                                                             "

 

 

I think the first paragraph says it all. We speak in this thread of brothers and sisters and nest mates as if they all contain exactly the same genes. We know they don't, otherwise all brothers and sisters of a champion racing or breeding cock or hen would be champion racing or breeding stock too. We know they aren't.

 

The reason for this is 'heritage mass' - there is a pool of millions of genes available in each pigeon, and each pigeon can only pass on 50% of these to the youngster in the egg; which 50% that is and which combination of the millions of genes available is entirely random selection. The other 50% comes from the other parent, again with the same chance selection.

 

The other thoughts I picked up on was the 20/25 racers and only 2/3 good performers = 10%,  so what do we do with the other 90% ?

 

And in my opinion the correct 'best to best' [in the early stages at least] appears to be the parents of the 2/3 good performers, and concentrate breeding more from them, rather than pairing the 2/3 good performers together.

 

 

 

[Guest]

;DThanks for the posting Bruno , very interesting ! do you have anymore gems loike that one?                   thank you        andy  ;D