single rearing

[LISTER]

hi does anyone single rear young birds if so are there many advantages ?

[sammy]

Single rear most of me young birds all the time ,wont make them any better in what they are but it makes them get  reared better and they grow faster  

[matt]

Single rear most of me young birds all the time ,wont make them any better in what they are but it makes them get  reared better and they grow faster  

 

i agree with you there but a healthy pair of birds can bring two squabs up just fine i havent seen any big advantages of this method but you can only try for yourself and see

[LISTER]

thank you for replies

[Ronnie]

i am gonna single rear this year just because i dont want to many youngsters.

I am gonna float an egg from my better pair's under the not so good pair's.

[Guest]

Single rear most of me young birds all the time ,wont make them any better in what they are but it makes them get  reared better and they grow faster  

 

Agree,gives them a very good start and puts less strain on their parents,I do it quite often

[REDCHEQHEN]

Single rearing has its drawbacks - particularly with yearlings sitting babies 'tight' - could get youngsters with splayed legs - nest felts are a big help to combat this

[Guest]

Think that Redcheqhen has given the biggest drawback of single rearing but that's easily avoided, you leave a pot egg in with the single youngster until its about 10 days old.

 

Pigeon crop milk is the most nutritious substance known on earth, so much so that researchers have recommended that it be added to chicken feed!

 

Same research has shown that there is only enough produced for 2 youngsters in each nest, and if there's only one youngster then the double ration does go into the single youngster, and yes its development is better than if it were one of a pair in the nest.

 

I reckon its a brilliant start in life for the youngster, and its also a brilliant way of keeping your numbers down, breed only from what you want to breed from, and float the eggs so that all birds rear one.

 

 

 

[johno]

if birds are not good enough to breed off why keep them? this is  surely a much better way of keeping numbers down. by making life in the nest less competitive are we not encouraging survival of potential weaklings? a bird not good enough to breed off is surely a poor candidate to rear the young of a potential champion. if the bird is not so good where is the logic in beieving that it will be a super feeder?

[The White Rapido Man]

good idea to keep the pot egg as the adult birds can easily hold a test bowl that tightly......that the presuure on a single small babbie can kill it................or give it spread leg.

 

 

even if only one egg hatches.....I always keep it ithe bow until the youngun is big and fat ;D

[Guest]

Link to original thread on pigeon milk.

 

http://www.pigeonbasics.com/forum/blah/m-1172186102/

[Ronnie]

if birds are not good enough to breed off why keep them? this is  surely a much better way of keeping numbers down. by making life in the nest less competitive are we not encouraging survival of potential weaklings? a bird not good enough to breed off is surely a poor candidate to rear the young of a potential champion. if the bird is not so good where is the logic in beieving that it will be a super feeder?

 

One example is i have to many cocks so i got given some hen's to sit ,i put these with my lesser cocks so to speak.Now i dont want to breed of someone else's birds when i am trying to cultivate my own flock so i will just float a single egg under them from my own pair's that way i can breed my own birds and also have a hen to race the cock to.

 

[Guest]

Johno while I think the issues you raised are quite relevant, in my opinion they are going a bit off the main subject. So my replies kept as short as poss:-  

 

if birds are not good enough to breed off why keep them? this is  surely a much better way of keeping numbers down.

 

Think its accepted that the best racers doesn't always equal the best breeders and excellent 'performance' pairings can produce rubbish. It would surely be foolish to breed more rubbish. These birds are there for racing, we don't breed from them, instead we try to breed more like them.

 

by making life in the nest less competitive are we not encouraging survival of potential weaklings?

 

In my experience, a pair will recognised a weakling in the nest long before we do, and will not feed it, whether its single reared or not. It has also to get thro our own selection..

 

a bird not good enough to breed off is surely a poor candidate to rear the young of a potential champion. if the bird is not so good where is the logic in beieving that it will be a super feeder?

 

Horses for courses surely. You only float your 'potential champions' under proven feeders, and you base that on your experience of the pair's parenthood skills..

 

 

 

[dooscoo]

Single rearing, never liked the idea myself who knows what your tossing away. A half empty nest pan gives a young cock the idea to drive the hen far too soon, if she lays and you let her sit it does mess with the youngster already in the nest pan, moves the youngster aside and that cause young bones in unatauraly positions, twisted keels chips in the keel if the youngster sits on the edge of the nest pan, two eggs are better than one the birds are able to rear both very well, ask yourself a question if the parents lack the breeding skills if they fail at raising both well. Breeding champion stock is a skill and it starts and ends in the breeding alone, racing pigeons or fancy pigeons in the nest treat them all as Champions in the making.

Breeding a Champion is your choice not just luck, focus on what makes the champion a champion, tossing eggs out of a nest is like shotting your own foot off. Dave  :'(

[johno]

Bruno how is it possible to think "issues raised are quite relevant" and then follow on with "in my opinion they are going off main topic a bit" this does not add up. as to birds recognising a weakling in the nest surely this would back up the idea of reaing what is in the nest naturally. the implication is that the birds are more than capable of sorting out the situation by themselves so why should we get involved in creating an unnatural situation by removing either an egg or a youngster. as to excellent performers not always producing champions i would suggest the apple never falls far from the tree. i would always prefer a youngster off a proven racer than some bird that had never achieved anything. a lot of the time patience and time will provide the answers. this is hardly possible when we get involved and create unnatural situations. as to your last point i have never seen a for sale advert for proven feeders.

[johno]

Ronnie i take your point and accept what you say. you are faciltating racing cocks for a period of time and temporarilly taking on loan hens which will return to their origin at the end of racing. this makes sense. you are not addng to your numbers for addings sake.

[Guest]

Bruno how is it possible to think "issues raised are quite relevant" and then follow on with "in my opinion they are going off main topic a bit" this does not add up. as to birds recognising a weakling in the nest surely this would back up the idea of reaing what is in the nest naturally. the implication is that the birds are more than capable of sorting out the situation by themselves so why should we get involved in creating an unnatural situation by removing either an egg or a youngster. as to excellent performers not always producing champions i would suggest the apple never falls far from the tree. i would always prefer a youngster off a proven racer than some bird that had never achieved anything. a lot of the time patience and time will provide the answers. this is hardly possible when we get involved and create unnatural situations. as to your last point i have never seen a for sale advert for proven feeders.

 

Simply flagging up original request for info was for ' advantages of single rearing.'  You raised 3 tangential points which can be applied to most tupes of rearing, not just single rearing :

(1) not good enough to breed from ...  

(2) encouraging weaklings  

(3) not good enough to breed equates to not good enough to feed.

 

On breeding champions, I note your preference but as I said before, mine would always be the champion's parents.

[Guest]

Single rearing, never liked the idea myself who knows what your tossing away. A half empty nest pan gives a young cock the idea to drive the hen far too soon, if she lays and you let her sit it does mess with the youngster already in the nest pan, moves the youngster aside and that cause young bones in unatauraly positions, twisted keels chips in the keel if the youngster sits on the edge of the nest pan, two eggs are better than one the birds are able to rear both very well, ask yourself a question if the parents lack the breeding skills if they fail at raising both well. Breeding champion stock is a skill and it starts and ends in the breeding alone, racing pigeons or fancy pigeons in the nest treat them all as Champions in the making.

Breeding a Champion is your choice not just luck, focus on what makes the champion a champion, tossing eggs out of a nest is like shotting your own foot off. Dave  :'(

 

I'm not sure that single rearing has anything to do with tossing eggs or champions away. I certainly don't remove one egg from a nest and throw it away, I float it.

 

And people must have an accommodation numbers limit. Once you reach the number you want to breed, there's not much alternative to tossing out eggs.

 

I agree that the pair will start to go back down a bit earlier, but what happens next is no different from single or double rearing, you need to prepare for the next round. In my case I prefer the 14-day old youngster out the bowl and on straw on the box floor, and the nest bowl cleaned and dusted for the hen & cock to go back down.

 

Take your point about champions. There are not many about even in top lofts. That suggests to me that there is an element of luck attached to breeding one. And again for me anyway, that element of luck is down to a simple roll of the genes, much like a 'one-arm bandit' you can only pull the lever and hope the right gene combination comes up that spits out a champion in the nest.

[johno]

you win bruno. i apologise for having the cheek to have an opinion. by the way how many champions do youi have in your loft?

[Guest]

you win bruno. i apologise for having the cheek to have an opinion. by the way how many champions do youi have in your loft?

 

I don't have any cos there are not many proven stock pairs for sale Johno. An example of the type I'm thinking about belong to J Donaldson, Peterhead, and that pair have bred 4 x 1st North Section SNFC 750 miles winners.  A clubmate went north years ago to buy birds from that pair, and even youngsters from them were not for sale. He brought back others but they haven't made a mark.

 

I've only seen one other pair for sale in the last 6 years, at Danderhall, and these bred a 1st Open SNFC Rennes winner.  Didn't go because I felt sure with my luck I'd probably get one of them, but not the other.

[George UK]

i never belive in rearing 1 youngster if i have another pair with one yongster i toss it over but keep an eye on it with my camera

sometimes i have been stook put a youngster with 2 some of my best birds

but then i give them a break for about 2 months to build them selfs back up again

i love to feed the youngsters with a syringe

then the hawk strikes

 

[snowy]

Single rearing has its drawbacks - particularly with yearlings sitting babies 'tight' - could get youngsters with splayed legs - nest felts are a big help to combat this

 

yes i normally let them sit 2 chicks the first round, but single rear the 2nd round,.

but also had the above problem with the splayed legs a few times.

[Merlin]

Single rearing for me is a definite no no, in most instsances I keep in line with what Nature intended,a single youngster invites splayed legs,even with pot eggs present,sometimes neglect by parents intent on nesting again,chill factor if weather is cold,the overfeeding is a negative rather than a bonus,re what science says regarding infants,also a pair of birds when fed a decent mixture should have no problem without any visible effort in rearing both young,if they were to show stress or undue hardship,dirty wattles,undue water intake,with many other signs,well at that stage I wont make any long term plans for their future,normally indifferent feeders are your earliest fallers.

[johno]

on this theory bruno it is impossible for anyone to acieve top success as the the required tools are so few and rarely ever available. the follow on from this by your own logic is that you and many of the rest of us have a dookit full of no hopers and at best 3rd raters. if this is where you want to use your feeding its your choice. me ill keep my dreams and keep trying.

[sammy]

think the result of splayed legs when single reaing is the result of the lack of nesting material more than anthing else