Looking For Advice. Inbreeding.

[Guest TrickyTree74]

Hi All,

 

After a relatively successful first young bird season back in the sport my thoughts have turned to the future and what our plans will be for breeding next year. We have had an interesting experience with one family in particular this year. The Sire and Dam at the top of the breeding chain have bred us some cracking looking young birds that have performed at both club and fed level and even winning a ticket at shows. However, direct sons and daughters from this pair have thrown us youngsters this year that left a lot to be desired and ultimately they failed to achieve anything while racing. I picked up on the difference between these youngsters and the youngsters from the original stock pair pretty quickly in terms of handling quality and training performances. I have no doubt that i made a mistake in pairing and it is a mistake i will not make again but i need to understand the mistake a bit better to learn from it fully.

 

I know that some of you guys have great experience and i am hoping someone can give me a run down of do's and dont's when it comes to inbreeding and trying to create that "one special family".

 

Many Thanks

 

Andy

 

P's I would like to offer my own little bit of advice to some new fanciers. Patience is a virtue when it comes to breeding and racing pigeons. :-)

[just ask me]

there are no rights or wrongs here mate many roads lead to Rome and all of that lol

 

im not a great believer in close inbreeding all of the time

 

a cross mate should put some vigour in your young birds

 

also might be a idea to split the good pair so you have half brothers and sisters also it might be surprised to find its one of the stock pair that throwing the goods if so u are in a lot better position than having a pair that only breeds when they are together

 

probably the best book ever written on starting a family is the masters of breeding and racing by van salen (spelling) very hard to get your hands on and very expensive but you may know some one that will lend it you too

[Guest IB]

Andy, I am not following what your pairings were that bred the 'indifferent' racers. Were these from brother & sister paired together (children off the good pair) or were these from children off the good pair crossed to another line / family?

[just ask me]

i think by reading he may have made a brother sister pairing

[Guest IB]

i think by reading he may have made a brother sister pairing

 

If it was, then the offspring would probably not make good racers. And while youngsters are still in the nest, make sure that there are no 'defects' in them, if there are, they are culled.

 

Inbreeding is usually for future breeding (eg a cross with another inbred family) and a cross is usually for racing.