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Posted

I’m sure we had a similar discussion yonks ago about Acid / Alkaline foods. This links to an article on human nutrition, which I don’t think is helpful to us (I don't have a clue what the figures refer to in the first tables either - they're not ph), so scroll past that and you’ll see a very Comprehensive Foods Chart which includes stuff we feed to our birds:–

 

http://www.alkaline-alkaline.com/ph_food_chart.html

 

Hydrochloric Acid is produced naturally in the stomach by humans & pigeons. The acid levels there are the highest you can get - ph 1 & 2. Biological Hydrochloric Acid’s basic purpose is to break everything down. When the food moves on to the small intestine, that ph 1 & 2 is neutralised by other gut secretions, and other stuff gets to work breaking the food down further.

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Posted

"It's the process of carbohydrate loading exactly the same as protein loading, as you are filling up their bodies with more then they actually require carbs and protein that cannot be used immediately converts to fat, which is the best energy source available"

 

Wiley, thankyou for explaining the conversion of the maize - that makes a lot of sense but is it still a good idea to give them that while they are in the basket from day 1 - I still think they would be "tripping" out in the basket. Surely this would lead to fighting in the crates and expending a lot of energy.

D.D

 

In my boxing days Dave we would carbo load prior to a fight, but during the process of carb loading our exercise would decrease before the event. And in my experience I would notice during carb loading my muscles would swell and feel full much like a pigeons should feel like blown up paper bag big but light. I also found that due to the amount of carbs consumed I would be quiet sluggish and lazy apart from when any exercise took place, then I would explode, carb loading has different effects on different people I feel the effect would be the same with pigeons.

 

You mention a lot of fighting in the crates, this is something the real distance fanciers try to avoid, by feeding in the hoppers to make a community amongst the pigeons. The real distance men very rarely send there birds on the widowhood when these events come along, so there mainly sitting or feeding young birds and are sent in the calmest position possible. You can tell the experienced distance cocks who as soon as they are in the crates lay down and rest as they know they have to store the energy sources as there in there for the long haul

Posted

Wow - great thread guys - I've learnt more in this one thread than anything including how to navigate this site properly!!!

We used to have a guy in our club who used to feed peanuts to his sprinters - very successfully I might add. With regard to the length of time it takes for digestion would he have fed them earlier in the day (Thursday) so that they got the energy kick on the Saturday morning. In which case when feeding for the distance should we as the fancier get the fats into the birds and leave the "punch" to the convoyer with the maize.

 

D.D.

Posted

It would depend how long the birds are basketed for. A pigeon has two type of muscle White and red. In the university of Ghent the research suggested carbs where only used for the first 60 minutes of flight, and where used by White muscle tissue. The red muscle tissue kicks in when carbs are burnt and they are fuelled by fat reserves.

 

I read somewhere that a pigeon needs 1gramm of fat for every ten minutes expected flying if you expect the birds to home in 600 minutes they need 60 gramme of fat building up to the race during the week.

Posted

Noel lippens speaks on the subjects of fats on secrets of champions double disk series I recommend anyone interested in feed to take a look, Noel works for Matador corns I believe

Posted

The way I understand it (right or wrong) is that the liver is where you want the pigeon to store 'fat'. A regular feed heavy in fats doesn't have the desired effect because the body becomes accustomed to it being fed. Instead of the liver holding fat it gets spread around its body and weight is put on. If fed fats for a short period of time it gets stored in the liver where you want it, in fact the liver swells to accommodate as much fat as it can hold = a good storage of fat with no weight gain.

Posted

My appologies for clouding the issue by mentioning acid - alkali to fanciers who may not have worked in the chemical industry, even I dumfound myself at times so you guys have no chance. Anyone who has ate corn on the cob will notice if you look in your toilet stools their will be traces of undigested maize. This is because our stomach juices can not digest it fully. If we take that fact and reenact what happens in the pigeons mastication tract we or at least I believe that during the process of digestion to much effort is taken up to utalise maize as a feed. Mr Buddle is perfectly correct in feeding peeled sunflower hearts due to the softness of this grain with a higher sugar and fat content and its ability to be digested and stored easily as grey fat which is the power as petrol is to a car.

Their was an article I read where a doctor in the wild west had a patient who had been subjected to a shotgun incident which had laid bare the poor mans stomach and although he lived the doctor was able to watch the process of digestion in the stomach concluding that corn maize took the longest to digest.

No one can state their is a definative feed for long distance racing as fanciers are still doing the business feeding beans only.

Posted

The way I understand it (right or wrong) is that the liver is where you want the pigeon to store 'fat'. A regular feed heavy in fats doesn't have the desired effect because the body becomes accustomed to it being fed. Instead of the liver holding fat it gets spread around its body and weight is put on. If fed fats for a short period of time it gets stored in the liver where you want it, in fact the liver swells to accommodate as much fat as it can hold = a good storage of fat with no weight gain.

Surely the liver alone is not big enough to hold enough of the good fat to sustain the bird over 600miles. Would this type of feeding suit sprint rather than distance.....?

D.D.

Posted

Enough Fat for a 600+ miler - There has to be a cut off point with what is usable and what is classified as "overweight". Most of the feed stuffs appear to deliver a similar fat content all be it in a different form. As long as the bird has that reserve would I be a fool to suggest that the feed in a way becomes unimportant........?

Surely then the "correct amount" of fat can only be determined by the timing of the build up, what the weather is going to be like and also by the nest condition (widowhood/natural).

Also then, the excersize routine in the build up would become key in maintaining those correct fat levels?

D.D.

Posted

I've had problems with fat pigeons, including one that was so bad I thought it had an internal tumour. That bird weighed 600g and was a dead weight in the hand. Yes he was overweight, and he also had an enlarged liver which the vet thought was down to the same thing - being too fat. A teaspoonful of barley a day for 10 days and that excess weight dropped off him. He kept himself quite trim for a couple of years after that despite restricted exercise enforced by a damaged eye.

 

My point in mentioning the liver is that the heart sits in a kind of cavity with parts of the liver overhanging it. Don't know why nature dreamed up that design because it looks to me that any abnormal storage of fat there is going to affect the room the heart has to do its work. And its very hard work flying 500/600 miles.

 

I can't confirm or deny what Wiley has been told about 60g of fat needed to complete the journey, but that is about one seventh of the average birds bodyweight. I weighed my birds before and after a 570? mile race a few years ago, and the weight loss was nowhere near that. To me even a fit bird carrying an extra 60g would be like adding a handicap which the bird would be better off without.

Guest LBuddle
Posted

I don't like our birds that we intend to send to 500+ miles to be heavy with fat at all, When we basket them they are blown up and corky NOT blown up and heavy. lets not forget that they have to carry that for 14+ hours.

Posted

I've had problems with fat pigeons, including one that was so bad I thought it had an internal tumour. That bird weighed 600g and was a dead weight in the hand. Yes he was overweight, and he also had an enlarged liver which the vet thought was down to the same thing - being too fat. A teaspoonful of barley a day for 10 days and that excess weight dropped off him. He kept himself quite trim for a couple of years after that despite restricted exercise enforced by a damaged eye.

 

My point in mentioning the liver is that the heart sits in a kind of cavity with parts of the liver overhanging it. Don't know why nature dreamed up that design because it looks to me that any abnormal storage of fat there is going to affect the room the heart has to do its work. And its very hard work flying 500/600 miles.

 

I can't confirm or deny what Wiley has been told about 60g of fat needed to complete the journey, but that is about one sixth of the average birds bodyweight. I weighed my birds before and after a 570? mile race a few years ago, and the weight loss was nowhere near that. To me even a fit bird carrying an extra 60g would be like adding a handicap which the bird would be better off without.

 

IB, please re read what I mentioned I never mentioned 600 miles, I mentioned 600 minutes which is a ten hour fly minus the first hour which uses carbs so my maths was wrong the bird would only require 54g of fat prior to the race. Many people give or take feed rough measure of 28-35g per day but more for the distance. The bird whatever distance you send to should never be over weight but as Lee says like a cork.

 

 

Lee could you give us an insight on how you achieve this big and corky feeling prior to a distance event?

Posted

My last post on weights: I didn't record the homing weight of the 2 pigeons timed from the Reims 570 miles (2010).

 

Clermont (2010) is 526 miles, sent 2 :-

(1) sent 483g timed & on result 431g.

(2) sent 482g timed missed result 417g.

 

Also sent 1 to Bourges 667 miles (2010) which turned out nasty, only 24 birds in race time, she wasn't one of them. :(

sent 473g, homed 11 days later, 421g.

 

Didn't weigh birds in 2011. She was sent back to Tours 625 miles, timed 2nd day & on result. She didn't look as if she'd been at the race. Official who verifyied her a few days after the race said that she was in great condition.

Posted

IB, please re read what I mentioned I never mentioned 600 miles, I mentioned 600 minutes which is a ten hour fly minus the first hour which uses carbs so my maths was wrong the bird would only require 54g of fat prior to the race. Many people give or take feed rough measure of 28-35g per day but more for the distance. The bird whatever distance you send to should never be over weight but as Lee says like a cork.

 

 

Lee could you give us an insight on how you achieve this big and corky feeling prior to a distance event?

 

Wiley, I was referring to the effects on the bird of carrying any additional weight, over 'distance' which to fanciers in Scotland is over 500 miles, and 14 hours on the wing for a day bird - which is the 'Holy Grail'. No offence but 10 hours on the wing is what some Scottish fanciers look to have their channel candidates fly in the 3 prior to the distance event, just to set them up for it.

Posted

The pigeons being lighter on return will be down to water loss aswell! Just like when I go down the gym or go out a run I can lose 2-3lbs in water no prob in a hard training session

Posted

Wiley, I was referring to the effects on the bird of carrying any additional weight, over 'distance' which to fanciers in Scotland is over 500 miles, and 14 hours on the wing for a day bird - which is the 'Holy Grail'. No offence but 10 hours on the wing is what some Scottish fanciers look to have their channel candidates fly in the 3 prior to the distance event, just to set them up for it.

 

IB, I was giving 10 hours flying as just an example to show a calculation on what I had read whether it is right or wrong I couldn't say as it is not what I practice here, I could have given any time it wouldn't have made a difference. But 14 hour fly would be 840 minutes so the week leading upto the race using the calculation 78g during the build up would be required but as I said it is something I read and haven't tried.

 

Interestingly you posted the weights of each bird before and after being sent. Did you do this for all races? How many races did you candidates have? What where there previous weights say 2 weekends before the race, and there weight at the beginning of the season?

Posted

The way I understand it (right or wrong) is that the liver is where you want the pigeon to store 'fat'. A regular feed heavy in fats doesn't have the desired effect because the body becomes accustomed to it being fed. Instead of the liver holding fat it gets spread around its body and weight is put on. If fed fats for a short period of time it gets stored in the liver where you want it, in fact the liver swells to accommodate as much fat as it can hold = a good storage of fat with no weight gain.

 

Tony, done bit of research on what you said mate, and gathering the information from it I gathered a few points of interest;

 

Fat is stored in the liver and the liver produces 50% fat for use as fuel for the pigeons body.

 

The liver can export these fats through the bloodstream in the form of fatty acids to storage cavities in the body, but many are sent to the red muscle cells in the breast which are used in flight and give an energy source for endurance.

 

Also reading A high fat diet reduces the levels of fat the liver can produce, the same is said for a high protein diet, however a high carb diet has the opposite affect and will increase it's production. And it is said protein should be fed lightly, fats in moderation, however when high fat diet is being fed the diet should have a higher carbohydrate percentage.

Posted

Response to maize digestion = if you look up maize on Wikipedia , it actually goes in to saying many people died from hunger eating this when settling in America , the native Indians however were thriving obviously knowing how to use it more efficiently and found it more digestible using charcoal , I wonder if giving charcoal would benefit the birds it's certainly good in cases of poisoning or stomach complains / ailments ;)

 

The Newcombe race mix is very similar to mine ;)

Posted

The pigeons being lighter on return will be down to water loss aswell! Just like when I go down the gym or go out a run I can lose 2-3lbs in water no prob in a hard training session

 

You are right geordie, however you wouldn't be able to train at a high intensity for 14 hours, without the right fuel. You can gather with any physical exercise give or take you and pigeons will lose weight, but for an endurance event many will lose weight as the body has run out of fuel, and is now converting it's own protein(muscle) into fats to give the bird energy to compete. But it has it's consequences it is basically now eating away at it's own body.

Posted

Any aspect would like to discuss would be supplementation. We talk about the use of fats, carbs ect to fuel the muscles, however we do not mention the importance of oxygen to the muscles. Does anyone supplement vitamin b12 for more blood formation prior to a race? More blood means more oxygen to the muscles. It's something I have done for a number of years either on a Wednesday or Thursday prior to the race for any event.

Posted

You are right geordie, however you wouldn't be able to train at a high intensity for 14 hours, without the right fuel. You can gather with any physical exercise give or take you and pigeons will lose weight, but for an endurance event many will lose weight as the body has run out of fuel, and is now converting it's own protein(muscle) into fats to give the bird energy to compete. But it has it's consequences it is basically now eating away at it's own body.

Yip totally agree mate

 

A lot of really good points/facts on this thread

Posted

Any aspect would like to discuss would be supplementation. We talk about the use of fats, carbs ect to fuel the muscles, however we do not mention the importance of oxygen to the muscles. Does anyone supplement vitamin b12 for more blood formation prior to a race? More blood means more oxygen to the muscles. It's something I have done for a number of years either on a Wednesday or Thursday prior to the race for any event.

yes have always used b12 very beneficial as there diet lacks meat or egg products :)

Guest LBuddle
Posted

IB, please re read what I mentioned I never mentioned 600 miles, I mentioned 600 minutes which is a ten hour fly minus the first hour which uses carbs so my maths was wrong the bird would only require 54g of fat prior to the race. Many people give or take feed rough measure of 28-35g per day but more for the distance. The bird whatever distance you send to should never be over weight but as Lee says like a cork.

 

 

Lee could you give us an insight on how you achieve this big and corky feeling prior to a distance event?

 

We feed a pinch of Sunflower per bird AM after their feed and a pinch of Hemp PM after their feed. 7-9 day before basketing we increase the amount of Hemp by the morning of basketing they are on alot of hemp after their feed, probably about a level soup spoon the last Two feeds!

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