Breeding

[PIGEON_MAN]

inbreeding or winner to winner or sometimes a pair that have not won anything can breed winners. if it was as easy as champion x champion = champion yb,s.the fanciers like myself and most on hear would not have a winner.it would be the fanciers that spend £1000,s buying the best that would do all the winning. lucky for us that is not the case .yes most of us try to improve with our birds and buy the best we can afford .so with winners coming from just about any type ie champion or club winner or bird with no wins. it is hard to narrow down whats best.any bird of mine that produces a bird to win for me will be kept for breeding as i think it is harder to get good breeders than it is to get a winner.

Best answear on this thread yet imo.

[Guest Owen]

Some years ago I was very familiar with the view from the bottom of the results sheet. I bought some birds at modest prices because I needed all the money I had to sort out problems with the house I had bought and I could not justify spending lots of money on pigeons. One of the birds I bought was a van Rijn cock for £60:00. He gave me a youngster that was not brilliant but at least he proved to be a very good homer. At one stage I lost him for about 3 weeks and I thought he was gone for good. Believe me I was very glad to see him when I found him sitting on an aviary one morning.

It was about that time I decided to try breeding using the Bull System. This was an idea that I picked up from Taffy Bowen just before he was taken seriously ill.

After some advice from Mike Armatage from London I decided to give it a try. I mated this cock with 11 hens altogether. 10 were on the Bull System and I kept a hen back for him to stay with after he had done his Bull duties. I ended up with 22 youngsters all half brothers and sisters.

Some of these youngsters proved to be usless, some were fine but just homers and about 4 were really good pigeons and started me off winning some positions in a few races. From there I saved the money I won and bought a few youngsters to try out on the road and bred with the best ones. Always going back to the Bull System and using the best Cocks for the first round followed by youngsters from the stock pairs in the second round.

I now have a very good team of pigeons and it has not cost me a fortune to get them. And one of the reasons they are so good is that they have been bred here and selected because they were the best flying from my loft under local conditions. I still aquire a few youngsers each year and I still don't spend much to do it and I keep the best and dump the others. This year I have been lucky to have found two Cooriman Cocks and a Jan Arden cock that have the potential to do really well for me.

I reckon anybody can breed a good team of pigeons if you are patient enough and test what you breed on the road. I think the secret is to breed from the ones who win because although non winners do sometimes breed good birds I personally do not like the odds. Winners do not always breed winners but by using the Bull System you soon find out which birds are worth keeping and which are a waste of food.

[just ask me]

good post owen the cooremans should cross well i also find there at there best as old birds

[blaz]

good post owen bar 1 thing i don,t think any bird at the end of old bird or yb season is a waste of food.if my birds are good enough to still be hear after the questions put to them through racing then well worth feeding.sometimes some of us myself included can forget why we have birds.yes we all like to win and it puts a smile on our face when we do. if it was just down to that winning i don,t think i would have birds.it is when you get that smile when the non winners turn in .like a wee mealy pied hen my favorite yb this year.later bred so thought the last race 216 mile bit far still sent her i know stupid. all home bar her kicking myself and moaning about sending her.then over 2 weeks later she homed well worth a feed.