Kirkpatricks

[billt]

I've no idea but I think his wife was called Nan

 

Could have been J. Hamilton of Kennoway, Fife

[walterbmasson]

Also 6th open Vaux Usher International Nantes, 6,700 birds, flying 80-100 miles further than the first 5 BILLT you are well oot we at een the 2nd doo was ritchie and whyte flying 95 miles further than the hamilton doo and was also well up in the usher vaux international but twa good doos ?

[walterbmasson]

Where can I buy some pure Kirkpatrick / Dordin crosses? andy i think billy wan@@r fa inver snakie has them bit find inversnakie

 

first ,tak first left ta the funny farm first then your there

[Guest Owen]

cemetary,

I used the horse example for two reasons. First because the rules of breeding and genetics are exactly the same. And second is that the people who breed horses are professional and will do things in the best way because to do otherwise would be financially mad.

I know of at least one professional geneticist who is breeding racing pigeons. David Schumaker of Sacremento in California. You can read his ideas on the internet.

As for Red Rum, he was a gelding and could not breed.

I was hoping that the message I was trying to get through would convince at least a few people that quality birds can be bred providing that the birds used as breeders are excellent and not just the birds that happen to be in the loft. My own particular preference is to concentrate on the male line so I centre my attentions on the cocks. This is the same as the race horse breeders. All the stallions used by breeders of race horses are top performers so I only use very good winning cock pigeons to breed my youngsters.

I agree that birds that are properly reared and are from the darkness system should go through the race programme if they are any good. However, I know people who can not get their birds to fly the programme darkness or not. Most of these people are the ones that buy in birds every year, year in and year out.

My point was that I need to find ways to select the best birds that I have bred so I will select birds that mature early and win from youngsters. No doubt if I was interested in breeding distance birds I might select in a different way. What is important for me to make my selections is that I have a good number of birds left at the end of each season so that I can pick ones that suit the type of team I am putting together. This year I have 16 young cocks to pick from and I will need 5 to go into the widowhood team. So I will get rid of some stock birds and transfer an equal number of my best racers to stock and then top up the race team with the best of this years youngsters. Any that remain after that will go.

[dal2]

Well Walter I think we are on the same page. I think that Pigeon Racing is dogged by fantasy and superstition most of which suits the people who are in to making money from those who are willing to believe the rubbish that they churn out. The business of convincing people to believe in families that never existed because the original owners crossed their birds rather than keeping them pure suites the dealers and sellers of dreams. It is obvious that there are plenty of people out there that actually believe this rubbish. I can not believe how stupid people are when they will buy up birds that have never flown a yard from parents that have never flown a yard. And when I see the advert that says "Bred for Stock" I know that someone is trying to kid someone. If these birds offered for sale are worth their salt they would shine as racers so the fact that they are kept in the loft should ring a few bells but they don't seem to.

I know people who buy birds regularly and year after year they carry on losing birds and getting nowhere but off they go again the following year and do the same again. I hear people talking about Logans, Busshaerts, Janssens Kirkpatricks and goodness knows what else. A lot of them have been purchased from Sellers or Dealers and will guarantee to disappoint.

I got into Pigeon Racing in 1997 and just like plenty of others I fell for the pretty pictures painted by the Sellers and I thought that there were strains of pigeons that specialised at certain distances. So bought the birds. And like thousands of others I got nowhere. My breakthrough came when I went to a sale of birds where the Owner was packing in. He had put the prize cards on the pens proving that his birds had been raced successfully. What a difference. I bred decent birds straight away and went from looking at the race results from the bottom up to getting within range of the winners.

These days I specialise in sprint racing and all my racers are crosses because I pair them on the basis of the results they achieve. If I wanted to bring birds into my team I would definitely not be interested in those birds named after long dead Fanciers or birds from non racers. And in any case any bird that comes here would either have to have a proven excellent race record or else come as a youngster which would mean a period on the road to confirm that it is capable of winning races.

None of this stuff is "Rocket Science" it is just plain old "Common Sense".

I have quite a few birds at stock that heave never been oot of the loft never mind raced!!

[holmsidelofts]

Owen, you mention horses in what you have written,the thread is talking about doos, why go onto something that pigeon people havent a clue about, i mean horses, just for a short knote, what did the great horse Red Rum Breed,NOWT and thats a FACT. he was a racer and that was him. The Legend of PURE STRAINS of bird will go on for many a years. All Pigeons on the Darkness system should go fom the first race until the last race unless they are injured, JMO.

 

 

 

 

WHO OWNED IT.

 

Owen makes a very valid point, you can take any professional sport that rely on animals and birds and the principle of breeding champions are the same. Its only the pigeon world that continue to breed fom birds that have never won a race, i used to do it and every year you would end up with the same results, its only when i took owens advice of not breeding from birds that have never won anything was i able to move forward. Crap will always breed crap.

You must only breed from the best you have and move forward the best you can. Granted not everyone has winners, but you have to start somewhere. My belief and i stick to it is the reason for a lot of losses each year is we are breeding from rubbish. The moment you stop doing it the more you find you loose less.

 

The problem with some people are that they are good pigeon racers but dont have a clue when it comes to breeding, its not as simpe as just putting two birds together and they will produce winners its not that simple. If it was everyone would be champions.

 

 

Jas

[Rooster J. Cogburn]

Could have been J. Hamilton of Kennoway, Fife

 

It certainly was Jimmy Hamilton .The pigeon was bought by uncle Louis,under the condition that when she stopped laying she would return to Jimmy's Kennoway lofts to see out her days.

 

Theres a story of when Jimmy was visting LPW.Louis was walking him through the sections.Before they got to the pen Nan's Pride waqs in,she was cooing and acting up as she heard Jimmy's voice.

 

I was put into contact with Jimmy Hamiltion when I was around 14,through Ian 'Toddler' Brown.I exchanged letters with Jimmy over a number of months.I still have them and he always wrote them in pencil.Unfortunately Jimmy passed away before I was able to meet him in person and see his birds.

The closest I came to his pigeons was when handling children of his Gold Award winner at Toddler's loft.Remember at the time thinking they were about the best pigeons I had ever seen.

[Guest Owen]

dal2

the birds that you have at stock might be as good as any as breeders but i find it hard to see how you can move forward unless you select from your best racers. I believe that for me to move forward I must replace my stock birds with my best racers regularly. I am looking for real strength in my stock birds so that I can keep up the forward momentum going.

i am looking for early maturing birds that win sprint races. I do not select for anything other than the two factors I have just mentioned. It would not bother me what colour they are of if they have eyesign or wings that conform to certain criteria and I couldn't care less about how they handle. They just have to win sprint races from an early age. When they do what I ask with regularity they can become breeders and live the life of luxury.

[dal2]

dal2

the birds that you have at stock might be as good as any as breeders but i find it hard to see how you can move forward unless you select from your best racers. I believe that for me to move forward I must replace my stock birds with my best racers regularly. I am looking for real strength in my stock birds so that I can keep up the forward momentum going.

i am looking for early maturing birds that win sprint races. I do not select for anything other than the two factors I have just mentioned. It would not bother me what colour they are of if they have eyesign or wings that conform to certain criteria and I couldn't care less about how they handle. They just have to win sprint races from an early age. When they do what I ask with regularity they can become breeders and live the life of luxury.

You can move forward by recognising traits of the family that you keep, body size, wing shape, eyesign etc??

 

You become aware of what works in your family and what does not, for example my family always throws Dark cheq pied hens that do ok but very occasionally they throw a dark pied cock everyone has been a winner!! I have also noted that the best birds I have had racing wise are bred from blood red cocks of the same line, strangely tho the blood reds that I have raced have been poor????

 

Sprinting is a diffo game where motivation and power seem to be the key where as 500-600mile pigeons do not hang off trees, good ones anyway,.

[just ask me]

hard to get a real good one no matter what the distance

 

 

i personally breed around 2 or 3 birds they have proven they breed the goods they happen to be from the same family of birds

 

over 80 percent of the birds in my loft would be down from the same few birds

[Guest Owen]

dal2

sorry but we will have to agree to disagree. I can not see the point in looking at some of the things you seem to think are important. My job is to breed the best birds I can to suit the type of racing I am involved with. As I said before i select my birds on the basis of performance and nothing else. And when I find birds that perform better than the birds I have in the stock loft I replace the stock pigeon with the good racer. I don't know what you mean by "Hanging on trees". My birds definitely don't hang about on trees or anything else. They ar very good at their job and getting better as each year passes.

[dal2]

Hanging of trees means that good distance birds are not easy come by!

Ye we will deffo disagree because although I see your point about the winner to winner theory giving you a high percentage of breeding what you require to sprint with it seems you are unwilling to see my point of view about cultivating your family and being able to select the right pigeon for your stock loft without the need for it to win a race, as I have said before to you the best breeders are not always the best racers and visa versa!

This is the way I have learnt from my peers, most of which are good fliers and some of them exceptional!!

 

Thanks for the debate

[soupie]

great reading lads, good debate

 

 

 

cheers

 

soupie

[OLDYELLOW]

Bet there's many a champion racer that's left nothing but disappointment in the breeding loft not every winner breeds there type , one of my current breeders was crap on the road but bred good birds up to 1st club 13th fed for a novice friend plus 2nd club year before , If he bred his like they'd be in the bin , Sally Gunnel's parents couldn't run a marathon , breeding from proven birds that breed winners is the start , but the attributes required to win are all natural and far more random or we would all have just a few birds from winners breeding winners , birds will alway be by natures design not man's , I'm with Dal sometimes other factors come out like within my family I started with mainly grizzles and reds and yellows , most of my full coloured birds from my grizzles flew much better , chocs in mulemans tend to breed good birds but poor racers the best racers were blues pencils ectra but not chocolate . Pete Thorpe discussed with me about a pair of nothings , breeding no end of winners for him and others , so selection is the hardest thing even Deklacks had his eye on binning a hen that he left be had ybs and the hen was nothing , yup that hen made deklack famous and bred far more winners than most of these so called super bred champions of paperwork pedigrees with umpteen winners on .

[Guest Owen]

OLDYELLOW,

I think the penny has dropped. You obviously centre your breeding around birds that breed winners which you must put on the road to know what they can do. From what you say your judgement is based on the performances of your race birds.

My methods are not much different. I look at pigeons as if they were bunches of genes rather than distract myself by getting bogged down with factors other than the ability to win races. I try to concentrate the winning genes as much as possible in as few individuals as possible. I agree that there is nothing simple about breeding livestock because there are so many variations in the youngsters bred. However, there have been very high quality birds bred in the past by some of the master breeders and I am sure there will be more in the future. The one thing I am sure of is that the simpler we keep our selection policy the better and the more we concentrate the genes into the birds we breed the more likely it is that our best birds will also breed their like.

As regard the example given referring to Sally Gunnell. That was pure nonsense because all the best genes in the World are of little good if they are not developed and managed properly. It is the same with our pigeons because if you put the best birds with people who do not know how to manage and develop them they will be wasted. We can not know what Sally's parents might have done if they had been trained and managed by an expert when they were young.

This will be my last word on this subject because I think we have said enough and to carry on will bore people. In fact I am getting a bit bored with it myself right now.

ATB

Owen

[OLDYELLOW]

Sellers cock which I also call the envelope cock yup the envelope was his pedigree never seen a race basket breeding winners , ok it was selected out of a good performing cock so the price to pay was a high one so he never saw a basket never won a race himself but a proven breeder yes , race winning birds don't guarantee winners had plenty that were out and out racers and nothing good came out of them , so winner to winner can equal = inferior birds just as much as two non raced birds. Most things happen by chance two birds that click and breed winners surely this is the beginning product of the race loft not the end product of the race loft . Without breeders there's no race winners .

[walterbmasson]

Bet there's many a champion racer that's left nothing but disappointment in the breeding loft not every winner breeds there type , one of my current breeders was crap on the road but bred good birds up to 1st club 13th fed for a novice friend plus 2nd club year before , If he bred his like they'd be in the bin , Sally Gunnel's parents couldn't run a marathon , breeding from proven birds that breed winners is the start , but the attributes required to win are all natural and far more random or we would all have just a few birds from winners breeding winners , birds will alway be by natures design not man's , I'm with Dal sometimes other factors come out like within my family I started with mainly grizzles and reds and yellows , most of my full coloured birds from my grizzles flew much better , chocs in mulemans tend to breed good birds but poor racers the best racers were blues pencils ectra but not chocolate . Pete Thorpe discussed with me about a pair of nothings , breeding no end of winners for him and others , so selection is the hardest thing even Deklacks had his eye on binning a hen that he left be had ybs and the hen was nothing , yup that hen made deklack famous and bred far more winners than most of these so called super bred champions of paperwork pedigrees with umpteen winners on .

Old yellow i cant follow you at all your speaking about good birds 1st club 13th fed and 2nd club , you are kidding i know about these 1st club winners from 2 ta 250 miles in our club i know they get a real buzz oot o them then they get a bad race and there gone ? you say selection is the hardest thing theres a lot on here knows every bird in my loft every year has to fly 500miles or 600+ miles some times twice in fact this year 5 flew 500 and 511miles then sent ta 600+ miles,no selection one goes all goes and getting 6 out o 8 sent to the france races but there not good birds in my mind till they are first ? And youngsters go TA 200 TA 350 miles YBN jumping them 220 miles clocking 4 early morning Ritchie 1 on this site verified them for club trophy ? Yes ye will breed good birds off a good strain of distance birds that has a long history of wins in big races off the parents that also won well and so on ? but at the distance different when different strains are put together its a lottery and you have to send them to the bitter end and treat them the same as the birds you are racing and this wont happen in a couple of years thats a fact ? And mark put down your wins when selling birds instead of saying on here they are KIRKPATRICKS better putting down birds off your winners at your best distances, as 100mile winners are 10 a penny ? As i am certain you will win a lottery before you get a kirkpatrick and selling birds to novices is out o order i cant stop it but i can certainly warn them ?

[OLDYELLOW]

1st Club Clermont 358 miles 10th fed this year fed for me , fed cancelled two channel races , I get plenty in fed result , and as for the novice I've helped out for two years in Hetton fed he didn't buy one bird his father asked me if I'd breed him some . Not to mention birds I've sent out to help others for free and loaned stock and gave birds away , I actually don't like selling birds nor the hassle that goes along with it , but those that have bought birds have received good birds and most come back , I get asked to supply far more than I can cope with , I'm certainly never going to be a bird factory in a 38 x 6ft loft , I wont be advertising any as I don't need to , I have enough people returning to me and I try to genuinely help be it with birds or advice I never push birds or hold a gun to anyone's head . Plenty of members out there I've helped and received many pms of thanks , I'm not money orientated that's not my goal helping others is

[dal2]

Old yellow i cant follow you at all your speaking about good birds 1st club 13th fed and 2nd club , you are kidding i know about these 1st club winners from 2 ta 250 miles in our club i know they get a real buzz oot o them then they get a bad race and there gone ? you say selection is the hardest thing theres a lot on here knows every bird in my loft every year has to fly 500miles or 600+ miles some times twice in fact this year 5 flew 500 and 511miles then sent ta 600+ miles,no selection one goes all goes and getting 6 out o 8 sent to the france races but there not good birds in my mind till they are first ? And youngsters go TA 200 TA 350 miles YBN jumping them 220 miles clocking 4 early morning Ritchie 1 on this site verified them for club trophy ? Yes ye will breed good birds off a good strain of distance birds that has a long history of wins in big races off the parents that also won well and so on ? but at the distance different when different strains are put together its a lottery and you have to send them to the bitter end and treat them the same as the birds you are racing and this wont happen in a couple of years thats a fact ? And mark put down your wins when selling birds instead of saying on here they are KIRKPATRICKS better putting down birds off your winners at your best distances, as 100mile winners are 10 a penny ? As i am certain you will win a lottery before you get a kirkpatrick and selling birds to novices is out o order i cant stop it but i can certainly warn them ?

Surely ye are contradicting yourself here Walter? You are telling these lads not to breed from unproven doos then telling them that ye can breed from a proven family!!!!

 

Its either one camp or the other?? Owen likes to breed from his winners, but you know as well as me that will not always work? true? Fair play cos he says he is at the top of his game! His bloodline is working is it not? BUT WHERE DOES THE NEW MAN COME IN???? the man that has no winners to breed from??? where does he put his trust?? does hr rely on freebies or does he buy from a stud?? does he buy from winning fanciers???? this is a minefield is it not? do you trust that the fanciers you are buying from has the same breeding ideas as yourself? ie winner to winner??

[DJWa]

Surely ye are contradicting yourself here Walter? You are telling these lads not to breed from unproven doos then telling them that ye can breed from a proven family!!!!

 

Its either one camp or the other?? Owen likes to breed from his winners, but you know as well as me that will not always work? true? Fair play cos he says he is at the top of his game! His bloodline is working is it not? BUT WHERE DOES THE NEW MAN COME IN???? the man that has no winners to breed from??? where does he put his trust?? does hr rely on freebies or does he buy from a stud?? does he buy from winning fanciers???? this is a minefield is it not? do you trust that the fanciers you are buying from has the same breeding ideas as yourself? ie winner to winner??

 

imo steven a new starter is best to go to a fancier in his area who is performing well at the distance the new start wants to fly at

ask him/her to breed him/her some latebreds off their best birds

use these to breed off the following year and dont be tempted to race them

as they will not be easily replaced ,and if they are the goods will be a sound foundation for their loft

try and get the said fancier to give then advice in pairings etc

basically every aspect of raceing

a mentor these days for any new start imo is a must

[dal2]

imo steven a new starter is best to go to a fancier in his area who is performing well at the distance the new start wants to fly at

ask him/her to breed him/her some latebreds off their best birds

use these to breed off the following year and dont be tempted to race them

as they will not be easily replaced ,and if they are the goods will be a sound foundation for their loft

try and get the said fancier to give then advice in pairings etc

basically every aspect of raceing

a mentor these days for any new start imo is a must

Spot on Davey

No everybody has a loft full of winners from day 1!!!

[peter pandy]

What a fascinating post ! I have never met a fancier yet who can pick a pair of birds to breed winners in every nest, mind you I dont get out much.

[dal2]

What a fascinating post ! I have never met a fancier yet who can pick a pair of birds to breed winners in every nest, mind you I dont get out much.

No like you Peter I thought ye would have done it loads of times mate :emoticon-0140-rofl:

Seriously tho give us yer opinion on breeding!! Winner to winner or knowledge of family!!!

[hibby]

What have I started . The thing I always find though will a local fancier give you his best? Surely if it has took him 20 yr to get his birds where they are would it not be foolish of him to give them away to direct competition? Because then his last 20 yr has been lost in an instant? I always read of going to a local fancier but I have my reservations seems like so much jealousy since I came back into the sport. Greg

[DJWa]

What have I started . The thing I always find though will a local fancier give you his best? Surely if it has took him 20 yr to get his birds where they are would it not be foolish of him to give them away to direct competition? Because then his last 20 yr has been lost in an instant? I always read of going to a local fancier but I have my reservations seems like so much jealousy since I came back into the sport. Greg

 

if hes a decent sort he will be happy to help out a new start and be

really happy for you when you get some results

 

remember you will have to put in the work

he can teach you the basics but you will be raceing against his

experiance/ expertise

and rome wasnt built in a day