Tic Beans

[DAVE STOKES]

Just found a local farm selling tic beans £9 for 25kg,

[OLDYELLOW]

Quite mine are still £6 shhhhhhhhhh lol

[old owl]

where abouts im down at pickering at the weekend

[OLDYELLOW]

where abouts im down at pickering at the weekend

Skipsea bit out of way of there

[old owl]

down for fancy pigeon show

[OLDYELLOW]

down for fancy pigeon show

 

Be a fair few miles but if ya can get a load probably worth yer while as I know prices up there :emoticon-0127-lipssealed: :emoticon-0127-lipssealed:

[old owl]

will pm you for directions later

[DAVE STOKES]

where abouts im down at pickering at the weekend

The farm is between kidderminster and ludlow,a long way for you.

[ovy1255]

Quite mine are still £6 shhhhhhhhhh lol

 

 

are you going to donny or s/shields--wouldnt mind buying one off you if you can spare one.

[OLDYELLOW]

are you going to donny or s/shields--wouldnt mind buying one off you if you can spare one.

not going to either but next time I go I can pick a few extras but you'l have to pick up from Sunderland

[ovy1255]

no problems would be great s/land excellent thx .

[neila]

what price are members paying for beans now?

I paid £10 for 25kg local to me from the farm and are of decent quality , although I am told bamfords are over £15, I know they were £13.50 a few months ago

it does not seem that many years ago they were £6.50 to7 a bag

[Guest Owen]

Before you get up to your elbows in beans you should read the Ministry of Ag information and advice on feeding. They highest recommended levels of beans in any farm animal diet is 15%.

[Guest stb-]

Just found a local farm selling tic beans £9 for 25kg,

seems exspensive for farm beans you can buy beans maples and tares for a £1.50 more and good quality not farm feed .

[OLDYELLOW]

thınk mıne were 7.50

[neila]

Before you get up to your elbows in beans you should read the Ministry of Ag information and advice on feeding. They highest recommended levels of beans in any farm animal diet is 15%.

 

 

the trouble I have Owen is that when I had little time I hopper fed beans for 2 seasons and the birds done very well for me, last year I went on a lighter diet with fats at times and with barley added as a feeding guide and had a poor year ,so I am a bit stuck what to do

it may be other reasons than feeding of course

so I am back on 25% beans in the diet for now

[Guest IB]

the trouble I have Owen is that when I had little time I hopper fed beans for 2 seasons and the birds done very well for me, last year I went on a lighter diet with fats at times and with barley added as a feeding guide and had a poor year ,so I am a bit stuck what to do

it may be other reasons than feeding of course

so I am back on 25% beans in the diet for now

 

Reminds me of a conversation on why so many losses these days as compared to 'back then'. Today's many different types of feeding was pinpointed as one possible reason where before it was a basic diet of (say) beans, peas, maize, barley and wheat, while today's mixes are hi-tech, hi-carb, hi-fat lots-of-seeds etc.

 

My own experience of changing feeding is very limited (2 years) where I went from a traditional 'basic' feed of mixing straights, to feeding in the first year of change lots of seedy-type mixes, and in the second (this) year (on the advice of a top fancier) a 'less-brown' hi-fat mix, that contained lots of seeds but no beans.

 

Last 2 years have been the worst since I started back 13 years ago, with horrendous losses, constant failure to time-in, and light years behind the club winner.

 

Coincidently? one of my club mates when putting my birds through asked if I'd changed my feeding as they didn't handle the same (now feel 'keely' and less bouyant) so maybes something in basic feeding. I'm certainly changing back.

[Kyleakin Lofts]

I am a beginner with no authority on this matter whatsoever, but it appears to me that you can feed for speed (modern mixes) and suffer heavy losses or feed for stamina (old style), be a bit later , but have better returns. The birds have more in the tank.

Is it a case that the modern scientific mixes do not take account of our diverse weather and geography? When the birds hit problems whether weather originated or caused by BOP avoidance, they have nothing left in the tank to get themselves home?

[Guest stb-]

I am a beginner with no authority on this matter whatsoever, but it appears to me that you can feed for speed (modern mixes) and suffer heavy losses or feed for stamina (old style), be a bit later , but have better returns. The birds have more in the tank.

Is it a case that the modern scientific mixes do not take account of our diverse weather and geography? When the birds hit problems whether weather originated or caused by BOP avoidance, they have nothing left in the tank to get themselves home?

the feed you use is the general base mix but you can tweek it a bit once you have your proper loft and set up going :emoticon-0140-rofl: your returns are ormally 100% but just like you a tad slow :emoticon-0140-rofl:

[Guest Owen]

At the risk of repeating myself feeding lots of tannin to any livestock is not a good idea because tannin is a known poison. Not a here today and gone tomorrow poison but a slow suppression of the birds energy and increase their tendency to put on weight. Years ago people used to like the rounded feel of pigeons that were the result of Brown Grain feeding but I like to think that we more modern thinking people with the huge access to information are able to make better decisions.

My aim is to produce a rounded looking pigeon that looks bigger than it really is with tons of energy. I want my birds to demonstrate that they feel good and have an appetite for exercise by flying at a brisk pace and high up.

I achieve this by several things. My mainstay feed wise is good quality barley of which the pigeons have at least 70%. I feed barley in a trough and let the birds eat all they want and I then remove the trough. I never mix the barley with anything else because it would defeat the object of feeding barley in the first place. The barley does several things. It provides the basis of a good (not complete) diet to which I can add what I need to improve the balance. I provide Omega Oil on the barley and Cinnamon Powder to help the birds achieve better health. Many people think that race energy comes from carbs, it does not. Think of the husky dogs and the stamina they have in their working lives. Oil/fat is their fuel and pigeons are the same. Obviously if you feed any creature on a fat or oil rich diet they will be too obese to do much racing. The trick is to feed the rich diet at just the right time and feed the barley enriched with what ever you choose to use at all other times. The livestock industry have been doing this sort of thing for years. An example is the process of flushing in sheep and pigs to get better litters and lambing rates. There is a time to have your pigeons lean and fit and there is a time to enrich their livers to prepare them for the high energy activity which is racing.

A vital part of feeding is to make sure that the pigeons have enriched grit. This is fresh grit every day (make sure you throw yesterday's out) mixed with crumbled clay blocks and vitamised mineral. The clay blocks will help to neutralise the tannin and other nasty elements in the food and the extra vitamins will help to make up what the barley may lack. Those who doubt what I am saying should do what I once did, test a group of birds on my idea of a diet and compare them with a group of birds on a more usual diet. The ideal test is when the two groups are kept and raced on identical conditions by the same manager from the same loft.

There are plenty of examples of people whose thinking is out of date when you see that there are still people out there who think that those awful traps that restrict the numbers of birds that can land together are rather good when in fact they are very bad. Then there the people who want to treat pigeons as if they were human by wrapping them up in a warm loft when they ought to remember that we are dealing with creatures that can not handle any type of polluted air and are descended from rock doves who lived in the harshest of environments exposed to the full force of the elements..

[neila]

hi Owen

a very good read

 

can I ask how you make up the 30% of other grains with the barley being a high carb low fat diet would you use mainly fat/oil seed to add protein and energy and not other high carb grains like wheat/maize towards the end of the week or would you add maize to encourage the birds to eat and carbo load them ? after a hard race would you build the worn tissue back by say a super diet fat mix rather than beans and leave the mix 30% fats 70% barley to late in the week and then reduce the barley

 

last season when I had a poor year I was feeding 1/2oz protein sunday-tuesday AM and all the barley they wanted PM then Wednesday AM to Thursday PM I made a mix of 3/4 widowhood mix 1/4 energy mix from and fed 1/2 oz Am all they wanted PM as I tried to improve and make my feeding more lighter

would you think a super diet mix would be better to replace the protein mix?

 

the two years they flew really well I fed a hopper of beans all week and 1/2 oz of Gerry plus from sunday to Wednesday AM then Wednesday PM to Thursday as much as they wanted of Gerry plus with a bit of sunflower depending on the wind and distance

 

so where I am stuck is when they had the hopper of beans the results were miles in front of when they didn't have the beans , yet I know from what I have read that the lighter food is better for them just my results didn't show that

to give a brief example this year 3 water races without the hopper of beans 2x2nd 1x3rd and no fed pos , same races last year with the hopper of beans 3x1st ,3rd,4th, and 6th fed...

 

be of interest to read other views on the above above different feeding methods

thank you in advance

[Guest Owen]

Well neila

I do not like to mix barley with other grains except when it comes to feeding youngsters early on. Then I use the barley as a way of working out how much I should feed because I pick up the troughs when they leave the barley. To me pigeons are like dogs because you should never ever leave food lying about. I know the arguments about hoppers but it is a lazy and ineffective way to manage pigeons and it reduces the effectiveness of the training. When I said 70% previously that was what I would call a guesstimate. If anything I probably feed a higher proportion than that.

During the moult I give my birds a protein rich diet in part but the barley is always there. I like to feed Brewers Yeast at that time which is highly digestible and improves the palatability of the food. When the Stock birds are rearing young I like to use pellets and a breeding mix with a reduced amount of maize and no barley. Then when I am racing I use a Hi Fat Mix as a build up feed to flush (increase the nutritional content)of the birds so that they are in a rising condition when they leave here without increasing their weight. Fat pigeons don't win races in my view.

So to answer your question, I have estimated the figure of 70%. The reality is that a big part of livestock management is observation so it is inevitable that adjustments must be made in the feed just like everything else.

[walterboswell59]

sounds far to much like hard work for me guys im afraid im not convinced on the type of feeding you give them as long as its good clean grain i place more importance on the amount we feed our birds most fanciers tend to over feed and as owen has said fat birds dont win jmo

[neila]

Well neila

I do not like to mix barley with other grains except when it comes to feeding youngsters early on. Then I use the barley as a way of working out how much I should feed because I pick up the troughs when they leave the barley. To me pigeons are like dogs because you should never ever leave food lying about. I know the arguments about hoppers but it is a lazy and ineffective way to manage pigeons and it reduces the effectiveness of the training. When I said 70% previously that was what I would call a guesstimate. If anything I probably feed a higher proportion than that.

During the moult I give my birds a protein rich diet in part but the barley is always there. I like to feed Brewers Yeast at that time which is highly digestible and improves the palatability of the food. When the Stock birds are rearing young I like to use pellets and a breeding mix with a reduced amount of maize and no barley. Then when I am racing I use a Hi Fat Mix as a build up feed to flush (increase the nutritional content)of the birds so that they are in a rising condition when they leave here without increasing their weight. Fat pigeons don't win races in my view.

So to answer your question, I have estimated the figure of 70%. The reality is that a big part of livestock management is observation so it is inevitable that adjustments must be made in the feed just like everything else.

 

thank you owen

can I ask would would you add any other carbohydrate grains (maize etc)towards the end of the week and decrease the barley in order for the birds to eat more or would you just increase the fat mix %

[geordie1234]

sounds far to much like hard work for me guys im afraid im not convinced on the type of feeding you give them as long as its good clean grain i place more importance on the amount we feed our birds most fanciers tend to over feed and as owen has said fat birds dont win jmo

Over feeding is an issue I have