Pigeon Strain ?

[philg50]

Has anyone on here heard of Sherlacken pigeons or am i just dreamen the name up & does anyone know who flys them today.

[Guest stb-]

http://www.schaerlaeckens.com/

[just ask me]

he dont belive in strains in himself just good birds he writes some great stuff

[philg50]

I am of the same opinion if you start looking into a strain you find they are called one thing but in reality they are a mixture of peoples pigeons ie sherlakens have Hoffkin,Janssen and what ever else god knows through them I often think rather than look for something special I should take my own advice and stop getting caught up in the strain game and concentrate on what we have,but its just the lure of the adverts.

[Wiley]

I am of the same opinion if you start looking into a strain you find they are called one thing but in reality they are a mixture of peoples pigeons ie sherlakens have Hoffkin,Janssen and what ever else god knows through them I often think rather than look for something special I should take my own advice and stop getting caught up in the strain game and concentrate on what we have,but its just the lure of the adverts.

 

Phil, as JAM says Ad, doesn't believe in strains, like most Dutch and Belgians he believes in Crossings. He states only his buyers want pure breds, but they leave him the crossings. It seems to be a British thing that you must have pure this and pure that.

[Guest Owen]

At one time I was caught up in the idea that there were strains of pigeons and I was even silly enough to believe that people had strains descended from breeders who had them many years ago. When I read the adverts and see people seriously advertising strains that are supposed to pure whatever from long dead fanciers I know that people who buy them have got caught up in the hype. Many of the old strains never existed in the first place because the originators never made any attempt to keep them pure. These days I take a completely different approach to it all. I want to keep pigeons that win races and nothing more and nothing less. I have birds that come to me as pure something or other but I will completely ignore what they are supposed to be and pair them as I think fit regardless of what strain they are said to be. The result is that I have cross bred pigeons that win races. The last thing I would want are pigeons that are supposed to be from a strain but sit in my loft always down the list when it comes to racing. People who keep these prima donnas usually have to buy more each year because they usually lose birds like those.

[Guest stb-]

At one time I was caught up in the idea that there were strains of pigeons and I was even silly enough to believe that people had strains descended from breeders who had them many years ago. When I read the adverts and see people seriously advertising strains that are supposed to pure whatever from long dead fanciers I know that people who buy them have got caught up in the hype. Many of the old strains never existed in the first place because the originators never made any attempt to keep them pure. These days I take a completely different approach to it all. I want to keep pigeons that win races and nothing more and nothing less. I have birds that come to me as pure something or other but I will completely ignore what they are supposed to be and pair them as I think fit regardless of what strain they are said to be. The result is that I have cross bred pigeons that win races. The last thing I would want are pigeons that are supposed to be from a strain but sit in my loft always down the list when it comes to racing. People who keep these prima donnas usually have to buy more each year because they usually lose birds like those.

I dont know about strains and know theres no pure anything in racing pigeons but i would have families of birds which were brought in, in 1988 eg my van reet family also have another family of van loons , i havnt crossed anything into the original van reets since 1988 and neither the van loons , as long as there winning i dont see any need to cross them although some who have had them have crossed them with great results . The day will prob come when they do need crossed but if it aint brocken best left as is .

[just ask me]

im just in the middle of trying to find the last 10 middle distance champions of Belgium so far from what ive seen there all crossed

 

ad talks a good bit about it

[Guest Owen]

stb

I think you have hit the dilemma that many breeders of quality livestock hit. Irrespective of the origins of your pigeons the only thing that matters is whether they consistently perform well. That being the case creating plans to continue breeding at the level you have reached is difficult. We all know people who have managed to get onto the first step and produce several top birds only to lose them again later then to sink back to the average flyers they once were. I also know plenty of people who have bred or acquired a top individual pigeon and enjoyed success with it for a short while only to either lose it or to fail to breed anything any good from it.

I think if I were in your position I to would be cautious about introducing crosses. I am in a fortunate position compared to people like yourself because my team of racers are all crosses. My strategy has been to try to preserve the winning genes regardless of where they come from. I don't believe that the genetic make up of a top pigeon is a simple thing and there are a huge mix of factors that are involved in it's make up. So my approach is to select almost blindly for my breeding stock with only one thing in mind, winning genes even if I can't identify them specifically. I never look at colour, size, shape or anything physical at all. Just performance taking the attitude that the more good performances the better. I heard the morning that the Oaks Winner is pregnant to Frankel and has been bought for £4,000,000. I reckon that the new owner of that mare is doing what you and I are doing. Selecting for winning genes. I have always thought that the breeders of race horses are great examples to us because their only judgement is performance. In spite of all the money invested in the stud farms they are in the same position as we are in that selection is either an educated guess based on performance or pure luck. By the way, I think it is refreshing to hear that there are some of us who do not use untried unproven paper pigeons to breed youngsters.

[Kyleakin Lofts]

stb

I think you have hit the dilemma that many breeders of quality livestock hit. Irrespective of the origins of your pigeons the only thing that matters is whether they consistently perform well. That being the case creating plans to continue breeding at the level you have reached is difficult. We all know people who have managed to get onto the first step and produce several top birds only to lose them again later then to sink back to the average flyers they once were. I also know plenty of people who have bred or acquired a top individual pigeon and enjoyed success with it for a short while only to either lose it or to fail to breed anything any good from it.

I think if I were in your position I to would be cautious about introducing crosses. I am in a fortunate position compared to people like yourself because my team of racers are all crosses. My strategy has been to try to preserve the winning genes regardless of where they come from. I don't believe that the genetic make up of a top pigeon is a simple thing and there are a huge mix of factors that are involved in it's make up. So my approach is to select almost blindly for my breeding stock with only one thing in mind, winning genes even if I can't identify them specifically. I never look at colour, size, shape or anything physical at all. Just performance taking the attitude that the more good performances the better. I heard the morning that the Oaks Winner is pregnant to Frankel and has been bought for £4,000,000. I reckon that the new owner of that mare is doing what you and I are doing. Selecting for winning genes. I have always thought that the breeders of race horses are great examples to us because their only judgement is performance. In spite of all the money invested in the stud farms they are in the same position as we are in that selection is either an educated guess based on performance or pure luck. By the way, I think it is refreshing to hear that there are some of us who do not use untried unproven paper pigeons to breed youngsters.

 

Owen, new starts have to use untried, unproven paper pigeons to breed youngsters.

The important point is where they go from there.

How long do they allow for their own inadequacies before blaming the birds and looking to improve their producers?

 

For myself, I have found that only a few of my original paper pigeons are still here. That is the ones whose youngsters have became proven, albeit at short distances, whilst the others have failed. The common factor is that they became proven under the same mis-management under which the others failed. There are some other paper pigeons here that are being tried and tested via their youngsters and the jury is still out regarding them. Another pleasing factor is that some youngsters have performed under different management, OLR, and some birds are on loan where their youngsters are performing well, so they are becoming proven.

[Guest Owen]

Andy

you have just done a good job by describing the situation I was once in. The way I got out of it was as follows. When I discussed the situation with a close friend we came to the conclusion that we didn't know where the fault lay. So we decided on basically two courses of action. First I asked several very good flyers to accept youngsters from me on the agreed basis that they would fly them with their own team. I was shocked by the results. Some of my birds flew very well and one of them was second National three times before winning first National. The best I could do was roughly 10th Club and my losses were terrible. Second my friend and I decided to break the sport down into sections and study each section to work out where I was going wrong. We started with ventilation and identified all the best lofts here in South Wales and made a list of the way they had the ventilation working. I was lucky that my son had emigrated to America which gave me the chance to look at the way the Americans did it and finally I looked at Continental lofts. After ventilation it was nutrition and after that breeding techniques. At one time I believed that there were strains of pigeons and that the best way to breed was to stick to the strains by mating like with like. I soon found out that that was totally wrong because to keep a strain together I would keep birds that had done nothing on the road which was really stupid. Then I had got involved in inbreeding which again was stupid and got me nowhere. The breakthrough came for me when I started to study race horse pedigrees and realised that the only path to breeding winners was to continually cross breed the best birds I had. I later found out that the Belgium's have been doing that all along and allowing us stupid Brits to think otherwise.

The situation with the birds improved continually until I was able to dominate the Club sprint races and scoring very highly in the Fed. I really don't think there is a golden bullet in becoming good at racing pigeons, it is just common sense and hard work trying to learn how to do things. The one tip I would give people is to ignore advice from anyone but the very best people because I have been given tons of advice most of which has been rubbish. Starting earlier this year I have sent my birds to longer races with the intention of developing birds that can score from overseas. I have won 3rd and 4th National, the first 7 in the Club from Carentan and other very good positions. Next year I have a nice team of Celibate Cocks available to compete in selected National races. So it's fingers crossed and hope for that bit of luck.

[Kyleakin Lofts]

Andy

you have just done a good job by describing the situation I was once in. The way I got out of it was as follows. When I discussed the situation with a close friend we came to the conclusion that we didn't know where the fault lay. So we decided on basically two courses of action. First I asked several very good flyers to accept youngsters from me on the agreed basis that they would fly them with their own team. I was shocked by the results. Some of my birds flew very well and one of them was second National three times before winning first National. The best I could do was roughly 10th Club and my losses were terrible. Second my friend and I decided to break the sport down into sections and study each section to work out where I was going wrong. We started with ventilation and identified all the best lofts here in South Wales and made a list of the way they had the ventilation working. I was lucky that my son had emigrated to America which gave me the chance to look at the way the Americans did it and finally I looked at Continental lofts. After ventilation it was nutrition and after that breeding techniques. At one time I believed that there were strains of pigeons and that the best way to breed was to stick to the strains by mating like with like. I soon found out that that was totally wrong because to keep a strain together I would keep birds that had done nothing on the road which was really stupid. Then I had got involved in inbreeding which again was stupid and got me nowhere. The breakthrough came for me when I started to study race horse pedigrees and realised that the only path to breeding winners was to continually cross breed the best birds I had. I later found out that the Belgium's have been doing that all along and allowing us stupid Brits to think otherwise.

The situation with the birds improved continually until I was able to dominate the Club sprint races and scoring very highly in the Fed. I really don't think there is a golden bullet in becoming good at racing pigeons, it is just common sense and hard work trying to learn how to do things. The one tip I would give people is to ignore advice from anyone but the very best people because I have been given tons of advice most of which has been rubbish. Starting earlier this year I have sent my birds to longer races with the intention of developing birds that can score from overseas. I have won 3rd and 4th National, the first 7 in the Club from Carentan and other very good positions. Next year I have a nice team of Celibate Cocks available to compete in selected National races. So it's fingers crossed and hope for that bit of luck.

 

What a good post for new starters to mull over and digest. Some good practical advice.

[alex young]

What a good post for new starters to mull over and digest. Some good practical advice.

Yes,a very interesting thread all-round.Well done lads.