How Do You Pair Up?

[Kennybhoy]

This will be my first year pairing up my birds I've got 26 cocks 18 hens and 10 stock birds,just wondering how other fanciers do it,any advice welcome with me being a novice

[dal2]

Shut cock and hen in box for three or four days letting them out maybe 2 times a day for time on the floor. Water on the box all the time and half a brick for the hen, sometimes the cock, tae get out of fighting range. Put nest bowl in after 5 days and keep locked up until you check if eggs are full. After that its up to you, just let them out and they should be settled to their own box.

 

Time consuming but cuts down on smashed eggs and fighting.

 

 

Yu could also just fling bowls in and let them get on with it

[geordie1234]

You no had the birds and the bees chat yet Kenny lol

 

I'd follow what Dal said mate or if your not bothered about who goes with who then put the bowls in and leave em to it

[Kennybhoy]

You no had the birds and the bees chat yet Kenny lol

Wiz hoping you about birds and the bees at the agm bud lol

I'd follow what Dal said mate or if your not bothered about who goes with who then put the bowls in and leave em to it

[Kennybhoy]

Shut cock and hen in box for three or four days letting them out maybe 2 times a day for time on the floor. Water on the box all the time and half a brick for the hen, sometimes the cock, tae get out of fighting range. Put nest bowl in after 5 days and keep locked up until you check if eggs are full. After that its up to you, just let them out and they should be settled to their own box.

 

Time consuming but cuts down on smashed eggs and fighting.

 

 

Yu could also just fling bowls in and let them get on with it

Cheers dal..

Wae me being a novice am in no way experienced enuf tae go wae eye sign or wing or body type yet..just confuse masel and the birds tae prob..lol

[dal2]

Cheers dal..

Wae me being a novice am in no way experienced enuf tae go wae eye sign or wing or body type yet..just confuse masel and the birds tae prob..lol

Forget eyesign, wing and body completely and concentrate 100% on blood

[Tony C]

To make things easier for when you do pair up lock their prospective mate in with them for the odd day here & there during the winter months.

[yeboah]

Leave the cocks in a section and let them settle to a box through the winter is ideal

Close off half the box and put the hen you fancy pairing to that particular cock in with food and water

Leave for couple of days the cock will fly up and down from his box showing to the hen

When you see they are keen let them together in a closed box keeping an eye all is well with food and water

Then let a couple of pair out the cock will take his mate back to the box

Simples

[ovy1255]

planning kenny--loads to do before pairing--seperate sexes and get them through the moult remembering to get your vaccine and get them jabbed early ,feed acording to feel of birds you dont want them too fat and remember plenty grit and crush some calcium tablets up and stick on the corn.useing lemon juice. and get some wheatgerm oil for the corn.

you dont want any spare cocks running in with paired birds [egg breakers]

so all them spare cocks fly out seperately and are in different shed.if you have any meds to give forget it when you have babies in the nest ,so if you are worming ,canker treatment etc do it early.

[walterboswell59]

100 percent agree with mick winter the cocks in the section with the nest boxes open make sure the same amount of cocks as boxes or even better more boxes than cocks and they will sort themselves out good luck with your first years breeding kenny pair best to best or what you think is your best blood to best blood when your just starting out floating as many eggs off your best pair as you can better to have 10 or 12 yb off your best pairs as 10 or 12 off birds that have not proved themselves use them as feeders

[andy Burgess]

100 percent agree with mick winter the cocks in the section with the nest boxes open make sure the same amount of cocks as boxes or even better more boxes than cocks and they will sort themselves out good luck with your first years breeding kenny pair best to best or what you think is your best blood to best blood when your just starting out floating as many eggs off your best pair as you can better to have 10 or 12 yb off your best pairs as 10 or 12 off birds that have not proved themselves use them as feeders

 

 

that last line is a "golden nugget"

[dal2]

100 percent agree with mick winter the cocks in the section with the nest boxes open make sure the same amount of cocks as boxes or even better more boxes than cocks and they will sort themselves out good luck with your first years breeding kenny pair best to best or what you think is your best blood to best blood when your just starting out floating as many eggs off your best pair as you can better to have 10 or 12 yb off your best pairs as 10 or 12 off birds that have not proved themselves use them as feeders

Stock birds with the right blood will not have proven anything when he is just starting tho Walter

[walterboswell59]

Stock birds with the right blood will not have proven anything when he is just starting tho Walter

i know that stevie but you have to start somewhere m8 and his old man is a top doo man so im sure he will keep him right

[geordie1234]

He has 2 class cocks there that if I was him I'd be bulling them

[Guest Owen]

I will tell you how I do things.

First of all I never pair racing pigeons.

I pair the stock birds by switching the lights on to give them 16 hours of light on a time switch. The type of light you need are the daylight tubular lights which gives off a white light. The light comes on early in the morning and goes off at mid day so that the birds go to bed with the natural twilight. This avoids birds being caught on the floor when the lights go off. Prior to pairing my birds are on about 75% barley so about two weeks before pairing I change their food to 50% barley and 50% Widowhood which, together with the increased light makes the birds ready to mate. The cocks will be in their own section and as there are no perches they will have claimed a box. I place half a brick into the nest box and put the hen in with the cock and lock them in for about 3/4 days. The half brick is for the hen to climb on if the cock gets too aggressive. Don't use whole bricks because the cock will climb up and be able to attack the hen if he is one of those wife beaters. After 3/4 days the birds should have mated so out comes the brick and in goes the nest pan. I then let the birds out under supervision until they are all sure about which nest box they should have. Any pairs that have not mated are split. Due to the light and the extra feed this would be very rare. Doing it this way will get all the pairs to go down on eggs at about 10 days. This year all my birds except one pair laid on the same day. The odd ones out laid on the next day. When the birds have been sitting for 10 days I check the eggs for fertility and where only one egg is fertile I put it into a nest with two eggs fertile and let the parent birds go down again. The nest that have three youngsters will be fine as the old birds will rear three with ease providing they are in top health.

Don't forget to treat your birds for worms cocci and canker well before they paired up and make sure that they have been vaccinated.

I hope this helps.

[MIK]

I will tell you how I do things.

First of all I never pair racing pigeons.

I pair the stock birds by switching the lights on to give them 16 hours of light on a time switch. The type of light you need are the daylight tubular lights which gives off a white light. The light comes on early in the morning and goes off at mid day so that the birds go to bed with the natural twilight. This avoids birds being caught on the floor when the lights go off. Prior to pairing my birds are on about 75% barley so about two weeks before pairing I change their food to 50% barley and 50% Widowhood which, together with the increased light makes the birds ready to mate. The cocks will be in their own section and as there are no perches they will have claimed a box. I place half a brick into the nest box and put the hen in with the cock and lock them in for about 3/4 days. The half brick is for the hen to climb on if the cock gets too aggressive. Don't use whole bricks because the cock will climb up and be able to attack the hen if he is one of those wife beaters. After 3/4 days the birds should have mated so out comes the brick and in goes the nest pan. I then let the birds out under supervision until they are all sure about which nest box they should have. Any pairs that have not mated are split. Due to the light and the extra feed this would be very rare. Doing it this way will get all the pairs to go down on eggs at about 10 days. This year all my birds except one pair laid on the same day. The odd ones out laid on the next day. When the birds have been sitting for 10 days I check the eggs for fertility and where only one egg is fertile I put it into a nest with two eggs fertile and let the parent birds go down again. The nest that have three youngsters will be fine as the old birds will rear three with ease providing they are in top health.

Don't forget to treat your birds for worms cocci and canker well before they paired up and make sure that they have been vaccinated.

I hope this helps.

 

 

Owen with the floated egg ...how will you know which young is from which pair?

Mick

[Guest Owen]

MIK

I try to make sure that I select a pair of adoptive parents that are different from the blood family. Most of the time I find it easy to identify the adopted bird because it would be a different colour to the blood parents. I will deliberately take an egg from a pair of Dark Checkers and put it under a pair of Blues because it should be easy to recognise the adopted bird. It has never been a big problem for me because most of the time the eggs are full. At one time I used to suffer with fighting cocks which resulted in broken eggs but these days the cocks live in their boxes all the year so are far less likely to get involved in disputes. This year I had 30 eggs from 30 birds and I had just three that were infertile and one broken. I turned out that one of the cocks had become infertile so I used that pair as feeders.

[MIK]

MIK

I try to make sure that I select a pair of adoptive parents that are different from the blood family. Most of the time I find it easy to identify the adopted bird because it would be a different colour to the blood parents. I will deliberately take an egg from a pair of Dark Checkers and put it under a pair of Blues because it should be easy to recognise the adopted bird. It has never been a big problem for me because most of the time the eggs are full. At one time I used to suffer with fighting cocks which resulted in broken eggs but these days the cocks live in their boxes all the year so are far less likely to get involved in disputes. This year I had 30 eggs from 30 birds and I had just three that were infertile and one broken. I turned out that one of the cocks had become infertile so I used that pair as feeders.

 

thanks for reply Owen

you say most of the time you find it easy, so does that mean there are times you struggle with true parentage by doing this?

 

Mick

[Delboy]

He has 2 class cocks there that if I was him I'd be bulling them

 

He has one the same way bred as my 2nd west sect yb nat this year also