Selection Criteria

[Anthony webster]

Thanks for your reply Tony. Flying over is certainly something I hope the widowhood may help prevent. The trouble is the race program of our combine is crap to say the least. The first 3 races are only 34 miles for me. 7 of the 12 old bird races are from this race point. The longest old bird race is 118 miles for me. Young birds it’s 102 miles. Our club are hoping to join another club to be convoyed to their longest races.
Our first race is this Saturday.

My north Rd I'm short flyer first race 34 miles n 6 races under 90 miles before there's a 100 mile race,
These really short races don't interest me I love sprinting but 34 miles think this is totally different to normal sprint racing.

[Andy]

Thanks for your reply Tony. Flying over is certainly something I hope the widowhood may help prevent. The trouble is the race program of our combine is crap to say the least. The first 3 races are only 34 miles for me. 7 of the 12 old bird races are from this race point. The longest old bird race is 118 miles for me. Young birds it’s 102 miles. Our club are hoping to join another club to be convoyed to their longest races.
Our first race is this Saturday.

My north Rd I'm short flyer first race 34 miles n 6 races under 90 miles before there's a 100 mile race,
These really short races don't interest me I love sprinting but 34 miles think this is totally different to normal sprint racing.

I always enjoyed sprint racing when back in Worthing. But our first race there was from 90 miles. The cocks would go every week apart from the 2 longest races being Stonehaven 431 miles and Thurso 550 miles. So their program would be, 90mls, 108mls, 160mls, 108mls, 160mls, 202mls, 268mls, 108mls, 350mls, 108mls. The 350 miles being Berwick. This was more of a middle distance race but one year the same cock who won the first race at 90mls plus a couple more was also 3rd club from Berwick.
As you say 34mls is a joke even for sprinting. I still won’t object to winning it though lol.

[MIL]

I was told many years ago that "A Man who thinks he knows everything, learns nothing" something I have always tried to live by.
Being part of a strong and very social pigeon club once again, I've had numerous conversations with some very good fliers, one of the topics was on selection. We all have our ways of deciding what has to go and what stays, even if like me, you are too soft and just keep building bigger sheds to house all those birds you can't get rid of lol
Since starting up with birds again in 2016 I have once again ended up with far too many birds and don't have the space to keep doing that so each year some birds sadly do have to move on. They do however need to be really useless or not in the best of health for me to make that decision, I'd rather lose them on the road where possible.
Now one members methods of selection struck me as being such a simple yet clever idea. All he does is score every bird in his race team with the position they arrive from each race they have, at the end of the season he will add all these points together and divide it by the amount of races they've had, this becomes their score. The 20 birds with the lowest score will go back in the race loft, everything else goes.
Now bearing in mind, this member will often take the first half a dozen or more positions in the club and federation, and that many of these birds would have won themselves if not for loft mates and often just a quicker trap, a lot of the birds he gets rid of each year are still better than the best many of us have in entire lofts He won't sell his birds but does like to help the novice, or like me, someone who is just looking to improve their own stock so will try to find homes for these birds where he can.
I applied the same method to my own team last season and the results are very useful, both in selecting which my better racers should be and who my better breeders potentially are too. I've still not managed to move many on though so will have a large race team again but it has definitely helped me be more selective with my breeding.
So I'm interested in hearing what others do

I no longer race, but I do kinda help Phil Bourke in Burton on Trent with a few things here and there when asked (He's my builder).

This winter we wrote down all the racers that had scored and they achieved scores of 5,4,3,2,1 depending if they were placed 1,2,3,4,5

Same happened at Stock. Their offspring were awarded points of 5,4,3,2,1 if they finished 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 5th

By doing that we got a clear picture of where the performers were (the breeders)

The focus is now built on those birds

The background, cost, pedigree etc does not come into the equation.

[Murray]

I was told many years ago that "A Man who thinks he knows everything, learns nothing" something I have always tried to live by.
Being part of a strong and very social pigeon club once again, I've had numerous conversations with some very good fliers, one of the topics was on selection. We all have our ways of deciding what has to go and what stays, even if like me, you are too soft and just keep building bigger sheds to house all those birds you can't get rid of lol
Since starting up with birds again in 2016 I have once again ended up with far too many birds and don't have the space to keep doing that so each year some birds sadly do have to move on. They do however need to be really useless or not in the best of health for me to make that decision, I'd rather lose them on the road where possible.
Now one members methods of selection struck me as being such a simple yet clever idea. All he does is score every bird in his race team with the position they arrive from each race they have, at the end of the season he will add all these points together and divide it by the amount of races they've had, this becomes their score. The 20 birds with the lowest score will go back in the race loft, everything else goes.
Now bearing in mind, this member will often take the first half a dozen or more positions in the club and federation, and that many of these birds would have won themselves if not for loft mates and often just a quicker trap, a lot of the birds he gets rid of each year are still better than the best many of us have in entire lofts He won't sell his birds but does like to help the novice, or like me, someone who is just looking to improve their own stock so will try to find homes for these birds where he can.
I applied the same method to my own team last season and the results are very useful, both in selecting which my better racers should be and who my better breeders potentially are too. I've still not managed to move many on though so will have a large race team again but it has definitely helped me be more selective with my breeding.
So I'm interested in hearing what others do

Funny you should say that, Trev. That's exactly what I used to do with my young birds back in New Zealand many years ago.
Every week the first one on the board scored a 1. The second one a 2, etc. By the end of the YB season it was obvious which ones had performed best.
I have always been a small loft flyer so boxes in the widowhood loft had to earned.
At one time there were 9 widowers in the 9 boxes. 8 of them had won at least one race.
Here in Australia, out in the country where I live, selection is not so much of a problem. The hawks do a lot of that for you.......

[Anthony webster]

I was told many years ago that "A Man who thinks he knows everything, learns nothing" something I have always tried to live by.
Being part of a strong and very social pigeon club once again, I've had numerous conversations with some very good fliers, one of the topics was on selection. We all have our ways of deciding what has to go and what stays, even if like me, you are too soft and just keep building bigger sheds to house all those birds you can't get rid of lol
Since starting up with birds again in 2016 I have once again ended up with far too many birds and don't have the space to keep doing that so each year some birds sadly do have to move on. They do however need to be really useless or not in the best of health for me to make that decision, I'd rather lose them on the road where possible.
Now one members methods of selection struck me as being such a simple yet clever idea. All he does is score every bird in his race team with the position they arrive from each race they have, at the end of the season he will add all these points together and divide it by the amount of races they've had, this becomes their score. The 20 birds with the lowest score will go back in the race loft, everything else goes.
Now bearing in mind, this member will often take the first half a dozen or more positions in the club and federation, and that many of these birds would have won themselves if not for loft mates and often just a quicker trap, a lot of the birds he gets rid of each year are still better than the best many of us have in entire lofts He won't sell his birds but does like to help the novice, or like me, someone who is just looking to improve their own stock so will try to find homes for these birds where he can.
I applied the same method to my own team last season and the results are very useful, both in selecting which my better racers should be and who my better breeders potentially are too. I've still not managed to move many on though so will have a large race team again but it has definitely helped me be more selective with my breeding.
So I'm interested in hearing what others do

I no longer race, but I do kinda help Phil Bourke in Burton on Trent with a few things here and there when asked (He's my builder).

This winter we wrote down all the racers that had scored and they achieved scores of 5,4,3,2,1 depending if they were placed 1,2,3,4,5

Same happened at Stock. Their offspring were awarded points of 5,4,3,2,1 if they finished 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 5th

By doing that we got a clear picture of where the performers were (the breeders)

The focus is now built on those birds

The background, cost, pedigree etc does not come into the equation.

I do very similar here first bird gets 10 points but if there's a few together they all get 10 points they get 1 to 2 mins then I pull my clock out I'm not interested in pigeons that are 1 to miles behind the leaders
At end of season I had the points up birds with the most stay others are removed and stock the same.

[Trev]

Thanks for your replies all, some very interesting reading, again this is down to the individual and really does depend on what you want to achieve and how much space or time you have to do it.
For me this year I just have far too many birds and everything that can race will have to be pushed to their limits.