New birds to try

[Andy]

That’s just where we are so different Mike. After years of breeding all sorts of livestock and getting to have one of the best dairy herds in the country and being top flyer in a couple of clubs over the years is much more fulfilling to me knowing that I got there through my own dedication, selection and breeding and not someone else’s.

Just as an addition to this when I was farming down in Cornwall we used to show our dairy cattle. We took the decision to only show home bred cows. We didn’t always win but it was great when we won classes, best of breed or supreme champion with home bred stock beating animals that some had brought just for showing.

[Andy]

Andy how would you progress the team if for example you just started up again say had 4 pairs of stock you selected and after 3 years of changing pairs still hadn’t won much at all or even a prize card
Would at that point new birds be introduced or would you carry on with the plan of improvement from what you had
Just say it’s now 5 years into the project all pairs swapped and there progeny bred from and still no red card
Does thee come a point where you give it up as a bad job and start again

There would be no point in keeping on with the same pigeons if no progress was being made. But I think you would have to be very unfortunate if you were unable to improve to some degree. But yes if I was in the position you state I would look to change the stock.

[NeilA]

When you say improvement how much would you look for that to be in what kind of time
Would having returns closer to winners or more returns in quicker times than spaced out or would it mean from say 3 club cards to 3 wins a season

[MIL]

That’s just where we are so different Mike. After years of breeding all sorts of livestock and getting to have one of the best dairy herds in the country and being top flyer in a couple of clubs over the years is much more fulfilling to me knowing that I got there through my own dedication, selection and breeding and not someone else’s.

I understand your way of doing things Andy and I can appreciate that you want to develop your own family of birds and not bring in other pigeons.

That being the case I can't understand why you chose to accept the 4 pairs of Lambrechts that you were offered

(I think that was the correct move if you want to progress in the shorter races - but seems to oppose your core way of developing your own family)

You never answered this Andy.

If you're so focussed on developing your own family with no outside introductions then why accept the Lambrechts?

Whether they were free or given is neither here nor there - its still blood from an outside loft

[Andy]

That’s just where we are so different Mike. After years of breeding all sorts of livestock and getting to have one of the best dairy herds in the country and being top flyer in a couple of clubs over the years is much more fulfilling to me knowing that I got there through my own dedication, selection and breeding and not someone else’s.

I understand your way of doing things Andy and I can appreciate that you want to develop your own family of birds and not bring in other pigeons.

That being the case I can't understand why you chose to accept the 4 pairs of Lambrechts that you were offered

(I think that was the correct move if you want to progress in the shorter races - but seems to oppose your core way of developing your own family)

Hi Mike, I’ll explain where I’m at.

So when I started keeping racing pigeons was with dad and had my own few pigeons from the age of about 10. I started with pigeons from dad and a few gifted by fellow club members at Worthing. The club was a very strong club and I helped with marking the birds and became the clock setter at 13. I left school at 15 and went straight into farming. The milk tanker driver who picked up the milk from the farm was a pigeon fancier from Brighton. He offered me pigeons. I used to go to see him with a crate attached to the back of my motorbike and would come back with the odd pigeons each time, all free. These became my foundation stock. Over the next few years I only introduced the odd new pigeon from fellow club members. I became the top flyer in the club and by the early 90s I was racing widowhood with a team of 12 cocks and would have 3 in the first 6 in the club most weeks flying them up to 350 miles. One week I had the first 6 which was the first time this had been achieved in the clubs 100 year history. This was with rubbers, no ETS back then. I also won a club record of 10 races in one season in a strong club. The only extra pigeons introduced into my family over those years had been 4 Van Hee’s from a friend who was giving up.
In 1994 I moved to Cornwall and took my family of pigeons with me. After a couple of years I was winning regularly down there with mainly the same family that I had taken with me with again just a couple of introductions. After 5 years down in Cornwall I moved to Somerset late 1999. Over the next 5 years I moved 3 times around the same area taking my family of pigeons with me each time. I did win the odd race over that time but as I was now self employed and working 7 days a week and over 100 hours a week especially when I had my own farm, I didn’t have much time to really get them going.
I brought the Pet shop in 2004 but got divorced in 2005 when all the pigeons had to go. I got rid of 30 years of breeding. I didn’t have pigeons for the next 10 years.
In 2015 I managed to persuade my present partner, Roxanna, to allow me to keep pigeons again. I built myself a loft and brought 4 latebreds from Massarella. My intention was to race the distance races and joined the BICC, BBC & CSCFC along with the Frome club in the WOESRC. I joined this forum in 2016 and after making some good friends on here I was gifted some good birds from them. I won my first race back racing in the Frome club. These gifted birds are the foundation of what I have now. I have no pedigrees and don’t know what families they are but not really interested either. All I’m interested in is how they perform for me. At that time I was racing just across the channel with the BICC or CSCFC with their first race being around 200 miles. They were coming reasonably well with a few pigeons flying the channel a number of times. But then Covid hit meaning no channel racing for one year and then followed by Brexit and the other implications that came with it. I had no intention of having vet visits or the time to go to markings so decided to go back to just club racing. At this time I was racing natural and on open loft. After my first season back club racing with Glastonbury in 2023 still racing natural on open loft and with the distance birds I knew things had to change. So I changed back to racing widowhood last year. I have had other introductions but only as gifts from other forum members, the past couple of years from Buster and my brother, Trev, but basically still with the same pigeons. Things weren’t going to bad with the odd cards and not to far behind in a very strong club until the death of our mum half way through the old bird season when things became difficult and I re-paired them for ease of management for the rest of the season.
A very good friend of mine has been offering me sprint stock birds for the last couple of years but as I didn’t want to have prisoners I hadn’t taken them up on the offer. But when asked again last autumn whether I wanted any to help me with sprint racing I finally decided to turn a section into a stock section and take him up on his offer. He actually sent me 6 pairs. Hence the introduction of the Lambrechts.
I will still be breeding from my widowhoods who are all the family of gifted birds that I am blending together. The Lambrechts will be bred from and the offspring tested against the family I have been developing. If things go well they will be blended in with the ones I have. So will be looking to see how these birds perform.

[Andy]

That’s just where we are so different Mike. After years of breeding all sorts of livestock and getting to have one of the best dairy herds in the country and being top flyer in a couple of clubs over the years is much more fulfilling to me knowing that I got there through my own dedication, selection and breeding and not someone else’s.

I understand your way of doing things Andy and I can appreciate that you want to develop your own family of birds and not bring in other pigeons.

That being the case I can't understand why you chose to accept the 4 pairs of Lambrechts that you were offered

(I think that was the correct move if you want to progress in the shorter races - but seems to oppose your core way of developing your own family)

You never answered this Andy.

If you're so focussed on developing your own family with no outside introductions then why accept the Lambrechts?

Whether they were free or given is neither here nor there - its still blood from an outside loft

Sorry Mike it has taken me a while to write my reply. I hope my reply, all be it a bit long answers your question and gives you an insight to my way of doing things. I don’t profess to be a “top class” fancier but enjoy doing things the way I do it. The breeding side is what interests me the most and racing for me is mainly my tool of telling me if my family are improving.

[Andy]

When you say improvement how much would you look for that to be in what kind of time
Would having returns closer to winners or more returns in quicker times than spaced out or would it mean from say 3 club cards to 3 wins a season

It could take a little while and at first the improvements could be small, but as the team develops the improvements should be more noticeable. When I had my first pigeons and raced on my own with the pigeons gifted from Tony, the milk tanker driver and the odd other ones I had from dad in my first season I won a 4th club. This in a club of 40 members. The following season I won a 3rd club. It was four years before I had my first winner, I then won 3 of the next 4 races. From then on I won more firsts and cards every year before moving to Cornwall.

[Buster121]

That’s just where we are so different Mike. After years of breeding all sorts of livestock and getting to have one of the best dairy herds in the country and being top flyer in a couple of clubs over the years is much more fulfilling to me knowing that I got there through my own dedication, selection and breeding and not someone else’s.

I understand your way of doing things Andy and I can appreciate that you want to develop your own family of birds and not bring in other pigeons.

That being the case I can't understand why you chose to accept the 4 pairs of Lambrechts that you were offered

(I think that was the correct move if you want to progress in the shorter races - but seems to oppose your core way of developing your own family)

Hi Mike, I’ll explain where I’m at.

So when I started keeping racing pigeons was with dad and had my own few pigeons from the age of about 10. I started with pigeons from dad and a few gifted by fellow club members at Worthing. The club was a very strong club and I helped with marking the birds and became the clock setter at 13. I left school at 15 and went straight into farming. The milk tanker driver who picked up the milk from the farm was a pigeon fancier from Brighton. He offered me pigeons. I used to go to see him with a crate attached to the back of my motorbike and would come back with the odd pigeons each time, all free. These became my foundation stock. Over the next few years I only introduced the odd new pigeon from fellow club members. I became the top flyer in the club and by the early 90s I was racing widowhood with a team of 12 cocks and would have 3 in the first 6 in the club most weeks flying them up to 350 miles. One week I had the first 6 which was the first time this had been achieved in the clubs 100 year history. This was with rubbers, no ETS back then. I also won a club record of 10 races in one season in a strong club. The only extra pigeons introduced into my family over those years had been 4 Van Hee’s from a friend who was giving up.
In 1994 I moved to Cornwall and took my family of pigeons with me. After a couple of years I was winning regularly down there with mainly the same family that I had taken with me with again just a couple of introductions. After 5 years down in Cornwall I moved to Somerset late 1999. Over the next 5 years I moved 3 times around the same area taking my family of pigeons with me each time. I did win the odd race over that time but as I was now self employed and working 7 days a week and over 100 hours a week especially when I had my own farm, I didn’t have much time to really get them going.
I brought the Pet shop in 2004 but got divorced in 2005 when all the pigeons had to go. I got rid of 30 years of breeding. I didn’t have pigeons for the next 10 years.
In 2015 I managed to persuade my present partner, Roxanna, to allow me to keep pigeons again. I built myself a loft and brought 4 latebreds from Massarella. My intention was to race the distance races and joined the BICC, BBC & CSCFC along with the Frome club in the WOESRC. I joined this forum in 2016 and after making some good friends on here I was gifted some good birds from them. I won my first race back racing in the Frome club. These gifted birds are the foundation of what I have now. I have no pedigrees and don’t know what families they are but not really interested either. All I’m interested in is how they perform for me. At that time I was racing just across the channel with the BICC or CSCFC with their first race being around 200 miles. They were coming reasonably well with a few pigeons flying the channel a number of times. But then Covid hit meaning no channel racing for one year and then followed by Brexit and the other implications that came with it. I had no intention of having vet visits or the time to go to markings so decided to go back to just club racing. At this time I was racing natural and on open loft. After my first season back club racing with Glastonbury in 2023 still racing natural on open loft and with the distance birds I knew things had to change. So I changed back to racing widowhood last year. I have had other introductions but only as gifts from other forum members, the past couple of years from Buster and my brother, Trev, but basically still with the same pigeons. Things weren’t going to bad with the odd cards and not to far behind in a very strong club until the death of our mum half way through the old bird season when things became difficult and I re-paired them for ease of management for the rest of the season.
A very good friend of mine has been offering me sprint stock birds for the last couple of years but as I didn’t want to have prisoners I hadn’t taken them up on the offer. But when asked again last autumn whether I wanted any to help me with sprint racing I finally decided to turn a section into a stock section and take him up on his offer. He actually sent me 6 pairs. Hence the introduction of the Lambrechts.
I will still be breeding from my widowhoods who are all the family of gifted birds that I am blending together. The Lambrechts will be bred from and the offspring tested against the family I have been developing. If things go well they will be blended in with the ones I have. So will be looking to see how these birds perform.

Well done Andy and I hope you do well with the new ones and continue to do so

[goose1]

Anyone can breed a family of pigeons that is easy, but very few can breed a family of winning pigeons. I'm not sure a family is all that important for sprint racing as the top lads change pigeons regularly for various reasons and win. Let's use Neil or Mike on here, two top sprint fanciers (who would no doubt win from further if they were that way inclined) you could give them well bred pigeons from any family or line and I would bet good money they would win with them. However when you get to 500 mile plus and possibly even a little less given the difficulties in racing now I feel a family of proven performers at the distance are golden. But there are very very few genuine family's of distance pigeons about now. I think when Brian Denney was at his peak, lets say from around 2005 through to 2011 that was as good as you could get a family of pigeons to perform. 730 ish miles, team performances at racing velocities. 40 plus years of breeding and working on a family, to me pigeon racing doesn't get any better than that. The one who springs to mind today who has a genuine family of winning distance pigeons is Mark Bulled. I've turned this into a distance post just because if you aren't into distance racing I definitely wouldn't get too hung up on creating a family I would be more concerned with refining my methods and management to gain every yard I could.
But like everything in this sport if the fancier is happy doing what he's doing then that's all that matters.

[PeteDerby]

Makes a lot of sense that goose1