Again this is relative to what kind of racing your into i would say Mike? Because you will be very very lucky to find a stock hen that bangs 500 Mile winners out year after year. If a pigeon has produced you a top performer at the distance you will definitely keep hold of it for longer than you would a pigeon that bred a winner at 90 mile two year ago. Obviously the actual races you can fly to test a sprinter are far greater, for the vast majority of the country you can't compete in more than 4/5 races of over 500 mile a year (and recently its been far less due to covid/brexit) so I'd be far less harsh on people keeping distance pigeons longer than someone would a sprinters. At the same time any 11 year old should have produced a few good performing pigeons regardless of the distance.MIL wrote: ↑Sun Feb 09, 2025 11:00 amWhen you stop laughing maybe you can answer the question
2 x 11 year old hens
What winners etc have they produced to be worthy of staying so long?
If they're banging them out (winners) pretty regularly then fair play to you
If I had a 3 year old hen at Stock it was there because it was breeding winners - and not just 1 either
At our own loft our oldest stock hen is 10 (majority are between yearlings and 5yo) she was a good racer 1st sec 527 mile on day, 2nd amal 10th combine 503 mile on a real tough race, third time she went to the distance she returned badly hawked and was retired. Since then she's bred 1st fed 350 mile, 3rd fed (beaten by loftmates 350 mile), 1st sec 625 mile, gdam to 3rd combine 278 mile, ggd to 1st combine 497 mile. Plus lots and lots more I've just picked the best performer from each generation.