What makes a bird qualify to stay another season in your team and program

[Albert]

Good subject Danny, not something I've ever had to do.
With regards young birds. I have always tried my best to lose them. What is left is usually worthy of a perch. Sometimes I get a few that have worked back but not usually done enough, these are usually first to go down as yearlings although I have had one or two fair ones over the years.
Old birds, I only enjoy the distance and the channel races usually sort them out for me and keep my numbers down which is sometimes hard to stomach with 3 n 4 year old birds that you have invested a lot of time and effort into.
It suits me as I don't like culling but don't have a problem if I have to.

Send them to the well once too often, sadly part of life.

[Tony-P-]

Well there's a saying that if you move any bird on, they can never prove you wrong.

I've raced against a few fanciers who were very strict on what was worth keeping. I myself kept EVERY YB at the end of the season (as my YB team was never bigger than 24 birds at the start) In fact I've never moved on a race bird that wasn't ill or injured. The basket found out the ones that were no good.
Many birds that these fanciers would have certainly moved on, went on to do well. My last Winner before I stopped racing had just one race as a YB and came the following morning. It was 1st club, 3rd Fed as a 2 years old, having carded as a yearling. I made a point of telling these fanciers it's history just to wind them up

Great that King some birds come better as they get older

[king]

Well there's a saying that if you move any bird on, they can never prove you wrong.

I've raced against a few fanciers who were very strict on what was worth keeping. I myself kept EVERY YB at the end of the season (as my YB team was never bigger than 24 birds at the start) In fact I've never moved on a race bird that wasn't ill or injured. The basket found out the ones that were no good.
Many birds that these fanciers would have certainly moved on, went on to do well. My last Winner before I stopped racing had just one race as a YB and came the following morning. It was 1st club, 3rd Fed as a 2 years old, having carded as a yearling. I made a point of telling these fanciers it's history just to wind them up

Great that King some birds come better as they get older

I'm not saying many get better as they get older, but many that make mistakes, learn from that mistake and do make better birds. Don't confuse this with birds that keep making mistakes. One thing that I would not tolerate is birds going 'fielding'. Any bird that returned from time out. Was let out alone and if it went to the field it was moved on.

[Tony-P-]

Well there's a saying that if you move any bird on, they can never prove you wrong.

I've raced against a few fanciers who were very strict on what was worth keeping. I myself kept EVERY YB at the end of the season (as my YB team was never bigger than 24 birds at the start) In fact I've never moved on a race bird that wasn't ill or injured. The basket found out the ones that were no good.
Many birds that these fanciers would have certainly moved on, went on to do well. My last Winner before I stopped racing had just one race as a YB and came the following morning. It was 1st club, 3rd Fed as a 2 years old, having carded as a yearling. I made a point of telling these fanciers it's history just to wind them up

Great that King some birds come better as they get older

I'm not saying many get better as they get older, but many that make mistakes, learn from that mistake and do make better birds. Don't confuse this with birds that keep making mistakes. One thing that I would not tolerate is birds going 'fielding'. Any bird that returned from time out. Was let out alone and if it went to the field it was moved on.

Sounds like good advice King

[Andy]

Well there's a saying that if you move any bird on, they can never prove you wrong.

I've raced against a few fanciers who were very strict on what was worth keeping. I myself kept EVERY YB at the end of the season (as my YB team was never bigger than 24 birds at the start) In fact I've never moved on a race bird that wasn't ill or injured. The basket found out the ones that were no good.
Many birds that these fanciers would have certainly moved on, went on to do well. My last Winner before I stopped racing had just one race as a YB and came the following morning. It was 1st club, 3rd Fed as a 2 years old, having carded as a yearling. I made a point of telling these fanciers it's history just to wind them up

Great that King some birds come better as they get older

I'm not saying many get better as they get older, but many that make mistakes, learn from that mistake and do make better birds. Don't confuse this with birds that keep making mistakes. One thing that I would not tolerate is birds going 'fielding'. Any bird that returned from time out. Was let out alone and if it went to the field it was moved on.

My best racing cock this year, actually the last 2 years, was a 2 year old widowhood cock.
As a young bird from his first race he was 6 days late. From his second race, which was a bad race for returns, he was 3 days late. He had 3 more races as a young bird and was my first bird in the last two.
As a yearling on widowhood he had 13 races. He was my first bird from 6 of them including being 2nd club, 2nd combine just seconds behind the winner, and 1st club, 1st section, 1st open against 83 members sending 1089 birds. He also had a 4th club, 5th section, 14th open.
This year his had 14 races. He was my first bird 11 times. He had a 3rd club, 8th section, 20th open with 98 members sending 2306 birds, 9th club, 9th section, 15th open against 2530 birds, 1st club, 1st section, 11th open against 2044 birds, 5th club, 5th section, 19th open, 895 birds. Along with other minor positions. In 2 of the other 3 races he was my second bird being beaten by 4 seconds on one and 1 minute on the other.
So as King says you shouldn’t write a young bird off after a mistake.

[Tony-P-]

Great that King some birds come better as they get older

I'm not saying many get better as they get older, but many that make mistakes, learn from that mistake and do make better birds. Don't confuse this with birds that keep making mistakes. One thing that I would not tolerate is birds going 'fielding'. Any bird that returned from time out. Was let out alone and if it went to the field it was moved on.

My best racing cock this year, actually the last 2 years, was a 2 year old widowhood cock.
As a young bird from his first race he was 6 days late. From his second race, which was a bad race for returns, he was 3 days late. He had 3 more races as a young bird and was my first bird in the last two.
As a yearling on widowhood he had 13 races. He was my first bird from 6 of them including being 2nd club, 2nd combine just seconds behind the winner, and 1st club, 1st section, 1st open against 83 members sending 1089 birds. He also had a 4th club, 5th section, 14th open.
This year his had 14 races. He was my first bird 11 times. He had a 3rd club, 8th section, 20th open with 98 members sending 2306 birds, 9th club, 9th section, 15th open against 2530 birds, 1st club, 1st section, 11th open against 2044 birds, 5th club, 5th section, 19th open, 895 birds. Along with other minor positions. In 2 of the other 3 races he was my second bird being beaten by 4 seconds on one and 1 minute on the other.
So as King says you shouldn’t write a young bird off after a mistake.

Sounds like this bird came good as he got older Andy, well done on keeping him was there something about him as a Y/B that made you think you should keep him and not let him go.

[Andy]

Going back to the original post I only keep a small team. I only really raced 7 widowhood cocks during the old bird season. 6 of these had all 14 races. I race in a very strong club, Glastonbury FC. We have 18 members and often send between 300 & 400 birds. We have 3 members who have won numerous nationals. I am almost the shortest flying member 30 miles shorter than the longest flying East to West. With around a 10 mile spread from South to North. It is a very difficult club to win but mine don’t do bad. With the 3 counties and the combine only racing inland East to West my shortest race is only 35 miles and the longest 168 miles. In the 3 counties we race at club, section and open. The spread of radius is massive. 40 miles South to North and 150 miles East to West. The open result is very much determined by the weather.

So as I only race widowhood cocks and only have 12 boxes I only need a small number of young cocks each year to fill the boxes. I breed a round of youngsters from each of my widowhood pairs before the season starts. I only have 4 pairs of stock birds so only rear a small team of youngsters. I do breed a few late breds from some of the widowhood cocks at the end of the season.
I breed from my widowhood cocks as I want to know what they can breed before possibly retiring them to stock at the end of their racing. As the hens don’t race after the young bird season I treat them as stock hens and will breed from these again to test what they can breed. My aim would be to have widowhood cocks that win and widowhood hens that breed the winners. By the time I retire the racing cocks I would already know which ones are worth retiring to stock.

As I’m not that interested in young bird racing I keep all the young birds left at the end of the season to give them a chance to prove themselves at either racing or breeding.

[Andy]

I'm not saying many get better as they get older, but many that make mistakes, learn from that mistake and do make better birds. Don't confuse this with birds that keep making mistakes. One thing that I would not tolerate is birds going 'fielding'. Any bird that returned from time out. Was let out alone and if it went to the field it was moved on.

My best racing cock this year, actually the last 2 years, was a 2 year old widowhood cock.
As a young bird from his first race he was 6 days late. From his second race, which was a bad race for returns, he was 3 days late. He had 3 more races as a young bird and was my first bird in the last two.
As a yearling on widowhood he had 13 races. He was my first bird from 6 of them including being 2nd club, 2nd combine just seconds behind the winner, and 1st club, 1st section, 1st open against 83 members sending 1089 birds. He also had a 4th club, 5th section, 14th open.
This year his had 14 races. He was my first bird 11 times. He had a 3rd club, 8th section, 20th open with 98 members sending 2306 birds, 9th club, 9th section, 15th open against 2530 birds, 1st club, 1st section, 11th open against 2044 birds, 5th club, 5th section, 19th open, 895 birds. Along with other minor positions. In 2 of the other 3 races he was my second bird being beaten by 4 seconds on one and 1 minute on the other.
So as King says you shouldn’t write a young bird off after a mistake.

Sounds like this bird came good as he got older Andy, well done on keeping him was there something about him as a Y/B that made you think you should keep him and not let him go.

After the first 2 races where he made mistakes he showed me that he was worth keeping by being my first bird twice. Also as I only keep a small team and don’t breed many young birds I usually have enough room to give them all a chance. He is nothing special to look at. Not one that you would pick out from the others but he obviously has something a bit special. This you’ll never know with out testing.

[Tony-P-]

That's true Andy, they don't have to be the best looking pigeon to get the best out of them mate good for you for keeping hold of him hope he breeds you more quality birds