UkPigeonRacing

We all have different veiws, on the selection of picking a bird. You could be on a loft visit, or veiwing through the cage. Without holding the bird, what would take your eye?

Posture and eye contact the good ones stand out to you, a smart pigeon will watch you intensely from my experience the average birds will carry on as usual but I want to handle anything I buy first visual not enough on its own, but I do believe I can pick the quality in most people's loft simply by watching them for a while

Character.

When I was a small apprentice jockey we trained for a very well known and successful bloodstock agent. He bought and sold Derby winners, Guineas winners, many good horses. He also liked a drink or two in the evening after the races.

While entertaining us post races, he once said something about a horse that has stuck with me for more than half a century. A horse he had bought and sold had been beaten as a warm favorite.
"I knew it would not be much good", he said. "It's got no character".

I can pick the pigeons I like simply by looking at them. The ones that consider themselves the good ones are often the good ones.

For me eye contact is important, the bird studying me while i do the same. I like it to be trying to make contact with each other, it sounds a bit crazy but to me. This is the starting of the first bond in the partnership. that builds with trust.

Simple a winner. Basket selects pigeons no other nonsense matters. If I couldn't buy the winner itself I'd want it's children.

We can all pick out something on looks, but for me it has to be PERFORMANCE of the parents. Winners come in ALL shapes & sizes.
Anybody who has ordered a YB bred from a specific bird doesn't get to choose from a basket full. You get what you are asking for, a direct child of the specific bird.
I recall going to a Top National loft once, and was not that impressed at what I saw, but the birds weren't bred to win shows, they did what the fancier asked of them, they won races.
That said, many of my best birds were good looking and good handling birds.