"BROOKDALE LOFTS"
THE HOME OF TOP "QUALITY" RACING PIGEONS IN TOP "HEALTH"
This page will have articles that we feel will help out experienced and novice pigeon flyers.
| How to breed good pigeons? By Ad Schaerlaeckens With the publisher of this paper I was discussing the contents of a pigeon magazine. I write in many of them and I can assure you that that is far from easy as far as foreign countries are concerned. In my own country it is not such a problem as I know what fanciers like to read about. But writing for countries on the other side of the world where the sport is so much different is another story. 'David', I said, 'you must help me. Tell me what people in the Far East want to read about. If I would know that would make it a lot easier for me to write.' 'Could you write how to breed good pigeons' was his reaction. My mouth fell open. For a moment I thought 'what a stupid question' but that was just for a moment. When I was a student my teacher used to say: 'There are no stupid questions, there are only stupid answers'. 'How to breed good pigeons?' The more I thought about this question the more sense it made. It proved that he realised how important quality is. Many fanciers (not the champions though) seek successes where they should not seek them. They believe too much in medicine, secrets or 'the magic bottle'. LUCKThat good luck is a factor though I will show you by something that happened recently. Co Verbree, one of the best fanciers in Europe, was at my place to buy two grandchildren of my 'Sissi'. 'That was a legendary breeding hen was not she?' he said, 'maybe the best in history'. I thought it a bit exaggerated and too flattery. 'Yes it was a good one' I agreed 'but you still need a lot of luck'. 'Many of her descendants were sensational winners indeed but certainly not all. With the birds you are buying you have a good chance to be successful but no more than that. I cannot guarantee the birds are any good and if I would know for sure that there was a super among them you would not get it. It is as simple as that. 'To whom do you tell' Mr Verbree's reaction was and added: 'You know I had that best All Round bird from Holland for the Olympiad in South Africa.' Of course I knew. Mr Verbree: 'In the year that I bred that Ace I bred 5 more babies off of the same parents. They were all good, I daresay supers. So you can imagine I mated the pair again in the year that followed. I bred 10 babies off of them and I had great expectations. You know what the result was? Not one of these 10 birds was any good. On the contrary, they were ten pieces of shit. Can you imagine that?' I could. Because things like that happen more often. But Mr Verbree had more interesting things to say: 'An American importer bought my Olympiad bird for a crazy price. But shall I tell you the truth? Despite his sensational results this bird never gave a good baby. Honestly speaking that was the reason to sell him. One of his brothers however, a bird which was not a good racer is one of my best breeders. So I think I did a good thing: Sell the racer who was a poor breeder and keep his brother which was a good breeder.' GOLDEN COUPLEI know some Japanese pigeon men who only know two words in English. You cannot blame them for that, they may have other great qualities than speak English. Those two words are: 'Golden Couple'. But couples that only give super pigeons? They only exist in the mind of not-realistic day dreamers. Why do you think champions in Europe nowadays breed far more babies than they did in the past? Because they began to realise how much luck you need indeed to get that super bird. But as I said it is not all luck. To show this I will tell you the story of that Belgian champion. Normally I like to mention names to make statements less vague and for the credibility of the articles. In this case I prefer not to do it as it might hurt his reputation. And the Lord did not create humans to hurt each other. EXAMPLEEvery serious fancier occasionally wants to improve his family by importing other birds to cross with his. To optimise chances to a successful crossing it is very important that you are aware of the shortcomings and faults of your own birds. So there was this Belgian guy, a short distance champion and a great one who was bothered by questions such as the following: - Why are my results no good when I enter birds at longer distances? - Is this a matter of physical faults and if so which? - Would there be a possibility to find a solution, for example a successful crossing? Though I myself cannot see if a pigeon is good (nobody can) I mean I can see if a pigeon is no good or what shortcomings it has. I saw his birds. Fantastic models and good muscles but much to my surprise the same thing was wrong with all of them: The last flights of the wings lacked suppleness, they were not flexible. He did not quite understand so I pointed at two pigeons who had broken their last flights. He shrugged his shoulders as if he wanted to say: 'So what? That is just an accident which may happen to any bird.' 'It may' I said, 'but not easily to good birds'. You must be able to bow the last flights between your thumb and forefinger without breaking them. That refers to flexibility which is an absolute must for birds that have to handle the longer distances. You should pay attention to the wings of a bird after it has flown for many hours in a hard race. You will see a light bow in the last flights. But what if these are so stiff that they cannot bow? Then they are handicapped, flying will be more difficult because of those stiff flights and the bird will be fatigued sooner than birds with supple and flexible flights in the wing. The Belgian champ got the message and what he did was import birds with supple and flexible flights, he crossed them with his own and only two years later he got pigeons that could handle the longer distances too. So it cannot be repeated enough how important it is to realise the shortcomings of your own birds, only then you can do something about it, improve the quality. A mistake many fanciers make is import birds that have the same faults as their own. Such a thing inevitably leads to destruction of a colony. MOST ACES ARE CROSSINGSMany pigeon people from the East and America like birds of a family, so inbreds. This idea is not that bad provided such birds are used for breeding and not for racing. Nearly all super birds both in Holland and Belgium are products of crossings. In the eighties I had my 'Good Yearling' and birds related to him. I wanted to keep this line kind of pure, I also bred real good birds now and then but much to my surprise some people who bought pigeons from this 'Good Yearling bloodline' bred better birds then I did myself. And they got my birds. Just in time I realised why. They crossed my inbred birds with theirs. So what I did from then on was the same: I did not care about having a family any longer and crossed my inbreds. One of them was my 'Sister Good Yearling'. Unlike her brother she was a poor racer. And also a poor breeder, at least that was what I thought. Till I gave her a partner of quite different blood and the first baby of the new mating won National Orleans 1st prize (1985). Unfortunately she was pretty old already when I realised her breeding value. Such a thing often happens to many people. When they find they have a real good bird one of the parents is killed, sold or too old. WRONGWhen people want to buy birds it is very often the same story. They want, say six pigeons for arguments' sake, and those should be three hens and three cocks. In this way they can form 3 couples. I have learnt this is not the right way to act. If I import (buy) birds I will mate them with the best I have myself, so birds which already had proven they have the potency to give good children. It is a much faster and more direct way to be successful than mating imports with imports. If you mate an import with an import you mate a question with a question. If you mate an import with one of your own proven breeders only the import is a question. APPEARANCESAnd what about the appearance of birds? They must have soft feathers in the first place. And they should not be too big. Beware of big birds. The modern racers are of a smaller type than some decades ago. They must have a good balance, 'lie well in the hand' as people say and they must slope a bit forward when handling them. Of great importance is also a strong skeleton. You can judge this by putting some pressure on the breastbone (the lower part of the body). If the bird makes a noise like it is snoring that is a bad sign. These qualities I mentioned are an absolute must. But here we have a problem: The fact alone that they have these qualities does not make them good pigeons. Also bad pigeons may have soft feathers, a good balance, a strong skeleton. However if they do NOT have these qualities they are bad pigeons for sure. So it is not maths, you cannot turn things around. A philosopher once said: All cows are animals but all animals are not cows. MORE EXAMPLESMost champions have two, three or four good bloodlines. Their Ace birds are mostly products of crossings of them. As they are champions already they do not import or buy many birds but just a few in some cases no more than one or two yearly. Mostly they do not even pay for them but just trade. Remember Houben and Verbruggen. They traded just one bird, crossed the bird that they got from each other with their own and this resulted in an explosion of super birds in both lofts. The same happened to Engels and van Hove Uytterhoeven. Both already got good birds they got better ones after they had traded birds and crossed the imports with the best they had in their own loft. ALSO GOODWhat most champions in Holland and Belgium also do is change the matings every year. Some (even the Janssen Brothers) even during the year. For some mysterious reason the quality of the babies of good couples gets down when such a couple has been mated for a long time. I myself give my best cocks also two or three different hens every year. It stands to reason that birds are only fit to be paired when they are in the best condition possible. Fanciers often wonder why they breed several good pigeons in one year and that there are years in which they do not even breed one decent one. The explanation is probably the condition of the parents. A study has shown that many good birds are bred from yearlings. This does not mean that old pigeons do not give good babies though. The problem with old birds is the poorer quality of the crop milk. This year I made the mistake to have a 1992 cock feed his own babies. Some did not grow into nice birds and it was me who was to blame. What I should have done is undersit his eggs under other (younger) birds so that these would have fed the babies after the eggs had hatched. But making mistakes is nothing to be ashamed about. You only have a problem if you are not aware of it for the simple reason that in such case you cannot correct yourself. What distinguishes the losers from the winners is that the latter know what mistakes they made and will learn from it. If you do not know your own shortcomings and if you are not aware of the mistakes you make you won't get one step further.
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When the well-known adenovirus in the past could only be found with young pigeons (adenovirosis type I or “classical adenovirosis”), in more recent years it also occurs with old pigeons (adenovirosis II or “necrotising hepatitis”).
The latter form is much worse than the former because it can cause a lot of death among the old pigeons ; both diseases have become in only a few years two of the main infections among pigeons. Taking into account the enormous impact on our pigeon population and for the sake of our hobby I think it’s useful to examine what we already know about this disease. The obvious questions a pigeon fancier asks are : what are the symptoms and what can I do either to prevent or to treat the disease.
But first of all we’re going into the cause and the course of the disease.
As stated the origin of the disease is an adenovirus ; this virus has been described with several birds ; mostly it doesn’t play an important role in pathological processes except for some diseases, two of which among pigeons. The viruses can easily be located through microscopic examination, on the basis of their typical structure ; it’s very difficult though to isolate (=to breed) them. More than 20 years ago the classical adenovirus type I was found in our regions ; since then it has also been described worldwide. The worse form, the adenovirosis type II has only been found since 1992 (also for the first time in Belgium). The main difference with adenovirosis type I is that also old pigeons can be infected and that the course of the disease is much worse as it causes much more death, while there’s no efficient treatment possible ! It’s a rather frequent disease occurring all through the year.
Adenovirosis type I infects, as stated earlier, especially young pigeons ; the virus is very often introduced in the cote by a strange pigeon or after contact in the travel basket ; it is excreted with the manure and hence can infect the other young. Because the intestinal wall is seriously damaged, germs that normally live in the intestine get the chance to proliferate enormously ; in this way they probably damage the intestinal wall even more and can enter the blood circulation. The typical symptoms of adenovirosis type I are ; the illness occurs very sudden and typical is vomiting heavily, diarrhoea, a very bad condition in general, a large part of the young pigeons are infected (there’s a very fast infection within 3 to 5 days) but mostly only a few pigeons die. Very often it lasts only 5 to 10 days. Additional E.Coli-infections will make the disease last longer ; so it’s of utmost importance to treat these additional E. Coli-infections as quickly as possible ! The recovery of the pigeons that suffered the disease can take some time, probably because of the slowly recovering liver-cells caused by the multiplication of the virus in the liver-cells. It should be taken into account when training the pigeons. Another rare syndrome of the adenovirus type I can be seen with youngs in the nest ; typical is that some pigeons stay behind and only few die.
The virus with adenovirosis type II is capable of causing massive liver necrosis with a characteristic course as a consecuence : there are very few symptoms as the pigeons die within 2 days. The only symptom that is sometimes seen is vomiting and yellow diarrhoea. The number of dead pigeons can sometimes be very high what makes that the disease sometimes develops dramatically. Remarkable is that the pigeons that aren’t infected after about 5 to 6 weeks stay healthy without any kind of symptom.
The possible diagnosis can be made based on the symptoms mentioned above after which an autopsy, if desirable, can give a definite answer through hystologic investigation of the intestinal wall or liver ; in this way you can exclude other diseases such as parathyphoid, hexamythiasis, intoxification, streptococcus, acute Coli-sepsis.
As far as the extermination is concerned : there is no efficient vaccination available. Whenever you find adenovirosis type I with young pigeons, it is absolutely necessary to treat the secondary Coli-infections as fast as possible ; most of the young pigeons are carriers of this germ. Avoiding stress (transport, training, …) is also important. For adenovirosis type II the general rules are hygiene, ventilation, avoiding overpopulation … These are essential to keep the risk of infection as low as possible.
As a conclusion you could say that there is only little information known about these viruses and the origin of these diseases. An important reason is that it’s very difficult to isolate the virus. The fact that old pigeons don’t become ill in case of adenovirosis type I could be explained by a well-formed resistance ; summer young and late young that don’t suffer the disease in their year of birth often expose typical symptoms in the year after ; you will never see this with pigeons that suffered the disease in their year of birth.
As stated in the introduction the impact of both adenoviroses on our pigeon population is enormous ; hence the development of a good vaccine would be more than welcome.
Dr. Carlo Gyselbrecht
THE PREPOTENT PRODUCER & FILIAL DEGENERATION
by Stephen K. Bishop – Bishop’s Place Loft & Kennel
Prepotency can best be defined as the unusual ability of an individual or strain to transmit its characteristics to its offspring due to dominant genes. Genes contain DNA. DNA serve as the basis of heredity. Without getting scientific, genes transmit hereditary characters by specifying the structure of genetic material. It is what people are referring to when they say he’s a chip off the old block or the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, etc. Let’s say a child who was separated from his father at an early age meets his dad when he’s twenty years old. The twenty year old notices that both him and his dad have quiet dispositions and frequently smile. These can be said to be inherited traits. These tendencies come from genes containing DNA which predisposed them to have quiet, amiable dispositions.
Filial Degeneration can best be explained as the tendency of an individual of a line to revert to the average of that line. What exactly does this mean? Well a good illustration of this would be if a family of three generations of short, unattractive people gave birth to a daughter who grew to be both tall and pretty. Filial Degeneration would dictate that this tall pretty girl would probably give birth to short, unattractive children. This is due to the fact that the preponderance of her genes contain DNA coded with the short unattractive blueprint.
Now, knowing that an individual of a line has a tendency to revert to the average of it’s line gives us something to work with. We can strive to establish a line of high performance prepotent racers. How, you ask? Well if we start with proven racers, breed youngsters from them and cull severely, we will be left with proven racers who are bred from proven racers. The birds remaining after the culling process are those that inherited the winning characteristics/genes from their parents. With each generation bred and culled you are narrowing your gene pool.
What you are doing in effect is increasing the probability of future youngsters inheriting the genes responsible for the winning characteristics of your foundation pairs. A bird receives 50% of its genes from it’s sire and 50% from it’s dam. When you breed from a pair of winners versus a pair of diploma-less birds, you increase the likelihood of producing winners greatly. Lets break it down. Say you place 20 balls, 4 red, 4 blue, 4 green, 4 yellow and 4 black in a bag. Now, you can reach into this bag and extract two balls at a time. Red balls are the designated winning balls. Two reds win. One red with any other color also wins. Two of any other color, or combination of colors, other than red lose. Now if after every draw you throw away the non-red balls and place the red ones back in the bag, you are increasing the probability of getting a red ball with each subsequent draw. After every draw and disposal of the non-red balls you are increasing the percentage of red balls to the total amount of balls. Eventually you will be left with all red balls and each and every draw will be a winning draw. Now substitute red balls with winning genes and substitute draws with youngsters. If you cull the losers (non-red balls) and only put the winners (red balls) back in your loft, you are increasing the probability of getting winning genes passed on to future youngsters. The name of the game is limiting the gene pool. I once owned a performance bulldog named Red Feather. She was a caramel colored red nose dog. She was the daughter, granddaughter and great-granddaughter of a dog known as Triple Ott Red, a litter brother to CH. Yellow John. Her pedigree was as follows.
Tramp Red Boy (grandsire)
Triple Ott Red (sire)
Tramp Red Boy
Granddam
Great-granddam
Red Feather
Triple Ott Red (grandsire)
Whaley’s Red Feather (dam)
Triple Ott Red (great-grandsire)
Granddam
Great-granddam
Red Feather was genetically 87.5% Triple Ott Red. This is calculated based on the fact that an individual receives genes as follows.
50% from each parent
25% from each grandparent
12.5% from each great-grandparent
The objective here was to produce a dog as close to Triple Ott Red as possible without cloning (not an option back in 1983). Although Red Feather was a female, she would lift one leg up when urinating as male dogs do. She acted like a male dog. Now I might not race a bird bred like Red Feather, but I sure as hell would do this type of breeding, which I call “Triple Crossing” to preserve an old multi-diploma, proven prepotent producer. The same principle, but not as intense, could be used to produce a consistent family of winning birds. This is the route to increase consistency in a loft. Start with top notch birds and limit the gene pool. Now, to produce the world beating, set the combine on fire, ten times first, type of racer, you would probably have a greater chance outcrossing two diploma winning individuals from unrelated consistent families, but that’s another article. This write-up should give you an idea on how to take advantage of Filial Degeneration to establish a consistent prepotent line of racers. Yours in sport, Steve.
