| First I wish to stress that what I write here is only my personal opinion. I can only hope that I accomplish at least half my goals in our great sport. At some point in your breeding career, there has to be decisions made and adhered to. A sort of plan if you will. Our goals are to win of course, but winning can encompass other relative factors such as: winning with colored birds, winning long distance vs. short, winning oneloft races (me). Mostly, its just about winning in competition that we ourselves are in as the delegated handlers or coach of our team. We read so much about breeding . Through the years we hear of inbreeding, of crossing, of linebreeding. Our heads spin and then we read the text of geneticists and our heads spin even more often times. At this point in my own pigeon career which we reestablished in 2005 after some years of absence; it is my personal goal/belief if you will, that we will inbreed our family based on the acquisition of a few Super pigeons/breeders. The task at hand is to create a genetic pool based on performance in one loft racing. We have been fortunate in our comeback to pigeons and so we realize just how rare it is to have as many supers as we have in the stock loft. Our basis for inbreeding is on 4 top hens below MADONNA GREAT RETURN BLUESTAR NES Each of the hens shown has a son or daughter that is a big winner. These hens offspring males are mated to a different hen and the youngsters proven. The "in" part of the breeding eventually becomes close but at first its a slow process of elimination. Actuallly, it is now that we are "line" breeding within the colony of the 4 top hens so that pedigrees if printed today reflect all 4 hens to be in each pigeon bred for racing all the way back two to three/four generations. At present in this young colony, we have not done "drastic" inbreeding yet for the sake of the race team.......drastic to us is close, father/daughter half bro/half sister. Once again, we follow the old Galaxy (Al Baccone) view and do not use 'brother/sister' matings as a rule. Many fanciers go this route but we reserve and use a different route or road to Rome. Our one common Stud Cock that we are trying to perpetrate into the line as the dominant stud is the CLOSER. He then is mated to each hen and their proven offspring, winners, are then brought back and kept into the line to bred with one of the four hens/ or, their winning offspring. So with this method of line breeding, these 5 pigeons and their progeny of winners bred back can go on for a long long time. In the course of this plan/goal, we use only the basket for the culling process unless there is an obvious situation. But for the most part, we dont use any specific grading method since we feel that performance comes in many packages. Performance is our goal, not color, not throat, not wing or keel depth. Winners most often have a great throat anyway........winners most often have the keen orientation/speed and tenacity anyway..... So winners it is. We test those birds bred here at home in difficult conditions by training and racing them against each other. Testing is done every year since often our new matings involve offspring from winners brought back to Galaxy to breed into the line. The end result of the new matings of the younger birds who have won and brought back is now tested on the road.. We want to determine if the winners have the breeding potential. Most fortunate for us is that we have been blessed to have 4 hens whose children breed great pigeons out of turn. This rare factor is easily recognizable after years of having pigeons and racing. Experience I believe to be an invaluable factor in recognizing potentials and taking action. Yet, we are not benign from making the error of prematurely casting off a "super" by not being patient and realizing its potential/potency.......sound familiar? There are many roads to Rome........as a breeder, we all need to choose our road and goals. Sticking to our plan is the most difficult aspect. Its often easy to just delve off into another mind set and abandon our thoughts. Yes, we do bring in pigeons, but we place strict limits on what we do with those pigeons. To keep breeding interesting and exciting, often we bring in a new pair each year to breed/test/ against our progeny. We have a very long way to go before we begin to even think about losing vitality. But nonetheless, we compare our progeny to other birds constantly and we do this via the basket here at home..........not in money races where it can really hurt our wallet. At this stage of our breeding map, I guess we can call it "blending". Taking the 4 hens and Closer, putting them inside a blender and just spinning it until we get a smoothie.........so to speak. In the end the four hens and closer will be very far back in the pedigree generation line. The emerging product will then be what we deem to be the ultimate racing pigeon based not on our phenotype, but based on the basket and one loft environment. It will take us 10 generations to get to where we are feeling somewhat comfortable about our goals but it will be our pleasure to reach our goal and to share our progress with others who find breeding to be a huge part of the enjoyment in our great sport. |
