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in the future from here on out. Hopper feeding the pellets with the mix fed at night to appetite. In this way I hope that with no rationing the birds will grow naturally and hopefully have no setbacks..
In the last article plans were to start breeding at the end of January. This slightly changed and I paired up on the first week in January and coincidently the day I paired up there was a full moon that night. I know some people pair up their birds to the phases of the moon but I never have. I don’t know if it makes a difference or not but I did make note of it anyway. At this point the loft lights had been on for about 3 weeks from 6am to 10am and 3pm to 10pm. This gives a total of lighted time of 16 hours a day. The bulb strength I use always in the loft is 100 watts. This gives nearly the same brightness as daylight. It’s just a different light source. So lights on birds in breeding condition, I hoped they certainly looked the part, and plans for pairing going on at this point for several weeks, it’s now time for action. I have 10 pair of stock at this point in January and then by the end of January I had another 2 pairs compliments of Jim Emerton. So the stock is now made up of Emerton birds, Birds from Padfields Invicible, some Invincible Spirit lines and also some Shepplehorst Sticlebauts. The last mentioned arriving at the end of January from Jim.
Planned pairings were as follows. The Emerton birds were mated getting the closest relationships possible judging on pedigree. 1 cock from the invincible spirit lines was bulled to 3 hens from the Padfield lines. This cock is used in this way because he is there great uncle 5 generations up to these birds, this was my start. All the Emerton pairs had laid within 10 days. The Padfield hens on the bull system I used laid within 12 days. I was happy with these results and timing of egg laying. This was the indication that everything was right in condition to get laying times right.
With this happiness of on time laying I had one setback. The bull system this time did not work as planned and I had 6 blind eggs. I put this down to me changing the system a little. A mistake I will never repeat again. From all the other eggs, I had altogether 14, 12 were fertile. I was happy with this. I got a full 12 to hatch and lost 2 in the nest from fighting when they were 2 days old. So I got to wean 10. With the hens that the eggs were blind I removed them from the section and allowed them a week break. Then I again bulled the same cock going back to my bull system that works. I got then 6 full eggs, again laid within 12 days of starting the process. I also had 2 pair of Padfield birds mated at this time and so was expecting 9 babies from these birds. I had 9 filled eggs and from this 6 hatched, I think because I disturbed 2 nests at hatching time 1 of the eggs in each nest from the bulled cock didn’t hatch. And then I disposed of 1 at 10 days because it had an illness. At the time of this laying the first birds were treading again and so eggs from these as a second round of these were laid within a week of the Padfield birds. So now there are approximately 15 youngsters to be weaned in the next week or 2 from now which is the 25 March. The excitement of weaning youngsters always gives me a buzz. The first youngsters, all 10, hatched around the 2 February. So at time of writing this they are 7 weeks old approx. I weaned all these on the 28 February meaning they were about 26 days old. They were weaned into a section with 4 pairs on eggs that are flying out as they were planned breeding from last year but are now feeders. Funny enough 2 of these pairs began to feed the weaned youngsters. After 3 days placing these youngsters in the trap I then opened it for them to go in and out themselves. As the older birds went in and out this I feel encouraged the youngsters up. At 7 weeks I can say they are flying strong for an hour or more a day. I have lost 2 from the loft. They are on an open hole system and will be left with the older birds indefinitely.
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International Racing Pigeon July 2018 l www.internationalracingpigeon.com