The Book Revisited - page 4 

Do you watch for anything when they are in the nest?

Having spoken to a very large number of fanciers over the years, let me say that most fanciers really do not spend enough time with their youngsters while they are still in the nest. This is unfortunate because it does not allow the fancier to become acquainted with the youngsters or the youngsters to become acquainted with the fancier. The sooner fanciers start watching their youngsters, the more they are going to learn about them. The pigeon also benefits from this early relationship, because it learns to trust the fancier. While a good youngster in the nest may eventually turn out bad, a bad pigeon in the nest virtually never turns out good. For the most part, those youngsters that start out good remain good over time.

In terms of the nest, I like eggs that are of a normal shape, smooth and clean, and when the youngsters are hatching, I like to see a good clean hatch line in the upper portion of the egg. The egg should look like it was opened with a can opener, and the top should still be attached by the skin and be folded back into the egg. To see some of these things, you need to look at the egg within the first couple of hours after the hatch. Otherwise, the skin tends to dry out and the end piece tends to fall off. The other day, I happened to notice the remains of a recently hatched dove egg lying on the ground just outside of my loft. As with my above description, this egg also had a perfect hatch line and the end of the shell was tucked into the end of the shell. While you might think that you are going to see this on every egg, don’t be surprised if it turns out to be less common than you might have thought.

Most hens will carry off the empty shell and if I see the two larger bottom portions of the empty shell on the floor, then I know that it was a good hatch and the youngsters are safe. However, sometimes the hen does not do this and, when that is the case, it is important to pull the empty shell, especially the bigger portion of the shell out of the nest. Otherwise, it can get stuck on the head or rear end of the youngster and if this is not noticed in time, it can lead to a serious health issues for one or both youngsters in the nest.

In terms of the youngsters in the nest, I like to see sharp dark glistening eyes that are wide open, that have good skin color with no purplish tint, that pull back when you pull on their beak at ten days of age, that stand up in the nest and make popping noises with their beaks, that jump up and attack your hand when you hold it above their heads, and that have small feet.

 I do not like youngsters in the nest where the droppings stick to the feathering, where the feathering is soiled, where the feathering remains in the quill and is slow to open, where there are unopened quills, especially around the rectum, where they hop out of the nest too early, where they have dull eyes or partially closed eyes, where they hunker down in the nest or are too quiet or cry all the time, and where they are not tight in the feathering, especially around the neck.

When you are looking at youngsters in the nest, do you believe that you can spot what will one day prove itself as an outstanding youngster?

You know, there is no doubt that some are better than others at this early stage, and I think the things I have been talking about will separate most from the rest. I would also agree that most of the best pigeons will come from within this group of better pigeons.   However, while every fancier will tell you that they knew this one or that one was going to be great right out of the nest, we have no proof that he actually thought these things at the time.

When it comes down to it, there are few fanciers that would declare a youngster as the “chosen one” to his fellow club members if he had to make this presentation while the youngster was still in the nest. Personally, while I do not necessarily look for champions in the nest, I do hope to have a number of youngsters that meet my standards at this early age and that at least some of them will live up to my expectations later on. Still, many of the ones I liked at that age will not develop to their projected level and that is just a factual part of pigeon racing.

Is there anything that you feel is important at the time your youngsters leave the nest?

If you think about it, this sport is largely about cheating nature. We try to foster youngsters under other pairs, lighten and darken the loft to help the molt to suit our needs and so on. While there can certainly be tremendous advantages in speeding up or slowing down natural events, these actions come with an eventual cost. I have always been adamantly against switching eggs under foster pairs. In my view, youngsters from foster parents are usually never as good. I was surprised to learn from Ed Lorenz the other day that Piet de Weerd expressed these same misgivings as I had not heard that before.

In my view, champion pigeons have a higher level of health and vitality and that is a very big part of what enables them to become champions. Champion pigeons produce champion milk, and while the quality of the milk may not override the pigeon’s genetics, it can certainly augment them. I don’t know if anyone has ever analyzed a pigeon’s milk in this regard, but I would not be surprised to learn that milk has characteristics that are unique to each female of the species. 

For those that have watched me grade pigeons, you already know that, like Piet de Weerd, I am a beak puller. This was the first thing that Don Falkenborg ever taught me, and it is quite possible it was the first thing that Piet de Weerd ever taught him. If there is one thing that I have learned over time, it is that pigeons that are pumped under foster pairs are much less apt to show any signs of resistance when you pull on their beak. If I noticed this over time, then it is pretty likely that Piet also noticed this over time as well, and this might be the reason that he was against fostering eggs. The two certainly tend to oppose each other.

Because of time constraints, when I returned to the sport after a brief hiatus in the mid ‘90s, I decided to concentrate my efforts on the breeding end of the sport. As I said earlier, this is a sport about tricking Mother Nature, and as a result, I talked myself into using foster pairs with the idea that it would allow me to more quickly get to where I wanted to go. Obviously, if I could concentrate my efforts on a couple of key pairs, and then get more out of those pairs, I could develop my program more quickly.

After trying this approach for two seasons, I found that even though I was pumping youngsters from very good, and in many cases, related pairs, and even though I was producing many more youngsters overall, I just was not getting the same percentage of good youngsters. Further, during this same period, so that the breeders would go through a good molt, I would let them breed a round of their own youngsters at the end of the breeding season. Later in the year after the youngsters had molted out, I was surprised to discover how many of the youngsters raised by their biological parents were making it into stock compared to those that were pumped. Time and again, the fostered pigeons were disqualified for the same two reasons. They didn’t pull back when I pulled on their beak and a larger percentage of them had gray tongues. These two problems were virtually nonexistent in the youngsters that I raised from the original parents.

 Several years back, I met up with a couple of friends of mine at one of the Florida conventions. One of these friends was scheduled to visit one of the larger breeding farms in the United States the following week. As this fancier was not a grader of pigeons, he asked me what he should look for during the visit. Like most breeding farms, I knew the owner fostered virtually all of his pigeons. Out of curiosity, I asked my friend to keep it simple and limit his review to pulling beaks and looking for gray tongues.  When he arrived at the farm the fancier took him to a holding section and told him to have at it. Fortunately there was an aviary with a door on it, so my friend was able to throw the pigeons he had looked at out into the aviary. During his visit, my friend checked approximately 250 pigeons for these two simple points. It was good that he kept it simple, because as he said later, “Book, I don’t know how you can possibly grade 500 pigeons in a day. After 250 pigeons, I was exhausted, and amazingly for my efforts, I only found five pigeons that were good on both points. The whole experience was eye opening, really!”

I am often asked about my definition of gray tongues. In my view, I do not keep pigeons that have any gray or black anywhere on the tongue. This includes, gray on the top portion of the tongue, under the tongue, or on the stem of the tongue. Some pigeons do have a black pigment to their tongues, but because this is difficult to define with any certainty, I remain adamant about not introducing these pigeons into the breeding loft in the first place. From experience I can tell you that if this trait is eliminated through selection, it quickly disappears from the loft altogether. Believe me, if gray tongues were meant to be there, it would take far more than a single generation of selection to eliminate. Consequently, long ago, I adopted this simple rule, “Pink and white is right, gray or black gets no slack.”

 Lately, some of the breeding farms have been working overtime to discredit all traits. They want to say that performance is everything and that physical traits mean nothing.   Frankly, it really shouldn’t be too difficult to understand their thinking. In order for them to get the numbers out of their expensive purchases, they are almost forced to use pumper pairs. In doing so, they create a relatively high percentage of pigeons that have gray tongues and that do not pull. Because breeding farms generally use pumper pairs, a good percentage of what they raise is likely to have these problems. However, if they were unable to sell these pigeons, they could not make a profit. Consequently, it is easier for them to discredit the old standards.

Over time, I have become very cautious about pigeons that let their lower eyelid roll up into a half-closed position. If indeed, looking into the eye really is like looking into their sole, then these pigeons are guarded at best or weak at worst. I seem to raise one or two of these pigeons every year and I don’t remember one of them ever making it into the breeding loft. In my view, this is another sign of internal weakness. Although they do not always start out that way, it is amazing how many of these pigeons eventually show signs of Micoplasmosis or bubbling in the corners of the eye, especially during the molt.

It is extremely important that the sidewalls of the mouth be pink and not purple in color. Pigeons with purple side walls to their mouths have either been sick or exposed to unhealthy conditions. I have seen fanciers try to medicate these pigeons, and although the purple might lighten up to some degree for a while, it never seems to go away. I can remember a friend buying a hen like this from a questionable source. I took one look into the mouth of the pigeon and knew it was finished. Upon telling him this he said, “Oh no, I will just medicate it and it will be as good as new.” After considerable medication, the color did lighten up some, but it never bred anything and was gone thereafter. Unfortunately, I have seen a number of what were once very good pigeons go this route, but I have never seen one return to its original form. In my view, there is nothing more disgraceful than ruining a great pigeon through poor care!    

Whenever I enter a loft, the first thing I look for are pigeons with soiled tail feathers. This is a sign of one of three things: overcrowding, poor ventilation or poor health in general. As soon as I spot a pigeon with a soiled tail, I immediately start evaluating the loft and its surroundings accordingly.

During the process of preening, pigeons place an oily film on the feathering. This oily sheen is designed to deter parasites and repel soiling.  When they are not feeling well they will not take the time to reach back and squeeze their oil gland. Certain diseases actually make it painful for them to reach back to their oil gland. I am surprised that other fanciers do not see these things because these pigeons are there before the young bird season, but almost never there after the young bird season.

I also look for tattered facial feathering and white areas under the beak, as this is a sign of respiratory trouble and scratching, which is ultimately a sign of ventilation problems within the loft. While in Denmark a couple of years ago, I walked into a loft of what had once been a very prominent fancier. After standing in the doorway for a few seconds, I saw several pigeons with soiled tails. This led me to look at the faces of the pigeons, and sure enough, many had been scratching their faces. This led me to quickly walk to three areas in the loft and hold up my hand to feel for drafts. In less than 30 seconds, I was on my way out of the door while telling the fancier that if he wanted to return to the top, he would have to make four changes to his ventilation. While explaining these changes, he started to argue, so I quickly decided to save my breath. However, when I turned to leave, I discovered that his wife had been standing right behind me and listening quite intently. Later while on a grading break at the club, she approached me and apologized for his behavior and again asked me about the ventilation. I explained what needed to be done, and apparently she convinced him in ways only a wife can, and suddenly he was back on top. He even gave me credit for it in their national magazine.

Years ago, when I first started Karate, we would spar on Friday nights. The teacher restricted lower belts to the four basic kicks, whereas the higher belts could use a variety of kicks. I complained to the teacher that this was unfair because more kicks gave the advanced belts an advantage. The teacher (a fifth degree black belt) said, “How about I fight you and I will use the four basic kicks and you can use any kick you want.” Needless to say, I quietly went back to sparing.  My point here is while some of these things may seem somewhat basic, the vast majority of lofts do not have the basics under control, and until they do, they will not have the necessary foundation to build from. Secrets and methods are fine, but I will take the basics first every time.

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