The Strain Makers - The Art of Breeding Long Distance Pigeons

Chapter 1

MALE AND FEMALE STRAINS

WHETHER A beginner likes the prospect or not, the first big job he must tackle as a pigeon fancier is that of being a ‘Strain-Maker’. Even if he founds his loft on the choicest specimens obtained from a winning family of great eminence he must still commit himself to the duty of breeding his own winners in every succeeding generation of their descendants, a formidable undertaking even to one accustomed to raising livestock. To start ones loft with members of a winning strain is one thing; to reproduce winners from it year after year is yet another.

Too many enthusiastic recruits to this national sport imagine that continuity as a fancier depends merely upon mating up the male and female survivors of this year’s racing in order to produce replacements that will round off next year’s team. If being a fancier is as simple as that the sport would be minus its main attractions.

Most successful racehorse and greyhound owners rarely breed their own horses and dogs. They usually buy them in and hand them over to experienced professional trainers. This method of racing can be done, and is done, on a very small scale in pigeon racing by those whose pockets are as fathomless as the bright blue sea but most of us prefer to combine racing with breeding and thereby extract the maximum of satisfaction and nagging worry from our absorbing pastime.

However, if we crave to race our own home-made winners we must first tackle and master the art of breeding racing pigeons, a practice which differs radically from all other systems of livestock breeding with the possible exception of the aforementioned dogs and horses.

To the average beginner, especially to one who has had no previous experience of raising livestock, the subject appears to be complex, shrouded in mystery, a tangle of conflicting advice and genetic symbols. Textbooks he reads on the subject seem to plunge Kim deeper into the abyss so that after working through a library on breeding he can emerge bewildered and bemused, little wiser than when he started his studies. Why?

Far be it from me to deprecate the value of textbooks written by those who have devoted precious time and labour to the study of inheritance and have attempted to explain Mendelian Theory and general genetics. Most works on heredity stem from the experiments of Mendel the Monk which though invaluable, especially to botanists, concern the monk’s experiments with the garden pea. In the main, these books provide valuable information of a general nature on the subject of inheritance but no one should imagine that any of these textbooks give precise and fool-proof systems for producing champions over distances of 500-miles or more. While I recommend every beginner to study books on heredity I advise him not to read into the context promises or undertakings which are no more than implied by even the most optimistic of authors. Unfortunately, not one of the textbooks on genetics that I have read has really passed on the message in a form easily grasped by the average pigeon fancier.

I have always maintained, sometimes with fiery vigour, that any intelligent beginner can master the principles of pigeon breeding if he is told how to START RIGHT instead of being left to grope his own way in the dark. Figuratively speaking, he need only be told how to make bricks—one may then leave him to discover the method of how to place brick on brick to build a proper structure.

Therefore, in this and succeeding chapters, I intend to go all out to define and clarify the simple fundamentals of breeding. In the process of propounding these principles I may stir to life the sleeping ache in many a corn by the simple act of treading on it but I know my Novice friends will not be side-tracked by the anguished cries of those who never mastered the art nor are ever likely to.

Those readers who have studied my books on pigeon racing will have noticed that contrary to the methods employed by many textbook writers I have a weakness for starting my subject at its beginning and then moving on to its inevitable end. In this instance I bow to the same eccentric procedure by stating that all inbred strains of racing pigeons are firstly divisible into two distinct categories, i.e., Male and Female. This fact is as old as the hills, even though my novice friends may not have heard of this distinction. If beginners would bear this important fact in mind when first stocking their lofts they might save themselves much trouble and disappointment in the days to come. When a novice enters the sport he stands at the apex of the fork road. To the left, Female Strains. To the right, Male strains. He must decide which fork he intends to take because no other road is open to him. After entering the fork division he will eventually approach the crossroads but this is something I shall discuss later on.

What is the difference between Male and Female racing pigeon strains? Why does one need to know which is which before starting to cultivate one or the other?

I could best explain the difference by listing the names of leading fanciers who cultivate one or the other but my Editor flatly refuses to allow me to quote names of fanciers in my literary work.

Note the several rumours current in our sporting circles which go like this—Old so-and-so wins the classics with his birds but no one else can race them! Also, Have you seen old so-and-so’s pigeons? I know his birds win in nationals but I’ve seen better in the market places! Etc., etc., etc. I am sure my reader is familiar with this kind of gossip. He may also puzzle over its inference for it is a fact well known to most fanciers that in a number of instances birds bought from leading fanciers fail to breed honest workers for their new owners. In most of these cases I discovered for myself that the purchaser had not given due regard for the sex of the inbred family he is trying to introduce as a cross.

The proposition that Cocks (or hens) are best for distance events is a negative one. It is quite untenable to expert breeders who know that birds of either sex will perform equally well in testing races. What matters is not the sex of the actual performer but that of its inbred ancestral line! In other words, the sex-excellence of the champion is subject only to the sex dominant of the strain that produced it.

However, carry your interest further by noting the following: (1) The cock who breeds all daughters but no sons, or a preponderance of the former (2) The Cock who sires both sons and daughters but only the daughters (or, vice versa, only the sons) excel on the road. (3) The hen whose direct progeny are no great shakes as racers but whose grandchildren excel.

I quote the foregoing as useful pointers to the propisition I am expounding without actually publishing any names. What I cannot do is record a ‘best sex’ for any strain. I believe the sexes are of equal merit as racers. According to British classic records female pigeons appear to have the edge on males at the distance, i.e., numerically. However, I don’t accept this form of statistic as proof of female racing superiority. Rather, I am inclined to believe that fanciers who cultivate and manage winning ‘female’ strains must necessarily put more thought and labour into their management with the result that they reap the richer rewards. On the other hand, owners of ‘Male Strains’ who work as hard as the owners of female strains on their pigeons often hold their own in the classics although it would appear they stand in the minority.

However, all these arguments about the probable ‘best’ sexed-strain are not really germain to the essence of this subject which is that a novice must make up his mind which kind of strain he intends to start with before he plunges deeper into the jungle of ‘do’s and don’ts’ which waits to engulf the embryonic breeder. A simple decision is not enough. The novice must first grasp and then understand what is actually involved in his choice. For instance, the management of a ‘female’ family is different from that of a ‘male’ strain. It calls for more worry, more work, more critical observation—a different system of management altogether.

He will help himself a great deal if he studies pigeon pedigrees published in the Fancy Press. For instance, he must take notice of the ‘crosses’ introduced by ‘Ace’ fanciers and look up their ancestry. Note whether the fancier uses cocks or hens for his new introductions. What are you likely to discover? That the owner of a ‘female strain’ invariably uses cocks for crosses whereas the ‘Male’ strain man invariably uses mostly hens. Recognise and distinguish one strain from the other by noting to which side the fancier is inbreeding, whether to female or male ancestors.

Here I take latitude to express my opinion that in most instances fanciers will not be conscious of deliberately developing either a male or female strain! Their breeding systems will have developed as the result of trial and error, allied to personal preferences so that ultimate concentration on either sex is fortuitous rather than spontaneous.

I once asked the owner of a ‘Female Strain’ why he doted on hens (as breeders as well as racers) I dunno, he replied, p’raps because I’ve always liked a good ’en! I seem to do better with them although I sometimes come up with a good cock. I searched the country far and wide for a fancier who had bought the above’s blood and done well with it. I found only one, who also kept an inbred Female Strain and I found he had introduced a cock from the above fancier. Incidently, do not read this article as indicating that owners of ‘female’ strains do not race cocks successfully, or vice versa. This would not be true. What I am trying to stress herein is that inbred strains are divisible into two sexes and that from a breeding point of view it is necessary for one to know what it is one is cultivating.

No matter which system of ‘Strain-making’ you follow, the ‘line’ must bend one way or the other. There is no neuter sex in pigeons and no middle course, other than in those lofts where the owners indulge in wholesale outcrossing. Here, the lines switch from one sex to the other in a breeding gamble in which the odds are outrageous, as in the Treble Chance.

Note that cocks bred from a truly ‘female’ strain invariably demonstrate the fact by betraying a marked ‘henny’ appearance, especially in the shape of the head. Such cocks are usually compact, small-medium in size, of the ‘apple-bodied’ type (which is not to say that cocks bred from Male strains may not also be apple-bodied!) The above mentioned fancier (who developed a ‘female’ strain) in one of his rare moments once jocularly told me the story of the novice who called to buy ten squeakers. He wanted two cocks and eight hens. I let him pick his own, he chortled, and next year he phoned to say he now found himself with one hen and nine cocks!

The sport is rife with sayings which point, like so many sign posts, to the absolute division of inbred strains into male and female. For example, I have read some writers in the press as saying, I have done well with henny looking cocks but never with cocky looking hens. Need we wonder why? The former is obviously the thoroughbred product of a female strain while the latter is patently bred from an impossible cross, or is the throw out from a male strain!

I must also emphasise that when I am talking about Male and Female strains I am referring to inbred families, i.e., the better known strains. There is, of course, no such thing as an ‘outcrossed’ strain since in such instances no ‘strain’ can be developed or carried on. It is impossible for any fancier to make a strain without recourse to some form of inbreeding, even if the term is toned down by calling it ‘line-breeding’. The only families worth buying are those in which exceptional merit and talent have to a certain extent been ‘fixed’ by a measure of close-breeding.

Therefore, the process of ‘fixing’ virtues and ‘true-to-type’ characteristics must be to promote one sex above the other and cement the sex-domination. It remains for the buyer to beware and make certain (by studying the pedigree) which kind of strain he proposes to introduce.

The buyer is usually given the choice, anyway. When a fancier offers squeakers for sale he usually publishes the pedigree of their parentage and permits the buyer to bid for either a son or daughter of a stock mating. Where no pedigrees are published the buyer should ask for details of the ancestry before placing an order. Leading fanciers are always willing and usually happy to supply such information. Take note of how many times a certain cock, or hen, is quoted in the breeding lines for in every pedigree worth its salt there is at least one outstanding performer. If the strain is an inbred one this ‘special’ performer should appear more than once in the patentage of its descendants. It is this concentrated breeding back to exceptional performers which causes a sex to dominate the family.

The ruin of many a good strain has started with a switch of sex in the breeding lines, notably when introducing a new cross. Note how a ‘great’ name persists for a few years, then begins to fade away, eventually to be forgotten. The records contain more of these ‘faded glories’ than of all those who emerged from the ruck and stayed at the top. Ah, someone might say, that happened because the fancier lost interest in the game. This is incorrect. No one loses interest in winning races although some lose heart when the going is against them. He sold too many birds, say some others, although he must have known that you can’t sell and still win! This is another fallacious remark. The biggest sellers of high-priced pigeons (and what is the good of the other cheap sort?) today are still numbered among our most consistent classic winners who stay on top, year in and year out.

99% of the cases of winning strains of today fading from view tomorrow is due to the ruin of the family through injudicious out-crossing or the failure of the fancier to make a good ‘cross’ in time! Then why cross? Because this is the only way of putting back vigour into an inbred family. Therefore, one does not