blogjanuary2009

"MERRY CHRISTMAS to you and your family as well and have a HAPPY NEW YEAR.
We would like to thank you for sending us such great birds. We won 5 combines this young birds and 3 of our combine winners were off of your birds."

THANKS AGAIN JUNE AND MANDEL ARMOUR

HEAD HUNTER LOFT

The Armour's were devastated by Hurricane Katrina several years ago. They started over with a new loft and new pigeons. Congratulations Mandel!

I have received several other emails. One email asks about vitamins for breeders when raising young birds. This email has encouraged me to create a Products link on the web site to create a database of products that work well with racing pigeons. While this link is currently under construction, I hope to have it substantially completed by the end of January.

There are any number of vitamins that are excellent products. Typically I have used either the Vita King products, Pego products or the Herbot products. I prefer vitamins without electrolytes. I don't like to give electrolytes in the vitamins. I prefer to use Pedialyte when electrolytes need to be administered.

More than selecting a particular brand of vitamins, be aware if the breeders drink the usual amount of water with vitamins in it. If the vitamins are too strong, mixed improperly, or if the breeders just don't like the taste, the breeders may consume less water. A diminished water consumption may negatively affect the development of the youngsters depending upon how many days per week vitamins are administered. Compare the amount of pure water the breeders normally consume with the amount of water they consume with vitamins in it. What is the difference? Remember that breeders drink variable amounts of water depending upon the daily temperature, the time of the year and whether the breeders are idle or feeding youngsters.

In order to allow the breeders to drink as much as they want, I usually prefer to place Red Cell on the food to administer vitamins and minerals to breeders. Breeders will usually learn to eat their food with an additive placed on it; while they will usually drink less water with additives in it.

Another email asks about in-breeding for breeders and out-crossing for racers. While this formula is a more traditional breeding formula that certainly works, Antoine Jacops prefers racing pigeons that meet a 70% line-breeding and 30% out-cross threshold. Line-breeding is different that in-breeding. In-breeding, as I have learned it, is breeding together mother-son, father-daughter, grandfather-granddaughter. Line-breeding is breeding together first cousins (either half or full first cousins); second-cousins, aunt-nephew, or uncle-niece. Antoine Jacops generally prefers dual purpose racing pigeons that race well and breed well. The best racing pigeons have enough homogeneity of genetic structure that they will breed well and enough heterogeneity of genetic structure that they will race well. It has been my experience that line-bred champion racing pigeons will usually breed more high-quality pigeons with a greater diversity of mates than out-crossed champions. Jacops continually out-crosses his top line-bred racing pigeons with top quality racers from other fanciers.

My son Jeremy was featured in the local newspaper, the Tulsa World. The idea for the article began at Jeremy's photography exhibit in November of last year. As many of you know, Jeremy provides the photographs for the Pigeons For Sale link and the short videos for YouTube. About half of Jeremy's exhibit was unique pictures of pigeons in unusual and odd poses. The photograph's were a hit with a number of the local art collectors which interested a writer for the newspaper. After several months of interviews, the article appeared on Thursday. As many of you have agreed, Jeremy's pigeon photography is as good as any of the Dutch or Flemish photographers. His video work is also outstanding.

The breeders are sitting tightly on the nests. Many breeding pairs have new youngsters in the nest. Especially during winter-breeding, breeders should always have access to plenty of clean water, clean grain, and fresh grit. This is a challenging time of year to manage the loft properly. Breeders are raising youngsters, youngsters will be weaned and lofting in a few weeks, and the old birds still need the necessary TLC to race well in old birds. Training and racing will begin in 60 to 90 days depending upon geography.

If your youngsters are hatching, make sure that there breeders are receiving weekly doses of vitamins and minerals. I use Red Cell for horses to mix on the food. The Herbots also have several products that can be used on the food or in the water. Vita Duif, Aminovit, and Bio Duif are three products for the water. There are also several products to add to the grain: Optimix

and Zell Oxygen are two good products for the food.

Essentially, the Zell Oxygen is a liquid that allows the Optimix powder to adhere to the grains. Although they have the same function, I sometimes use Red Cell liquid to adhere the Optimix to the grains. The following link is to the Siegel's webpage for Herbot products. The Pego Products are also very good including their Multi-Vitamin liquid.

Finally, I have often used the Vita King products.

Breeders should also have a continual access to a good clean pickstone. There are many brands of good pickstones from which to choose. try several and see which brand your pigeons prefer. They should eat a constant supply of fresh pickstone. Remember the obvious. Whatever goes into the breeders also goes into the youngsters. Healthy growing youngsters need to have plenty of hydration (water), plenty of clean grain, and a constant supply of grit and pickstone in order to grow up strong and healthy. I have heard of fanciers using chicken pellets to creep their breeders. If you do this, be sure the pellets are unmedicated. Pellets medicated with amprolium for chickens is not the right food to give pigeons. Although fanciers claim that pellets help the youngsters grow, be careful not to produce heavy fat squabs for eating instead of healthy buoyant youngsters for racing. A fat youngster at weaning may be slow to fly off of the loft and have trouble learning to fly around the loft. Consequently, they may learn to sit on the loft roof without flying immediately when they are let out. Fat youngsters are an easy target for Cooper Hawks. Fat youngsters are not necessarily healthy youngsters. Racing pigeons should never be fed such that they lose their buoyancy. Racing pigeons are bred to fly and compete. Giant homers are bred to walk, sit and eat.

The rings or bands this year are lighter than in past years. That is good. Ring your youngsters after about 7 days unless they are a single. Single youngsters in the nest often grow faster than a set of two youngsters. Keep a record of each youngster with the ring number, date of hatching or ringing, color when feathered, sex if obvious, and parents. On my records, I also create a column for notes where I record any unusual observations about a youngster. Continually enter this information in a computer program that generates pedigrees. Information about your pigeons is as valuable as the pigeons themselves. Keep current, high-quality information about your pigeons. Record it daily. Generating information is a very important function of proper loft management. The following header is the type of header I use for recording information for youngsters. I also add a column for "Eye" when the youngsters are ready to road train. when I take them on a road toss, I evaluate each young bird's eye with an 18 power loupe and record the notes. I can often learn about a pigeon's breeding ability or racing ability from these evaluations. The more pertinent information that you can generate for each youngster - the better. Over time, your notes will become a portrait upon which the legacy of your breeding and racing ability will be painted.

The West Tulsa RPC met early Saturday morning to discuss the 2009 race schedules. The club voted to begin to race the extreme long distance, i.e., distances over 600 miles/960 kilometers. These races will be in addition to those races provided by the area federation. We have scheduled an extra 600 mile race on May 23, 2009 from the southeast. Gradually, the long distance races will be extended to 1,000 miles which we hope to begin in 2010. There is an article in the current Racing Pigeon Digest that is unbelievably timely to our club's recent efforts to schedule longer distances. The article features George Goswick, a Tulsa fancier who raced extremely well from the 700 mile Brownsville, Texas race station and the 1,000 mile Orlando, Florida race station. Click Here to view the article. George was one of my mentors are a teenage fancier growing up in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I frequently sat in his office listening to him talk about pigeons and pigeon racing. The picture in the Digest article indicates that George was watching the birds from his den in his home. This not incorrect. The picture of George is in his spacious office in his loft looking into the breeder section of the loft. I have sat in that office many times soaking up every word George spoke. George was a builder and built an incredibly nice loft in his back yard with a large office next to the breeding loft. The wall between the office and the breeding loft was a huge glass window that allowed George to watch his entire breeding loft from the chair behind his desk or the couch in the office. George's facilities were used to countermark the club's racers for the race series. As a teenager, my initial goal was to race just like George Goswick. As I aged and entered college, my focus changed from the confines of Tulsa, Oklahoma to Europe and Belgium. when I was 35, I met Mike Ganus and the rest is history. But in the beginning, there was George.

George wrote a book entitled "Living with the Birds." Fortunately, I have a signed copy in my library. George flew the old Trenton pigeons. I think he also flew a few Wegges, Bricouxs and Sions in addition to the Trentons. But Trentons were his preference. These Trentons were tough hard weather pigeons that were incredibly consistent and reliable. One experiment that George conducted involved teaching his pigeons to fly at night. He lived in a highly urban area of south Tulsa with utility wires all around his loft. when the birds flew at night, George experienced casualties as the birds had a difficult time avoiding the utility wires around the loft until they learned where the wires were positioned. Over time, a certain number of pigeons learned to successfully navigate the area around George's loft in the dark without mishap. These pigeons were the genesis of pigeons that would return to George's loft on long races after dark. George had quite a number of 700 mile day birds in his racing loft racing from Brownsville, Texas to Tulsa.

when I was about 16, I entered three pigeons in the 1,000 mile race from Orlando. That would have been in 1963 or so. Today, I am still waiting for those pigeons to return. I was devastated with my results or lack thereof and have never flown another 1,000 mile race since the first one. Obviously the extreme long distance or grote fond as the Flemish and Dutch call it, is a different type of race than a one-day long distance race. In many ways, the motivation is the opposite. While you generally want your racers to be generally motivated to come home, they should be very calm when basketed as opposed to highly excited. They should not fly themselves completely out on the first day. If they do, they may never make it home. Often females racing to young babies are the best extreme long distance pigeons although males can certainly handle the grueling distances also. If you can find a copy, it would be worth your while to peruse George's book about the subject. It's a very good read. If you can't find his book, the article in the Digest is a reprint of past articles about George from the old Racing Pigeon Bulletin.

In any event, the West Tulsa club unanimously voted to begin the process of racing the extreme long distance. I am very pumped and thank my club mates for their support in this exciting venture. I have been contacted by several members of other clubs who also want to participate in racing the grote fond. Our club also wants to begin to race pigeons on a continual basis creating a preseason and post-season to the annual federation old bird and young race series. While we can race early and late in Oklahoma, many other fanciers are prevented from racing at certain times of the year by the weather. Weather permitting, we will begin our old bird race series in the first week of March with a number of short training races. Although the price of gasoline has temporarily gone down, training races are an excellent way to train pigeons more economically than if everyone trains their pigeons strictly on their own.

The club has a new website and will offer pigeons for sale in order to finance the club's operation. You can find the page by clicking here. While the club will fly plenty of short races before and after the federation race series, we will also specialize in the grote fond and the website will specialize in the grote fond races also. I purchased the entire race team of Willy Ceulemans from Mike Ganus. Mike called this family of pigeons the Hercules family after Ceulemans 1st National Ace, Hercules. I believe that the Ceulemans pigeons, the Oliviers-Devos pigeons, the Antoine Jacops pigeons, and the Florizoone pigeons in Belgium will race the extreme distance well. I look forward to testing these pigeons in the very near future. All of these families have raced the grote fond well in Belgium.

If you read George's article reprinted in the latest Digest article, you cannot help but realize that George Goswick was an incredibly curious and observant man. He prided himself on learning the racing pigeon game through the prism of trial and error. The tediousness of the trial and error method requires tremendous patience. George was a very patient man. His patience could also be observed in his other passions. He was also a very good athlete - a distance or marathon runner. George ran up and down the streets of Tulsa until he was physically not able to run anymore in the later years of his life. After he retired from racing pigeons, George was hit by a car while running along a major street in Tulsa. The accident nearly killed him. While the scars of the accident changed his physical appearance, after healing, George was back on the street running every day. That was another characteristic of George. Like his best long distance racers, George refused to give up. He was an unusually persistent man at the things he wanted to accomplish. I believe that one of the primary reasons George loved the long distance races was because he loved to run long distances himself. George was a little like Forest Gump. when he ran each day, he just ran and ran and ran. Likewise, George's long distance pigeons just flew and flew and flew. The legacy of George Goswick leaves us with several key characteristics of a successful racing pigeon fancier, particularly at the long distance:

These four personality traits buoyed George's resolve as he tried and failed, tried and failed, and tried and failed - until he ultimately succeeded at the game he dearly loved to play - long distance pigeon racing - the grote fond. If you are a patient person, the grote fond may fit your personality. If you have little patience, it may be better to stick with the short distance (vitesse) or the middle distances (mid fond) races.

George Goswick will also be remembered as a man who shared his experiences with the fancy not only through his writings; but also by mentoring others. As I have stated in the past, I believe that mentoring others is the single most important component to the future vitality and survival of the racing pigeon sport in America. Mentoring is sometimes tough to do for some people because mentoring generally requires sharing with others which tends to put our ego-strength at risk. Mentoring involves sharing experiences rather than forcing outcomes. It requires talking with others rather than speaking at others. It involves listening rather than yelling. While George was not a saint and certainly had his own opinions, he also mentored me at one of the most crucial times in my life. As my life demonstrates, pigeon clubs can be an important sanctuary for young people. Pigeon clubs can be a "safe haven" where young people are mentored and taught the most crucial lessons in life about curiosity, observation, patience and persistence. Mentoring should not destroy curiosity through anger or self-gratification or by refusing to listen or by dictating opinions or by ignoring questions. Mentoring is kind. Mentoring is patient. Mentoring is not boastful, cruel, or stifling. Mentoring respects the ideas of others. It never ignores the aspirations of others. Mentoring is persistent. when George mentored me, he shared with me the way he played the game. He didn't dictate to me his way - the only way - to play the game. Maybe there are others who had a different experience with George. For me, George sparked and developed my interest in a wonderful sport that I have played my entire life and love very passionately. Little could George know when he first mentored me that in a relatively short period of time from when we met and spent time together, I would desperately need the lessons and benefit from his mentoring after I nearly died in a tragic calf-roping accident on the family ranch that cost me the use of my right arm and hand in addition to other permanent maladies. The love for my pigeons and my pigeon coop help bring me through that accident in a way no other part of my life could accomplish - not parents - not friends - not the church. God has always placed angels in my life to mentor me. For the gift of mentoring me as a teenager when I needed it most, thank you George. Thank you for listening to me and treating my aspirations with respect. Thank you for your attention. Thank you for not ignoring me. Thank you for listening to me. I will never forget your kindness and generosity.

P.S. Just to keep the record straight, George was not the only mentor I had as a teenager in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I was also mentored by Mr. Keith Parrett, a fancier from another smaller pigeon club in Tulsa who preferred to race pigeons northeast up Interstate 44 towards Chicago rather than race the faster, easier course from the south or southwest into Texas. There were about five fanciers who preferred the typical headwinds provided by the north course rather than the tailwinds that still dominate the south course. My first pair of real banded homing pigeons came from Mr. Parrett who sold me a beautiful blue male and silver female for $25 in the early 1960s. The blue male was of Wegge descent and the origin of the silver female was Bricoux as I remember it. Although Keith died of lung cancer many years ago, his wife and children still live in Tulsa.

Last week, Morgan (my wife) went to her weekly Bible study at church. It was Thursday, the same day Jeremy was featured in the local newspaper. As part of the class agenda, Morgan reported on a local school's mentoring alliance program with church members. In addition, Morgan couldn't help but ask the 82 women in the class that day to read the article about Jeremy when they returned home and had an opportunity to do so. Since she briefly described the article and explained why it was written, Morgan mentioned racing pigeons in her explanation. After Bible study had concluded, a delightful 88 year old woman slowly approached Morgan. She introduced herself. Her name was Florence. Florence told Morgan that her husband - who had been deceased quite a number of years now - was formerly a pigeon fancier and raced pigeons in another state when he was alive and married to Florence. In the course of their conversation, Florence shared with Morgan that she had accidently found a daily blog on the internet written by a pigeon fancier by the name of Lamberton. Stunned, Morgan told Florence that the author was her husband. Florence told Morgan that she reads the blog everyday. She admitted that although she didn't understand all of the jargon in the blog, reading it some how made her feel close to her husband.

when Morgan came home later that day, she recounted the unbelievable story of her chance meeting with Florence at Bible study. The magnitude of the message in Morgan's story made me weep. Even as I write today's blog, I am moved to tears by the power of God's actions as He mentors us through others. The fact that the blog comforts the widow of a former pigeon racer never entered my mind. Florence's devotion to reading this blog will change me and the way the blog is written forever. Not only will I try to write the blog so that anyone will understand it; but occasionally, I will include Messages for Florence that can be enjoyed and understood by all readers. Thank you Florence for sustaining me these past few days and showing me that sometimes our efforts are appreciated and valued in ways we will probably never know or understand.

I received an email response to my comments on George Goswick and mentoring from Ken Kobus:

As I was awaiting your blog updates with great anticipation and logged on from Vegas this morning while unable to sleep. I was not disappointed. Reading it made me emotional and reminded me of my mentors that have passed to another life. I recall riding my bicycle to visit those men and to watch the pigeons return. Although I didn't have the same type of relationship with them that you did with George Goswick, in their own way those men showed me the love for pigeons that is with me today. I remember fondly Eleanor Trippler, the spouse of Russell Trippler. In 1968, racing pigeons as a young boy, I remember calling her excitedly on the telephone telling her that I had a race bird and reading her the countermark numbers. I then remember riding my bicycle to her house to turn in the countermark. She was kind to me offering milk and cookies and mothering. I won a few of those races too with birds that were gifted to me by Vernon Ray, another club member that lived 6 miles to the south. I met a daughter of another club member that reminded me of Joseph Tremblay, nick named Clem. I received his remaining birds from his family after he passed all those years ago. Thanks for the memories. Ken.

What struck me most about Ken's email were the comments about the role Eleanor Trippler played in his life. Often times, the spouses of fanciers have an opportunity to impact young aspiring fanciers in ways that no other person can accomplish - simply through small almost insignificant acts of kindness that may have a tremendous long term effect upon young people. Such was my past experience through the efforts of Keith Parrett and his family and George Goswick. As I have indicated before, mentoring is one of the great opportunities in the Sport to promote and continue the Game through the development of young fanciers.

Let's turn our attention to young pigeons. Remembers the daytime recorder - the three ring binder I urged everyone to keep on a daily basis? Begin to use it now if you haven't been using it already. Many first round babies are now about 30 days old and ready to wean. If the youngsters have learned to eat on their own in the breeding box with their parents, weaning should be a very seamless process. I often place 25 day old youngsters on the breeding loft floor in a "nursery" area. The parents will continue to feed their youngsters and the youngsters will have an opportunity to learn to drink from water fountains on the floor. At about 28 days, I also begin to place the squeakers out on the landing board in a settling cage. After several days of examining their outside surroundings and learning to trap, the youngsters are ready to be let out of the loft without the settling cage.

It is critical at this time to teach youngsters to come when called. In order to do this, their food needs to be fed very judiciously. That is, the youngsters should be kept a little hungry such that they always respond to food with your call. I learned to say "Come - Come - Come" in quick repetition as a way of calling youngsters. Other fanciers either whistle or use a whistle as a stimulus for feeding. Whatever method you employ, use it consistently every time the youngsters are fed. In just a few days, the youngsters will run to you when you call often squeaking with their wings outstretched. Reward them with a little food every time you call and they come. The 5th and 6th weeks are two of the most important weeks you will ever spend with your young birds. Especially at this age, young birds imprint their experiences in their long term memory. If they are taught correctly at 5 or 6 weeks of age, young birds will remember the lessons they are taught for life. Conversely, if young birds are not taught the correct feeding procedure at this age, they will learn their own random feeding procedures and an important life-time opportunity will be lost. It is very hard to break older youngsters of their habits learned randomly when they were young because they had no planned learning regiment to experience. From the moment youngsters are weaned, their education is the most important goal - other than receiving high quality food, water, grit, pickstone and vitamins. (I have explained earlier than I teach youngsters to eat and come when called starting at about 7 days of age in the nest box.)

Youngsters are always learning. Whether fanciers are teaching them or not, they are always learning. The proper goal as effective fanciers is to teach young birds how to behave as high quality racers before they have already learned previous habits or behaviors. Sociologists often call the learning process in humans "tabula rasa" or blank slate. A "winning" strategy is to educate youngsters such that the behaviors written on their blank slate are the behaviors that will contribute most to winning pigeon races. Please do not wait until a few weeks before the young bird race series begins to start to teach young birds a routine. By that time, it's too late. If they have been ignored for seven or eight months, they have already learned their own independent behaviors.

Just because fanciers are not teaching doesn't mean youngsters are not learning. Please remember that statement. Write it down and put it over your loft door. This is one of the most classic mistakes fanciers make with young birds. Fanciers should feel an enormous obligation when youngsters are weaned to immediately begin a strict regimented learning curriculum on a daily basis. It will set the stage for all future relationships with your pigeons.

You will not believe the difference between six month old youngsters who have been trained every day and six month old youngsters who have been "warehoused" and ignored every day. The former is a true race prospect. The latter is a wild pigeon.

Of course, this advice assumes that fanciers know how and what to train their youngsters. Regardless of how long you have played the game, let me assure you that any effort is better than no effort. A high quality 30 minutes or an hour a day will work wonders for the young bird race team. Although retired fanciers may have more time to spend with their young birds than younger fanciers who work and are involved with their families, 30 minutes to an hour each day is all it takes to develop high quality relationships with young birds. Twice a day, I scrape a portion of the loft floor very clean, sit on the floor, and hand feed the young birds. Even if I must go to the loft and turn on the lights in the early morning or late night, I hand feed the youngsters twice a day. I slowly sprinkle grain over my legs or on top of my lap or around my feet and force the youngsters to come to me to find their food. Some youngsters will learn very quickly to overcome their fear and eat out of your hand or off of your body. Others will take longer. DO NOT FEED THE YOUNGSTERS UNTIL THEY HAVE ACHIEVED YOUR GOAL. Even if several youngsters fluff up and physically struggle with the process, don't reward any youngsters until they has performed their task or tasks correctly. This "test of wills" will set the stage for all future learning activities. Learn to become the "alpha" or the one in charge from the beginning of the learning process. If you are not successful at this early stage, you will never be successful with those youngsters who win the test of wills. Any youngster that will not submit to learning will never make good racers and should be eliminated - immediately. Take very good notes - particularly the first few days of weaning. Those youngsters that learn most quickly will probably be your best racers. I can identify most of the best racers during the 5th week of their life by the speed at which they learn to eat from my hand and come when called. The best racers are almost always the smartest pigeons. Intelligence can be observed each day with your pigeons - particularly during the weaning process. The smartest young birds will show themselves during learning exercises. when I select the young bird team during the summer months, the best young birds are seldom a big surprise. The best young birds will demonstrate their intelligence daily if you spend enough time with them and know what to look for.

Although the youngsters require a lot of time, do not forget the old birds. Give them the same attention that you give the young birds. Hand feed them the same way. If time is an issue, only keep a small team of young birds and old birds. It is better to manage a few pigeons very well than a large flock poorly. A few highly trained racers - either young or old - will out perform a large flock of pigeons that have been poorly trained or largely ignored. I guarantee it!

More to follow......................................................Thank you......................................................Dr. John and Morgan Lamberton