# What are you feeding your young birds?



## First To Hatch (Jul 19, 2009)

I am wondering how you all feed and what you win when you feed that way? I don't mean to offend anyone, this is an open forum, but sometimes people get away telling others what to do when they aren't very good fliers to begin with. So this questions is for the old timers with great results, and really for anyone that has won average speed, champion bird, or champion loft. This would be a great help to all the new and not as experienced fliers. 

I was watching some videos on guys in Europe they all say to feed between 10-14% protein, but here in America we train our birds a lot harder then they do over there. It makes me think that I really should be feeding more protein then they recommend. Another thing is Ad Schaerlaeckens says that no one has scientifically proven that loading your birds with carbs or fatty acids before races gives them better performance and therefore he feeds the same racing mixture every day? What do you guys think about that? Sounds a lot easier, but so many people feed heavy to light, etc.


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## raftree3 (Oct 16, 2010)

Good question. I think I've been fortunate in having some really nice birds that win in spite of me. I won all the things you mention last year with the YBs who I fed the same commercial racing mix from beginning to end. I did adjust the amount a bit as I started to ask more of them. I raced a large percentage of the same birds this year as OBs and fed them light to heavy and won the same awards for short and middle distance. I fed the same race mix as they had in the fall but cut it with barley until later in the week. 
Having said all of that I'd be interested in how others do it.


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## Lovelace (Jan 10, 2008)

scents we are talking about feed does anyone use the NUTRIBLEND GOLD PIGEON pellets
and if so how are your results.


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## Josepe (Jan 10, 2011)

Hatch,
As important as feed is naturally in racing I believe also you have to add to the mix Good, Healthy birds that are Consistent Good Clockers and Handled in the manner that suites the birds.Feed alone is not going to get you any of the awards you speak of. And the difference in my opinion between our training and the Europeans is we Over Train our birds, some burning them out before the races.


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## First To Hatch (Jul 19, 2009)

raftree3 said:


> Good question. I think I've been fortunate in having some really nice birds that win in spite of me. I won all the things you mention last year with the YBs who I fed the same commercial racing mix from beginning to end. I did adjust the amount a bit as I started to ask more of them. I raced a large percentage of the same birds this year as OBs and fed them light to heavy and won the same awards for short and middle distance. I fed the same race mix as they had in the fall but cut it with barley until later in the week.
> Having said all of that I'd be interested in how others do it.


The main reason I ask this is because the best fliers in my club all mix their own grains. I'm trying to find a different route because I don't have anywhere to store a bunch of different grains to mix.


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## First To Hatch (Jul 19, 2009)

shorty2 said:


> You can expand that statement to most of the advice that is given in our hobby. We can all easily find ample advice by people telling us exactly what to do, and surely they believe in their advice and do it themselves, but as far as that advice being proven as a superior method by comparative testing, that type of evidence is rare in our hobby.
> 
> The exception being studies to determine how a pigeon can find it's way home. Tons of scientific studies there, but that data isn't of great value to us, we know they can find their way home, we really don't need to know how they do it.
> 
> ...


I'd love to do it if I had two teams, but I'd hate to throw away a whole season in results experimenting.


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## First To Hatch (Jul 19, 2009)

Josepe said:


> Hatch,
> As important as feed is naturally in racing I believe also you have to add to the mix Good, Healthy birds that are Consistent Good Clockers and Handled in the manner that suites the birds.Feed alone is not going to get you any of the awards you speak of. And the difference in my opinion between our training and the Europeans is we Over Train our birds, some burning them out before the races.


I was pretty pleased with my results last year, 3rd average speed against 16 fliers most of whom have been racing since before I was born. I keep a stop watch from the moment the birds hit the landing board till they clock. One race I had a hen land on my aviary wasted 5 minutes, I lost that race by three minutes. Another race I shipped 11 birds got 9 on the drop only my clock was in my garage, ran to the garage about 150ft away got the clock, realized my cables weren't there either ran to get the cables, plugged everything in, then went in and caught the birds to scan them, lost that race by 9 minutes I don't how much time I wasted there lol. Another race I had 4 birds comes in, 1 wasn't mine just as my birds hit the landing board that other 1 pulled up and the rest went with it, lost 5 minutes, and I lost that race by less than 4 minutes. But I won the A race that day. 

I think I got the birds.
I think I got the right management idea.
I think I got the right training ideas although I'm going to train a different route more so this year.
I truly feel as if I have the wrong feeding system though.

My true goal is to improve every year as long as I do that I'll be happy. I would also be happy if I don't mess up my trapping as much this year haha.


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## Crazy Pete (Nov 13, 2008)

I feed a 18% protein with over 4 1/2 % fat while the are in the nest, I want my babies big and fat when I wean them. I like to keep the protein up until well after they are weaned as their feather and bones are still growing. After the races start I cut back to 12% and keep the fat and carbs above 4%. I really cant say that I have won any thing, I have always used the young bird season as training for old birds.

Last year I tried to win young bird races for the first time, I trained a little more 12% protein 3 1/2 % fat and the day of basketing they get 1/2 rations with a few peanuts. I won the first 100 2nd and 3rd on the 150 and 200. I had planed to up the fat and carbs for the long races, then it all came to a halt when a **** ripped off my roof vent and killed all but 3 of my birds and my season was over. So this year I'm going to try the same way, if any more critters try to break in they are going to have to get past chain link fence. I lined most of the inside of the loft with chain link.
Dave


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## Crazy Pete (Nov 13, 2008)

shorty2 said:


> Do you still have those 3 super birds that flew from Tucson back to your place?


Yes the **** was only in my young birds.
Dave


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## ERIC K (Mar 29, 2010)

First To Hatch said:


> I am wondering how you all feed and what you win when you feed that way? I don't mean to offend anyone, this is an open forum, but sometimes people get away telling others what to do when they aren't very good fliers to begin with. So this questions is for the old timers with great results, and really for anyone that has won average speed, champion bird, or champion loft. This would be a great help to all the new and not as experienced fliers.
> 
> I was watching some videos on guys in Europe they all say to feed between 10-14% protein, but here in America we train our birds a lot harder then they do over there. It makes me think that I really should be feeding more protein then they recommend. Another thing is Ad Schaerlaeckens says that no one has scientifically proven that loading your birds with carbs or fatty acids before races gives them better performance and therefore he feeds the same racing mixture every day? What do you guys think about that? Sounds a lot easier, but so many people feed heavy to light, etc.


I had a long discussion with David a few weeks back about feed and after showing the list of seeds that were we're talking about to one of the best flyers any were and he said to me simply , "I like a few thing on the list".

Your asking someone to tell you something that probably is one of the least important items in pigeon racing. The feed, and your asking only winners to tell you. You should be careful which winner tells you because it might be someone who has the perfect loft location and flies lots of birds or has a big draw over his loft, lucky with the wind direction or wins because many people you fly against simply just don't care if they win they just want their birds to come home. When it comes to the people on here that do win or have years of experience you will find that they all do something different and feed something different and it's almost impossible to compare the results of the different lofts. As for loading up the birds before a big race I know for a fact that our birds get only corn for the two days they are on the truck before a long race over 500 miles so you can do your own math on that one or you could use this # for corn and that's just a ruff idea. Protein= 9%
Carbs= 69%
water= 15%
Fib=2%
Fat=3.9%


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## Josepe (Jan 10, 2011)

Good post. And as you stated there are Many Variables behind Winning flyers and lofts.


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## hillfamilyloft (Jun 22, 2005)

An easy way to cut your protein down without mixing your own feed totally is to add to an existing pigeon mix. Most are 14 to 16% protein. I mix two bags of pigeon mix with a bag of corn and a half a bag of milo and a half a bag of wheat. If you do not have the option and your feed store does not sell individual grains you can mix say two bags of pigeon feed with one bag of purina wild bird seed. It is mainly milo, mixed light grains and sunflower seeds. Just some ways to lighten up your mixes and increase carbs without starting from scratch with multiple bags of feed. I don't race out of my loft, but I do cut my mixes down so my breeders do not get too fat during the off season. My mix would make a decent race mix. For longer races I would add safflower or peanuts. My mix comes to about 12% protein. The birds look great. When I was flying birds regularly, I noticed they were quite lazy using just Excello premium 14% protein. After lightening the mix the energy level increased and they started flying much longer. 
Peas are poison for racing, says most of the greats including Scherlackens. In regular pigeon mixes you see 30% peas at times. Cutting the feed and lightening it up dilutes the peas to say 15% percent.


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## hillfamilyloft (Jun 22, 2005)

A bonus for lightening your regular mixes is it cuts your price from say $24 a bag to around $19 dollars a bag. Corn, Wheat and milo are about $12-$16 a bag. Even with cutting my feed, my birds are still leaving the peas for last this time a year. They will tell you what they need and don't need. 
I would love to be able to test my feed mix as a race mix. If anyone does anything similar give me feedback on how the birds do. I know my birds have won with guys just feeding straight pigeon mixes. One thing I have observed is the birds have peaks and valleys with this feeding. One week they do great others they do don't. I did have a bird that was 2nd high points bird and had 4 top 10 finishes in the season. They flier was feeding a 12% wild bird feed to his racers with cracked corn. Corn, milo, wheat, barley, millet, sunflower reads etc. Not a pea in it.


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## First To Hatch (Jul 19, 2009)

ERIC K said:


> Your asking someone to tell you something that probably is *one of the least important items in pigeon racing.* The feed, and your asking only winners to tell you. You should be careful which winner tells you because it might be someone who has the perfect loft location and flies lots of birds or has a big draw over his loft, lucky with the wind direction or wins because many people you fly against simply just don't care if they win they just want their birds to come home.



Yes I understand that,I have it fourth on my list of important things you need to win.

1. Good pigeons.
2. Good loft.
3. Good training.
4. Feed.

By asking only winners what they feed that cuts down a lot of people, I was hoping of getting a lot of answers, and then choosing the answer that made most sense to me. 

I did find a very interesting 20 page booklet on feeding that I have found extremely helpful that I can send to whoever wants it.


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## First To Hatch (Jul 19, 2009)

hillfamilyloft said:


> They flier was feeding a 12% wild bird feed to his racers with cracked corn. Corn, milo, wheat, barley, millet, sunflower reads etc. Not a pea in it.


Yes!!! Thats what I am talking about all the good fliers around here buy wild bird food from Wal-Mart and grains from farmers and mix it.


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## hillfamilyloft (Jun 22, 2005)

In my opinion any packaged pigeon feed that you buy is good for breeding and maybe general offseason but not racing. It is simplest to make changes to this feed. Add carbs and a bit of fat and you are set. Mix a 16% breeding mix with a variety of grains with a 12% wild bird feed and you get a 14% race mix. I would mix it down on the shorter races and up on the longer races. Add a few sunflower and safflower seeds peanuts for the 300+ races and you are set. I have researched a bunch of racing mixes from Belg and NL. 25% corn, Milo, millet, wheat, barley, a few peas and other grains. Nothing too complex. Big on carbs.


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## ERIC K (Mar 29, 2010)

I was just on vacation and was eating fish and chips on the wharf in Santa Cruz Ca. and wild pigeons were everywhere so I started feeding them bits of my Fries and they seamed to love them but I didn't try the fish it was too good to share. 

I don't have any real point except I second what Hill Family said a good mix of seeds like corn, wheat, milo, and safflower or sunflower and maybe some pellets of some sorts or some Austrian Peas. Some guys buy a breeder mix that has lost of seed and peas(no corn) then cut it down with whole corn and wheat. Keeps the cost down. Corn here is $7.00 per 50 lbs and wheat is cheap too. 

I have been using the Purina Gold + Green instead of peas but it so hard to get and only a few places will order it and at $24 a bag plus driving time it gets pricey.


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