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February in the Loft                                             

Last month I referred to a way to keep our racing birds from molting too soon by pulling a widow hen from her mate after the second egg of the second round is laid. Pigeons will molt a feather for each round that they lay and brood, and in order to delay the process of those all-important wing flights on a racer from molting too fast, we can slow down this process in a widow cock by removing his hen and removing the eggs so that he does not go through the process of setting and raising another round of young. Some fanciers think that taking both the hen and the eggs away at the same time could cause undue stress for the cock bird.

That is why they leave the youngsters (or at least one youngster) with the cock, because at this point in the rearing process he is the main care-giver for the babies, and the idea is that even if his hen and the next round of eggs are missing, he will become so totally aborbed in taking care of his youngsters that he will not become overly distressed by his missing hen and eggs.

Obviously, if there are no youngsters, then a good way to undertake this process would be to remove the hen from the loft while the cock is sitting the nest, and then let him continue to sit the eggs until he quits the nest, which might be two or three days later. But in this way, the stress of separation from his hen and eggs will be much more gradual and less stressful. The idea is to get the cock to develop a strong bond to his nestbox, to identify this as his most sacred place in the world, a place that he will put forth great effort in getting back to as fast as he can, but NOT to wear him out by having him raise too many youngsters or drive his hen too many times, and in the process proceed too far in the molt.

Most experienced racing fanciers do not concern themselves too much with whether the first, second or third (counting from the middle out) flights are missing when a bird goes to the races, but the farther out on the wing that a flight is missing, the more important it becomes to successful flight. Thus, it might be important for you to take note of this during the winter preparation of your race team, and try to make a plan about when you will pair your racers and how many eggs and young you will allow them to raise before the races start.

By February, most fanciers throughout the country have paired their breeders. Many pairs are already sitting their second round of eggs, while some are just being paired for their first. In some parts of the country, fanciers are beginning to train their old-bird race teams for the upcoming season. Because the winning that fanciers do with young birds is entirely tied to the health of the breeders when they were paired, I want to explore what is considered a healthy pigeon as well as to detail what to look for to determine that a pigeon is not in top health for the upcoming breeding and racing seasons.

Before pairing up his breeders, a successful fancier will determine that the birds are in absolute top health. How is this done? First, I like to look at the flock in general. An experienced fancier can tell at a glance if a flock of pigeons is healthy and happy by the way that they act in the loft. Is there great energy in the loft? Do the birds sparkle, and have sheen on their feathers? Are they active and full of life? If so, things in general are good. But what about individual birds? Sometimes, even in a good loft with overall excellent health, a bird or two can slip through the cracks so to speak, and the fancier can miss the fact that a few birds are not up to par.

Many weeks prior to racing and breeding, I like to take each bird in hand and thoroughly inspect it. When I handle a bird, the first thing I consider is the pigeon’s weight. If a bird is light, I want to know why. If a bird is extremely light, I put it in isolation for closer observation. Once I have determined that the particular bird I am handling is within the “window” of weight for proper health, I examine the head, paying particular attention to the nose cere or wattle. I want the cere to be extremely white in color and chalky looking. If it is not, and the pigeon is not feeding young, I will generally remove that bird from the flock because a sure sign of trouble in a pigeon is if the nose cere is gray or brown and wet looking, especially if that bird is not feeding young. Only if a bird is feeding young will I disregard this area being discolored.

If you have birds in your loft that are not feeding young, and who show signs of a discolored nose wattle, you should check these birds immediately. Usually “brown noses” indicate a canker or respiratory problem, but this could also be an indicator of even more problems. If I detect a problem with the “brown nose,” I will usually look inside the beak to see if I can detect mucous in the throat. Almost always (unless feeding young), when a bird has a brown nose, there will be throat mucous present. Of course, if a veterinarian is readily available, a throat smear would be the best first course of action.

Unfortunately, in the United States, experienced vets for pigeons are rather hard to find, so we fanciers have to inform ourselves about the diseases and medications used to treat them. In a situation where I find a bird with a brown nose wattle and throat mucous, I recommend isolating the bird and treating for five days for canker, using either Turbosole, Ridzol, Pegosan, Trichoron Forte or Spartrix. Bear in mind that our Ten-In-One Capsules will attack a wide variety of conditions very effectively, including canker. Generally speaking, where there is smoke there is fire, and I would become extremely suspicious of the entire flock if I found even one bird suffering from such symptoms. If you can be certain that there are only one or two birds in a particular loft that have disease symptoms, then isolating the affected birds and treating only them could be good advice, but I would keep a cautious eye on that flock for several weeks, and if any more pigeons were to become afflicted, immediate flock treatment would be the most prudent action to take.

A single sick bird should always be isolated from the rest of the flock and observed very closely. If things don’t improve rather rapidly once a canker treatment has begun, I would then consider a treatment for respiratory disease.

After evaluating the nose and body weight, I always examine the eyes looking to see if the eyes are brilliant, full of color and not wet or dull. It is necessary to examine both eyes, because I have often found that one eye is slightly more brilliant than the other in what would appear to be an otherwise healthy pigeon. If I find this condition, then I know that the bird either is suffering from a respiratory condition, or did at one time. In some cases, birds that have suffered from a severe respiratory infection in one eye never get the complete color back in that iris ever again.

If there is excessive moisture around the edge of the eyelid where it touches the eye itself, I know immediately that there is presence of respiratory infection. An eye loupe is an excellent tool to use to check this ridge of the eyelid to see if there is moisture around the rim. The only way to know how to recognize an excess of moisture is to examine a great many birds, and especially to look for this when you are looking at birds from a champion fancier’s loft. You will see that birds that are in peak health will have relatively “dry” or normal eyes.

Eventually, you will be able to determine what is considered a healthy looking eye as opposed to one that is too wet. With experience, you’ll be able to determine, even without a loupe, if certain birds have “wet eyes.” If you detect too much moisture here, a repiratory infection is certain to exist. One tip I look for is the presence of trapped air bubbles lining the edge of the eye, this is a sure sign that the pigeon is suffering from a mild respiratory infection. If so, I would strongly recommend checking several other birds in the same loft for this eye condition, because I have rarely seen just one bird in a given loft suffering from “wet eyes.”

If several birds have this “wet eye” symptom, you should check the loft for excessive drafts and/or dust, and immediately start a respiratory treatment program. Also, changes to the loft should be made to eliminate overcrowding or excessive drafts. It would probably be wise to treat that loft of birds with a respiratory medication for a period of up to 14 days. We like to vary the medications we use for respiratory treatment, so we alternate between Tylan with Aureomycin, or Doxyvet with Tylan, and sometimes, if suspect a severe problem, we especially like Doxyvet and Suanovil together. It is helpful to keep in mind that in cases of severe infection, combinations of these respiratory medications, as well as alternating treatments, can be very beneficial. I’d like to offer some advice concerning respiratory medications.

First, it’s important to know that giving other types of drugs at the same time as respiratory drugs is not always recommended. When in doubt, it is always better to give a respiratory drug by itself than to give it in a mixture of other drugs as has become so popular today. Next, distilled water can help to make the drug more effective, because distilled water does not contain any chemicals that could react with the active ingredients in these drugs. Finally, all grit, calcium, and mineral supplements, such as picking stones, should be eliminated from the diet during the time that respiratory drugs are being given. If you follow these guidelines, the birds will get maximum benefit from the use of your respiratory medications.

I check the overall appearance of the feathers once I have finished assessing the condition of a bird’s eyes. I like to see a sheen on the feathers and a feeling of softness and pliability. I know that these are relative terms, but if you are conscious of these things when you are handling pigeons, eventually, with experience, you will be able to determine what “soft and supple” and “silky and pliable” mean. If the feathers appear dry and coarse and don’t have any plume (white powder that looks like talc) on them, then this is a sign of something wrong.

Very often, a vitamin or mineral deficiency is the cause of dull feathers, and one of the things that can cause such deficiencies in pigeons is worm infestation. If I find a bird or two with dull feathers, I immediately separate them from the flock and give them a worm treatment. (Moxidectin, Moxidectin Plus, and Eqvalan are very good ones.) The next day, I check the droppings for the presence of worms in the stool. Very often, fanciers neglect worming their birds, and we have found that it can make a very big difference in their overall health.

Among other things, I open the wing and check the flight feathers. What I am looking for, aside from the shape of the flights, is fret marks and plume on the feathers. If I see a bird that is just done with the molt that has lines across the feathers, like indentations running completely across the feather, then I know that this bird was in stress at the time that that flight was coming out. An infection the bird was fighting, or, for a racer, an overnight or very tough race can cause frets to develop.

If the bird appears in good health otherwise, I just try to figure out what caused the fret to determine whether or not it was something I could have controlled. If I see a large number of these frets, then I will not breed from that particular bird during the upcoming breeding season. Also, I’ll give it a year off to hopefully come back the following year with a better molt, in better health and with more sure signs of being fit enough to breed high-quality youngsters.

Of course, while I have the wing open, I always check for feather lice–either the lice themselves or their eggs embedded along the main quill of the feather. If I see a minor infestation of lice, I’ll use an aerosol spray (Colombine Spray, Natural Spray, Cansafix, or Ecto-Spray, etc.) and douse the feathers of the wing along with the rump and the neck before I put the bird back into the loft.

If I see a more than one or two lice on a bird, or if I see signs of pigeon flies (identified by finding small holes in the feathers), I would then consider dipping the entire flock in a solution of Malathion diluted with water. I’ve been doing this for over thirty years with extremely good results. I use ¼ cup of 57 percent Malathion to two gallons of water. Generally, every bird is dipped at least once a year, and the racers are dipped more often, as they often come into contact with feral pigeons that are infested with external parasites. This dipping will protect the pigeons from lice, mites and pigeon flies for months at a time.

Of course, you want to be extremely careful not to let the Malathion solution come into contact with the birds’ eyes, and prevent any of the solution from being ingested, so we take extra precaution when dipping. We use latex surgical gloves to protect our hands, and we are careful not to let any part of the pigeon’s head go into the solution.

We always pick a sunny, dry day to do this, with temperatures above 50 degrees. We have found that the birds will dry off completely within thiry to forty minutes and seem to show a great deal of enthusiasm and renewed vigor once they have dried. I know that many fanciers around this country have problems with pigeon flies, and I can assure you, if you do, your race results will not be at the very top.

These are among the things that I look for in the overall health of my birds. If any bird does not come up to what I consider top health, I will not breed from that bird–or race it. I have found through experience that it would be a complete waste of time.

Remember: The winning you will do with the young birds that you hatch in the spring is entirely tied to the overall health of the breeders when you paired them. Only the healthiest breeders will produce pigeons good enough to perform in today’s intense competition, and only birds that have been cared for properly before the breeding season begins will be fit enough to produce the kinds of pigeons that will win.

February in the Loft by Ed Minvielle

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Rae's Corner:

                                                                       Predators

      Nature gives birth in the spring time. Raptors such as hawks and falcons have a wide spectrum in their diet through choice. With an abundance of small weak creatures available, racing pigeons tend to be somewhat avoided in the early season. However, as time passes, young creatures gain strength and intelligence. New plant growth continues to flourish, providing better coverage and protection. As the seasons progress, hunting becomes more difficult. At this point racing pigeons become an obvious choice of prey.

     Racing pigeons can fly fast, and often fall as prey near the loft or at the landing board. This can become an increasing problem as the raptors gain experience. Raptors such as hawks are protected in most countries through regulation. Therefore, pigeon fanciers are limited in their options to alleviate the issue. There are some precautionary measures that can be taken.

What can be done?

• Don’t leave your birds out to free fly at will for exercise.
• Stager your training sessions in days and hours.
• Change your release locations.
• Don’t overwork your birds through training.
• Avoid attracting wild birds near the loft location through feeders
• Trees are an obstacle by being a perch and loft location for predators.
• Try to retrieve lost birds even if they are to be culled later.