Preparing for Pairing

January in my part of the world is usually cold and snowy. The days are short, to-day the sun was up less then 10 hours. Getting the pigeons in a mating mood will take a bit of planning. The birds look good, I handled some a day or so ago and they are in good shape, they aren't fat. The droppings are perfect, which means the intestinal tract is healthy, and they are shedding down feathers everyday. So far so good!

Preparation for the breeding season began last November. The the birds were vaccinated against PMV and last month, December, the birds were put through a 14 day treatment against salmonella and then vaccinated with Sal-Bac. Next week I will take some droppings to the vet to have them checked for worms. I don't worry about cocci at all, as I haven't had a problem with it for many years. My experience is that cocci is easy to control, keep the lofts dry and no drafts.

The days being short all the cock birds were put on 12 hours light at the beginning of this week. For this I use timers and last year I installed new fluorescent fixtures, the ones with electronic ballast and the thinner light tubes. I managed to find a source for the true daylight bulbs, the only downside was I had to buy a case at a time. The cocks will benefit from longer daylight for a longer period of time than the hens. It takes a few weeks to reactivate the testes in cock birds. They should be on light for a month or more before pairing. As the days shorten in the fall the testes shrink and sperm production is greatly reduced. Many times I hear fanciers complaining that their early round of eggs had a very low hatch rate and they suspect the eggs were frozen. Perhaps, the cocks weren't ready and their sperm production was to low, which resulted in infertile eggs. We can't blame all our breeding problems on the hen. The cocks have a 50% responsibility for fertility and some thought has to go into preparing them for the breeding season. About the middle of the month I'll increase their photo period to 14 hours. When paired up the first of February, they will go on 16 hours till the first eggs are laid and then the lights on the race team will be turned of.

The hens will start 14 hours of day-light a week before pairing. In my experience this is all it takes to have them ready. In the past the extended day-length for my hens was started two weeks before the planned pairing date. Year after year I had to pair earlier than planned because the hens were beginning to pair with each other, they were more than ready. Shortning the extended day-length to one week has solved this problem and has not resulted in any problems getting the hens ready.

This manner of lighting has been used on my race team and breeders for several years now and I can honestly say that I have seen no effect on the moult. The race birds don't moult any faster or slower, but I do think it is important that when those first eggs are in the nest bowl to put them back on natural day-length immediately. The breeders are a different story, they aren't raced, they can be left on 14 or 16 hours of light if you wish.

Feeding this time of year is pretty straight forward, I don' want them fat. Fat birds take forever to mate up and fat hens will have more difficulty laying. They have been getting an easily digestible, high fibre mix for a month now. I use 1 bag of Baden's Diet mix and add 1/2 bag of good quality barley, 10 lbs of corn and 5 lbs of roasted soybeans. No peas in this mix, not one. The protein in this mix is complete, the soybeans assure that they have all the essential amino acids. The high fiber will clean the intestinal tract and put it back in condition after a long season. They also get a hand full for every 20 pigeons or so,of Candy mix every day. This is made up of two parts flax, one part rape seed, one part cannery seed and one part hemp. If the weather gets very cold I give them a little extra corn before they go to bed, this keeps their internal furnace smouldering all night. Normally the birds get an ounce of feed plus the candy mix each day. Of course you have to use common sense, when it gets cold feed a little more(some corn) and if you get several warmer days cut back a bit. Keep them lean, fat birds have lower fertility rates.

They don't drink much water when the temperatures are low. I keep it simple, they get plain water 5 days a week and for two days I add a home made concoction, the recipe for which I'll post later. I don't use vitamins very often and often go months without them. They do get a good handful of fresh grit everyday, they eat the red stone in it like candy. The grit is made by Natural and I get 10 kg bags of it. Only keep 60 birds or so this time of year and probably went through 100 lbs of grit last year. They eat what they want each day and the rest I throw out. They won't eat stale grit anyway.
Mineral powder is put on the feed once a week, add a couple of table spoons of vegetable oil and a tablespoon of mineral powder to the days ration and stir well.

This post will the first of many. An honest effort will be made to post at least once a week. It is my intention to make them useful, educational and sometimes entertaining. If you have any questions or comments don't be afraid to leave them in the comment section. I will vet all the comments before they are published. I will not edit comments but do reserve the right not to publish comments. Keep them positive, I don't mind disagreement but insist on civility.