When To Cull

Site hosted by Angelfire.com: Build your free website today!

To Cull Or Not To Cull; That Is The Question

You have to be able to "read" pigeons. Kit watching, from liberation through flying and down and it is mandatory. So are the many hours of in coop watching. You can learn more from just being alone with your birds than you can by bullshitting with other roller fanciers.

In order to establish a quality gene pool that will consistently produce uniformly sound rollers (presumably acceptable to mother nature) we will have to attenuate the heck out of our present stock-with nature's system in mind. Everyone has a few good birds and that's all that's necessary to begin the process. We start by eliminating the culls. The obvious culls are:

(1) The sick and puny birds. (nature always eliminates those first) Humans tend to treat the sick and nurse the puny. Bad idea and short-sighted!

(2) All roll downs must go, even youngsters after their first thump--no matter how accidental it appeared to be

Many are in conflict with this point. Read page The Value of Rolldowns

(3) Those that roll blood in their eye's must go. (its a physiological weakness-nothing meritorious, as some may proclaim).

Many believe that culling these are uncalled for. Many believe keep flying them; just make sure they are not stocked or nobody else stocks them.

(4) Then you go after those that roll while the kit is landing and either thump the roof or just miss the edge and recover before they hit the ground and those that hit the ground, even lightly, during kit landings.

Many are in conflict with this point

(5)The up tight easily frightened spooks have to go. ( they haven't adapted to the artificial environment and they upset the other birds.)

Many believe this problem can be overridden by how well it performs with the team or kit

(6) The one that persists in landing alone on a structure higher than the one the kit is supposed to land on. ( Sure, you can starve it down. But the bird obviously has a screw loose, so why bother?)

(7)Those that don't believe that birds of a feather should flock together have to go. ( their is safety in numbers, as in schools of fish, flocks of birds, or herds of animals. If they don't know that instinctively-- Good bye!)

Most believe the bird must kit. A good kitting bird is first and foremost no matter what else it can do

All of the above should be terminated with extreme prejudice. No appeal. Then there are the marginal birds that aren't exactly culls but are certainly not candidates for the stock loft gene pool. They Are:

(1) The fixed depth birds, the ones that will rip off the same goody every time Regardless of how high the kit is, or what it's doing.

(2) The hot shots whose breast feathers are all ruffled ( like Chinese owls ) from pulling out of furious spins. If they look nervous and act hyper after they get down, don't breed them. It doesn't matter that they never hit anything. They're borderline between having the roll and the roll having them. You don't want that kind of stuff in the gene pool.

(3) The infrequent and short performers. Boring, but not objectionable to M. N.

(4) anything else that isn't an obvious cull and you enjoy watching.

The reason you shouldn't breed from the marginal birds (oh? you've been doing it?) is that they show faults. Faults are easy to hide by mating them on birds that don't show the same fault. Faults go recessive in the offspring of such mating. They bloom again in their full glory when the two birds carrying the same recessive faults are mated and produce offspring. Then you will pay the piper!!

If you have been disappointed in or frustrated with the rollers you have been producing and you're ready to try something else, pick one or two pairs from your present kits that fit the "Keeper" definition. Breed more of the same and mate without regard to relationship. Cull as prescribed. Keep the rest of your birds and breed them in you usual manner. In five or six generations on the intensively inbred birds you will notice that you are getting only about 2% culls. Compare that with your others. That will tell you something.

NOTE: You may decide to disregard everything except the inbred family. If you do, don't yield to the temptation to save the good ones to blend with the inbred family. Such a mating will only bring you back to square two where you have to begin again to uncover and cull out the latent faults the new bird brought in. - Hans Rottenbacher (edited)

=========================================================================================================================================

We are not going to talk about culling without giving concerned critics a chance to look at this practice. Culling for some of us may be just confined to the removal of birds from a kit only and no criticism is really due. Culling is not just refined to the pigeon hobby. You find it in every hobby that involves the keeping of animals when sales; competition; or hunting is involved. You will find it in the hobbies and business of dogs, horses, fish, mice, rats,and so on. No hobby is left untouched by the process of culling.

Generally breeders of Roller pigeons never feel they are of a moral high ground when culling, nor do they feel shame or guilt. It is the more responsible and most humane thing to do when you compare it against other alternatives.

You have to choose between either raising pets or competing.