Pigeon Racing – A Number’s Game? Part 1

Pigeon Racing OvercrowdingPigeon racing winning is about having the best most optimal birds to race with. For the last 5 years I’ve spent a great deal of my time in painstaking research trying to find the elusive details about individual pigeons that have been found to score in the top 2 percentile at least two times in international races. My results have been worth the work and I’ve discovered that although the work has been exhausting, the results I’ve found are incredible.

When looking for a good pigeon you have to consider the condition of the loft it came/comes from. You also need to consider the health of the loft and how it’s run. I’ve found that some of the most optimal pigeons for racing tend to be found like a needle in a haystack- the haystack being some of the relatively small, most unlikely of lofts!

A bonus that tends to yield from this type of research is that you come to realize that lofts with a lot of pigeons or that send a great deal of the pigeons out to the races, tend to have less multi- performing pigeons pro rata with the multitude of pigeons sent out. What this means is that the lofts that tend to have a multitude of different pigeons in one place tend to be counter productive.

Although they will likely have a number of high performing pigeons, the ratio between how many pigeons are in one loft and another with a less constrictive group are far different. What this means is that the more pigeons you put in a loft the less efficient it becomes. Think about putting people into a room, the more people you put in there the less tolerable they become of one another and the conditions become cramped and annoying.

To the pigeons this can cause depression, aggravation, and a less likely chance they will perform well. Moral of the story is if you want more quality top performing pigeons then you will want to keep the numbers of pigeons in a loft to a good ratio with the space, other pigeons in the loft, and to assure conditions are ripe for making them comfortable enough to “spread their wings and fly”!

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11 thoughts on “Pigeon Racing – A Number’s Game? Part 1

  1. Its very true but there are big lofts with lots of birds that win because they have the room and money
    and if you look at how many birds they ship to a national race compared to others there not the ones
    i would buy pigeons from but a lot do also there are fanciers who think this kind of flying is great i would rather buy from a fancier who sends 10 birds and places well than the fancier who sends
    50 and wins the race.

  2. I agree with this article. I used to race pigeons in the 70’s in Canada, It was a very competitive. I had a smaller loft back then, than most of the other members of the club. I didn’t breed too many birds but the ones I had were very good. I would only race 5 to 7 pigeons per race and I was always in the top 10 with up to 3 positions. In one race I remember one club member sent 70 birds in the race and I sent 7. It was a terrible race day and I was very lucky to get back 5 birds. The fellow who sent 70, unfortunatly lost them all. I always believed that it was quality and not quantity. Good luck! Angelo

  3. that is good reading and i must keep that in mind because i have a very small loft its going to be hard to send them to auction knowing that some of them might get used for dog training (i train retrievers and never used live birds and the still work )

  4. That is right overcrowd your loft and your results will fall,manage your birds to a resonable mount things will get better, its a bad thing to think if you send alot you have more chance whot is the good of sending a lot of birds to a race if you loss over half of them just to win a race its nice to win but its better to send a few and get them all home and it dont cost so much.dont forget only one can be a winner.

  5. Yes it’s a problem most of us are guilty of.We breed too many and hold on to too many,so the loft is filled up in no time.I think most of us work it out in time,but it’s a hard lesson,because we all have favourite’s we like and want to keep.”come on now,don’t lie”.

  6. Your articles are my favorite i follow the sugestion in the articles and my racing team improve extraordinary.

    Thank’s
    Luis G Rodriguez

  7. If only it was that simple, normally success comes from hard work and observation in this sport. I also find anybody that does hobbies that include any animals do not observe natural laws considering stocking densities. When disease breakout they blame everything else and run for antibiotics. In nature you will find one pair of wild pigeons occupy a very large space probably larger than a football field. Another interesting fact comes from chicken farmers, they remark that many of their problems arise from the ammonia coming from droppings.My own experience is that my birds fly better towards the end of season as stocking densities decrease.

  8. Still waiting to read the results from all the research. All of this could be summed up into one or two sentences and nothing new.

    1. the numbers game will continue to fool many fanciers, young and old … those who take the good advice not to overcrowd and work their butt off to ensure conditions of the breeders and the management is flawless, will be amazed how more exciting and rewarding is their sport

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