what to do ???

[aarontheman]

hello everyone i am going to start my first season racing next year and i also really like tumblers but i dont know if i have much more room for them so heres my options
option 1
keep only racers and just race with them
option 2
build a small kit box to house 8 or so tumblers and race pigeons out of the bigger loft
option 3
keep some tumblers with the racers in the big loft
option 4
go with only tumblers

 

[lightchick]

I'd do both. I have West of England tumblers and Birmingham rollers. I'm thinking of selling some of my tumblers/rollers and getting some homers.

 

[paramount]

It's possible to keep both breeds, but I don't know if you've considered the fact that your race team should not be kept with your breeders.

At minimum, even a small Racing loft needs three sections. Two breeding sections (this allows you to split the pairs up by sex at the end of breeding season) and then a section for the birds you are racing. It is less than an ideal, but this is really the bare minimum of a functional racing loft. (Most of the truly successful Racing people I've known kept a young bird section for every round of youngsters and kept them separated by age until they were mature enough to join their racing teams).

With a three section system and a double kit box, you could keep a few pairs of tumblers/rollers in the same loft as the racers and move their youngsters into the kit loft.. Again, it is less than ideal if you are running an open breeding loft, but you could do it this way on a very small scale.

On the double kit box, you would use one side to get each round of squeakers trained and gradually move them into the other side once they are ready to join the older kit. This is less than ideal, but if space is at premium, it is probably the best method to use.

 

[aarontheman]

my racing loft is going to have 3 sections one with nest boxes and perches another with perches i know some people who have no sections atall and are doing well around here im going to leave cocks in the nest box bit the the hens in the perches then when breeding seasons come around i will open up the sections then i will leave them there till yb season is over and split them into hens and cocks again

 

[paramount]

Sounds like a good plan. If you used a closed nesting box system, I think it could work well and you could keep a few pairs of the other breed without any concern for crossbreeding. The chance for crossbreeding is usually the primary reason why keeping more than one breed is often recommended against.

Talking kit boxes, if you are only going to fly up to a dozen or so tumblers/rollers, you can really get by with very small kit boxes. You can get by with about 3 feet long X 2 feet deep X 2 feet tall per box. This is plenty big. The original Old English style did not utilize perches and called for 20 birds in a very small space like that. They do not require much room if they are flown daily and they will do better for you this way, even though a lot of fanciers look at it rather questionably.

If space is really at a premium, you could easily put the kit box on top of the racing loft without too much trouble. In fact, you could even build a small breeding compartment up there as well and only keep the racers in the bottom.

 

[aarontheman]

i wish i could put something on the roof but you need a permit for your "shed" to be a certain height i was not going to have any more that 5 breeding pairs and maybe a small team of 20

 

[laughingdog]

Seperate breeding compartments or cages in "shed" are best.. then you can record yor best pairs together n seperatly, as then can cut out non best breeders n fliers of homers/racers, n non best pairs etc of tumblers/rollers. Breeds n sports of, did not get were are at today declined greatly and weaked, by more over open breeding. its like leaving dogs that don't hunt with ones that do to breed, then expcting great results as yes they maybe all same breed, but some to most would drag down good ones in pack and backwash bad genes. if you just want show birds to look at, then never mind, but perdormance must be perfected.

 

[Hokum Coco]

hello everyone i am going to start my first season racing next year and i also really like tumblers but i dont know if i have much more room for them so heres my options Go with what your heart tells you.

 

[paramount]

Hokum is pretty much correct. You have to figure out what you really want to do and just proceed. If it doesn't work, change it and try again.