Being a fan of Alan Wheeldon‘s articles, I started to apply his advices in my own loft. This case study, inspired from his article “Breeding Winners“, comes to show 8 youngsters bred from the same couple, in several months this year (of course, one round of eggs were adopted by another pair, to speed up the young birds production).

I made 5 videos, 1 with the breeding pair and 4 with the 4 nests of youngsters. I am sorry that my idea came too late, I should have filmed all the babies at the same age, before moulting of the first 4, in order to see the phenotype differences better. Anyway, here we go:

Breeding pair: schalie female(2005) + black male(2006)
Stock female. The male happens to be the best middle distance pigeon in my loft in 2007 (@330 km: 1 / 1107 pigeons, 2 / 306 pigeons, natural, always on 2 nest youngsters, eggs or driving the hen).

Nest #1: chequer males, the nervous one has mother’s phenotype and personality, the other follows his father. They both have pretty well balanced bodies…the basket will tell the rest.


Nest #2: black males, the smaller one is the best from the 8 I think; it has the most balanced body, soft feathers and a winner behavior inside or outside the loft; the bigger, longer one, with a white feather, is pretty bored, not very balanced, and spent some time away from the loft on another house with neighbor’s pigeons in childhood! – and I hate that; and the most important aspect, the first flies like a butterfly, and the second like a pelican, LOL. The smaller one that I like has father’s phenotype, and the other…I don’t know!

Nest #3: black and blue youngsters, don’t know their sexes yet. Same story, the black shorter one isn’t very balanced, too hard feathers, the blue is nicely balanced and flies like a butterfly(I’d say he’s the 2nd in my top). Both have father’s phenotype (look at the head for example).

Nest #4: black and blue youngsters, with the black having mother’s phenotype(very easy to see) and the blue having father’s phenotype. Don’t know about the rest, they have just got out of the loft a few days ago, with the blue one spending a day away, like they usually do when they are taken up by the flock.