Fancy Pigeon breeders often use foster parents for different reasons. Some breeds of pigeons such as short faced breeds simply cannot feed their own youngsters and some breeds of blowers are prone to sour crop when they feed their young so foster parents are very important in these cases. I have found that with any fancy breed I have kept that foster parents are a key component to having a successful breeding program .Whether it is to save a chilled baby or egg, to feed an undersized youngster or to speed up production and the advancement of your program. The breed of pigeon used as a foster parent may vary between breeders but in order to have a very reliable family of feeders you must breed, cull and manage you foster parents with the same intensity as you would the fancy breed they are going to foster. I have bred up my current family of feeders over the past 20 years. They consist primarily of racing homers.The following is a list of features I have culled for over the years:

1.) Overly aggressive birds that will scalp or pick at young birds on the floor.

2.) Cock birds that drive their hens to lay too quickly before their current set of young ones have been fed up well enough.

3.) Hens that are slow to lay.

4.) Birds that are wild or will not set tight on the nest.

5.) Birds that do not feed well and for a long time.

     In order to breed a good family of feeders you must not cull for any other feature other than the ability to hatch and raise youngsters. It is therefore my opinion that you must not be culling for other traits such as show qualities in your feeders if you want to have good foster parents. You would not know it to look at them but my current family of feeders has had just as much genetic selection as my stud of Jacobins but for different abilities rather than physical features of appearance. My feeders get the same care as my Jacobins. They get the same quality feed, the same health care and vaccinations and their own separate lofts with plenty of space and breeding compartments. Never mix your feeders with your breeding birds. I band all of my young feeders that I raise. This I do late in the season after I am done raising my Jacobins. I only raise a few youngsters to replace my older birds but not so many that I would be over crowded.

     During the breeding season I keep very close records of when each pair lays so I can switch eggs at the right times. I always have a couple of pair feeding their own young at different stages so I can put underfed young Jacobins under them if I need to. For 18 pair of Jacobins I keep about 25 pair of homers. This past year all of my Jacobins hatched out young birds and raised them but often it was homers they raised. It is important not to pump your breeders but to allow them to set and raise young ones as well. This keeps them more content and they do seem happier. I usually take every second set of eggs and put them under feeders. The times I do take eggs from my Jacobins I always let them set on homers eggs for 10 days before I take them away. This gives the hen a chance to rest. Proper use of feeders can shorten your breeding season and increase the number of young birds raised especially early in the breeding season which will give you an edge at the shows with more mature young birds.

 Clint Robertson       Email: clint@jacobins.ca