Overview:
In this article, Silvio Mattacchione discusses what it takes to successfully breed racing pigeons. Below is an excerpt of the article that begins to discus the 2 of the 9 Rules on Successfully Breeding the Racing Pigeon and so much more.
Rule 1: Make your own mistakes!
Birdkeeping of any kind is by definition a hands-on activity. Do not be afraid to make errors. It’s O.K.! You only really learn by doing. However, you must learn to recognize your errors, learn from them, and do not repeat them. How often have you heard someone say, “But so-and-so has had and been in pigeons for thirty years, and he does it like this or that”?
How this blindness infuriates me, as the truth really is that so-and-so who does it like this and that has not had pigeons for thirty years but rather for one year thirty times over. He has learned nothing, and never will, because he neither recognizes nor acknowledges his errors-another case of the blind leading the blind.
Rule 2: Read everything, study everything, but do so critically!
Yes, by all means read the old favorites like Old Hand, Violet, and countless others. But do not delude yourself that these dinosaurs have anything of value to offer you. Read these to develop your instinct for misinformation in order to provide a perspective against which to make informed judgments. We have come so far since these extinct fossils paraded assumptions and opinions as facts. Also remember that new modern charlatans are on the sidelines just waiting to move into center field.
Read and study everything everywhere and use only what truly makes sense and can be supported not by opinion or assumption but by fact. In our sport as well as many others-animal and human-MDs and DVMs are reporting studies in all areas from genetics to performance. Read them all!