Why I never use pumpers with my breeding pigeons! 

I am happy you liked it.

Thank you!

It is possible but the superstars have great immune systems. You never know with pumpers.

Glad you liked it. I hope to get fanciers to think.

I have thought of this as a possibility but never tried. If you can get older mature feral pigeons that have been exposed to many other wild pigeons it may be good. Make sure you worm them, vaccinate and spray for parasites. Biggest problem will be the wild factor. They may not stay on the nest if you come into the loft or explode off the nest and break eggs. Another option should you use pumpers is to mate a very old pigeon to a young pigeon as a pumper. The old bird will have been exposed to everything and pass this immunity to the young.

@@FrankMcLaughlinPigeons Over here I’ve been giving my birds homemade milk kefir on feed, I don’t give any meds but dewormer. But with homemade milk kefir I’ve noticed a big difference in the birds, not any sickness or yb sickness ever. That I read homemade milk kefir is a super probiotic. The culture lives in the gut better & cheap to make. A lot of guys give meds, but now is a drift towards the old days of natural products. I think going back to the natural way is really the best in the long run, to make stronger immune system birds.

I often see fanciers saying ferals have a better immunity than our racing pigeons. I think this is not true. The biggest disease generating factors are 1. stress; 2. weakened birds through not enough/quality feeding and 3. close contact with sick pigeons. Indeed, the ferals struggle to find food with the right quality and quantity. But the other two factors are much higher for our racers. Stress: loft overcrowding, weekly races, widowhood and all kind of systems that force pigeons do things they do not want... ferals are far less stressed. And maybe the most important factor: contact. All our racers drink from the same drinker, sometimes hundreds of birds from a very small volume of water. This guarantees they exchange pathogens all the time and if a pigeon is sick it will share a generous amount of its pathogens with all the others. They also breath the same air no matter how good the ventilation is. Ferals have an infinite space to use, breath fresh air all the time and most probably they drink from much larger volumes of water, just a few birds at a time. Also any feral that is just slightly sick is quickly cleared from the flock by predators. After all these, we also mix thousands of birds from hundreds of lofts in the same race cars, in extreme overcrowded conditions, heat, stress, very small drinkers, etc. We generally tend to weaken most of the animals we domesticated but I think we do the opposite with the racing pigeons (or at least we could do, if we would give up those ridiculous "preventive" antibiotic flock treatments).

Pumpers could certainly raise nice babies but the pumpers do not have the same immunity to pass on as the parents.

​@@FrankMcLaughlinPigeons They don't have the same immunity to pass on, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. Could be better immunity, could be worse.

You are certainly right but the superstar pigeon usually has a top immune system. I would rather take my chances with the superstars immune system but again we never know.

I have feeders in my breeding sections. One feeder has a grain mix mostly Champion from Versele Laga and one feeder has a chicken pellet mix from Tractor Supply. I give Rabbit pellets once or twice a week for greens.

@@FrankMcLaughlinPigeons sorry I should be more clear. Would the immunity matter much if you move the young birds on the floor and different breeders feed all the babies on the floor?

I am sorry that I learning how to use RU-vid and missed many things. That may be a good idea to have many breeders pump the babies to pass expose them to all kinds of micro-organisms to build their immune system.