The pigeon profile
What every part of a pigeon profile means: the header, the key numbers, the country ranking gauge for the season and the whole career, distance categories, season history, the tabs, and answers to the most common questions.
Good to know before you start
- You open a pigeon profile by clicking a pigeon in My pigeons, in the fancier database or in a race result.
- The owner sees every part of the profile. Other people can only open it when the owner has switched on Public profile, and they never see the edit buttons.
- Parents and ancestors are no longer kept on the profile itself. They live in Benzing Pedigree and are shown in the Pedigree tab.
- All percentages on the profile describe placements: the lower the percentage, the better the pigeon finished.
How the profile is organised
The profile reads from top to bottom in three layers: the header tells you which pigeon you are looking at, the row of key numbers sums up how good it is, and the tabs underneath let you dig into the details.
- The header - name, ring number and the basic facts about the pigeon.
- The key numbers - the country ranking gauge, prizes, average placement and total distance.
- The tabs - Overview, Performances, Success rate, Competitions and Pedigree.
The header
The large title is the pigeon's name. A pigeon without a name shows the last part of its ring number instead (for example 475), so every profile has a short, recognisable title. The full ring number is always written right underneath.
Next to the ring number you see the sex of the pigeon and, for the owner, its status (active, injured, sold and so on). Below follow the colour, who bred the pigeon, the owner, the categories you sorted it into and a free-text description.
Buttons for the owner
Click the title to change the name, and the description to change the description. Edit changes the colour, sex and breeder. Medical records keeps vaccinations and treatments. Cage cards prints the pigeon's cage card. The arrows next to the owner transfer the pigeon to another fancier.
Public profile and sharing
The Public profile switch decides whether other people may open the profile. While it is on, the Share button offers Facebook, X and WhatsApp. Switch it off again at any time - the link stops working for everybody except you.
The key numbers
Right below the header is a row of tiles with the most important numbers. The small line under each number shows the same value for the current season, but only when the pigeon has prizes this season.
- Prizes - how many prizes the pigeon has won in its life.
- Average placement in % - on average, how far down the result list the pigeon finished. 5th place out of 500 pigeons is 1 %; 50th place out of 500 is 10 %. The lower, the better.
- Total distance - the kilometres of all races in which the pigeon won a prize.
Pigeons from countries without club results show Benzing Live race and training tiles instead, so there is always something to look at.
Country ranking
The half-circle gauge answers the question breeders ask most often: how good is my pigeon compared with all the others in the country? The number in the middle reads "better than X %". 96 % means the pigeon did better than 96 out of every 100 comparable pigeons.
How the pigeon is scored
For every race we take the pigeon's best placement in percent. When the same race appears in several result lists (club, regional, national), it counts only once, with the best of those placements. The score is the average of the pigeon's best few placements - this way one lucky or unlucky race does not decide everything.
Season or lifetime
Season compares the pigeon with pigeons of the same age group in that season: young birds with young birds, yearlings with yearlings, older pigeons with older pigeons.
Lifetime compares the pigeon's whole career with pigeons born in the same year. This is the fairest comparison for breeding pigeons and for pigeons that no longer race - every pigeon of that year had the same number of seasons to prove itself.
A pigeon that races this season opens on Season; a pigeon that does not race this season (for example because it went into breeding) opens on Lifetime. Use the two buttons above the sentence to switch.
How many prizes are needed
A pigeon only gets a place in the ranking once it has enough prizes, otherwise a single good race could put it at the very top. Until then the gauge shows how many prizes it has and how many are needed (for example 3 / 5).
| Age of the pigeon | Season | Lifetime |
|---|---|---|
| Young bird | 3 prizes (average of the best 3) | 3 prizes (average of the best 3) |
| Yearling or two years old | 5 prizes (average of the best 5) | 5 prizes (average of the best 5) |
| Three years or older | 5 prizes (average of the best 5) | 10 prizes (average of the best 10) |
The question mark next to the title opens the details: the exact position (for example 261st of 6,916 pigeons) and the average placement of the best prizes that was used.
The comparison is recalculated every night. If a season has not been calculated yet, the gauge says so and fills in by itself after a few seconds.
The Overview tab
Overview is the first tab and puts the most useful summaries on one screen.
Country ranking by season
Each column is one season. The height of the column is the "better than X %" value of that season, so a tall column is a strong season. The tallest one is marked Best season. Above every column you see the value, below it the season, the age group and the position.
A dashed outline means the pigeon raced that season but did not reach the number of prizes needed (the label shows for example 2 / 3). An empty column means it did not race. Click any filled column to show that season in the gauge above.
Distance categories
This block shows how the pigeon performs on short, middle and long distances. In kilometre countries the categories are 95-400 km, 300-600 km and over 500 km; in mile countries 75-350, 250-475 and over 475 miles.
The length of the bar shows the quality of the placements: it is the average of the pigeon's best 5 prizes in that category. A longer bar means a better pigeon on that distance. An average of 0 % fills the bar; 25 % or worse leaves only a small stub.
On the right you see the same average as a number and how many prizes it was taken from, for example "5 best of 50 prizes".
The categories overlap on purpose - a 350 km race is both a short and a middle-distance race - so one race can count in two categories.
The two buttons switch between Prizes on Club Flights (official club results) and Prizes on My Loft (arrivals recorded by Benzing Live in your own loft). A pigeon without any club results switches to My Loft by itself.
Season performance
One row per season: how many prizes the pigeon won, its average placement in % and the kilometres of those prize races. The bar shows the number of prizes compared with the pigeon's best season.
Top 5 races
The five best placements of the pigeon's life, best first. Each line shows the race, its distance, the date, the place and the number of pigeons in the result, and the placement in %. Click Performances to see all races.
Benzing Live
Compares races and trainings recorded by Benzing Live: the number of arrivals, the distance flown, the total flight time and the average speed.
Pedigree
When the pigeon has a pedigree in Benzing Pedigree, a small card links to it. Show opens the Pedigree tab.
The other tabs
Performances
The full list of the pigeon's results. Choose Top 10, one season, the last two seasons or the whole life. Each row shows the place, the number of pigeons and fanciers in the result, the percentage, distance, race, date and the result list it comes from. The arrow next to a race shows the same race in the other result lists.
When a race appears in several result lists, the settings let you decide which one is shown - the best coefficient, the best place or the largest number of pigeons.
Success rate
For every season: how many times the pigeon was basketed with Benzing Live and how many of those races ended with a prize. The colour of the percentage helps you read it quickly:
- green - 80 % or more of the races ended with a prize
- blue - 50 to 79 %
- orange - 25 to 49 %
- red - less than 25 %
Competitions
All competitions the pigeon took part in (ace pigeon, championships and so on), grouped by competition, with its position, the number of races counted and the points or coefficient.
Pedigree
The pedigree from Benzing Pedigree. The owner can create or edit it with one click; visitors only see a pedigree that the owner has made public in Benzing Pedigree. If there is nothing to show, visitors do not see this tab at all.
Owners with a statistics subscription also get a Behavioral Statistic tab with the pigeon's antenna and loft activity.
Frequently asked questions
Why is there no country ranking gauge on my pigeon?
The gauge appears once the pigeon has at least one prize. If it shows a fraction such as 3 / 5 instead of a percentage, the pigeon does not yet have enough prizes to be ranked - see the table above.
The gauge says the ranking is being calculated.
That season has not been compared yet - usually the first time somebody opens an older season. Leave the page open; the numbers appear by themselves within about a minute.
Why is my pigeon ranked differently than in the federation's ace pigeon competition?
The country ranking is our own comparison of all pigeons in the country, using the average of their best placements. Official competitions use their own rules - selected races, points, coefficients, minimum distances. Both are correct; they simply measure different things.
My pigeon had a great race but the ranking hardly changed.
The ranking uses the average of several best placements, so one race moves it only a little. It is recalculated every night, so new results show up the next day.
What does "better than 96 %" mean exactly?
Out of all comparable pigeons in the country, 96 % have a worse score than your pigeon. It does not mean the pigeon won 96 % of its races.
Why does one race count in two distance categories?
The categories overlap on purpose, for example 300-400 km belongs to both short and middle distance. See "Distance categories" above.
The placement shown is different from the one on the race result page.
A race is often published in several result lists - club, regional, national. The profile counts each race once and uses the best placement of all those lists. On the Performances tab you can open the other lists with the arrow next to the race.
Where are the parents of my pigeon?
Parents and ancestors are managed in Benzing Pedigree and shown in the Pedigree tab. Create or edit the pedigree from that tab.
Why can't my friend open my pigeon's profile?
The profile is private until you switch on Public profile in the header.
Why does the profile show loft data instead of club results?
There are no official club results for this pigeon (common in countries where club results are not imported), so the profile shows the arrivals recorded by Benzing Live in your loft instead.
