Ian Gill

Yeast has nothing to do with canker old yellow..

First of Pigeonboyuk I dont need to come here to advertise my site as its been going a lot longer than basics and it has been one of the most viewed pigeon sites for nearly 9 years so get your facts right before making such assumptions or are you like a lot of others that believe this or other forums are the only sites available?? Its easy to hide behind your username and snipe at others so why not put your real name on and better still saying as you know so much about the internet and websites why dont you build your own site and let us into the wealth of knowledge you must have with your pharmacy degree ??

I asked him to explain himself mate ..I wouldnt exactly called that beating up on old yellow unles you have led a very sheltered life lol Take a bit of time today and research brewers yeast yourself and I think you will be surpised at the results...websites are like products ,some of them are better than others with their info

What are you on about old yellow?? Brewers yeast is the source of more vitamins etc etc than any other thing known to man !!

Get yourself some Echinacea and add it to your corn .you can get it from anyone selling horse supplements in a liquid form or from health shops ...type it into to google and read the results..natures own imunne booster ..

Rose...we can claim Ron to be the best because he races against the best fanciers in the UK ..The Northern Irish ;D ;D ;D ;D

Ron has to be the most unassuming pigeon fancier on the planet ...Ive heard fanciers who have won a couple of club races blow their own trumpets like they are world stars !! Not this man he lets his pigeons do the talking!! I was the first to call him the worlds greatest fancier years ago and I still stand by that statement ...top man ,top pigeons and top bloke ...in a word "A STAR"

The loft in question is a former National winner,hall of fame winner and the name most would look for in the result, so who am I to argue with what obviously works for him. I wonder does Ricky Htton sit down to a big plate full of pie and mash for the last couple of days before a title fight or does he eat virtually nothing at all ?? I suppose you could say that if a pigeon hasnt got the constitution to withstand a long fast it would not have the constitution to face a 14 or 15 hour fly from France.. You mention it being a bad thing for new starters to try out but id rather see them fast their birds for 4 days as overfeed them for a year ..over feeding is the root of all evil in this game from health aspects to performances.Its all to easy for pigeons to look like film stars when theyre sitting getting pumped with the best of grub but put them under a bit of stress and you see the real pigeons..the ones that look exactly the way they did before you started or the ones sitting humped up like hedgehogs ..which would you have faith in sending?

Anything that goes back goes out ...

He times them from France for fun and has a a record the equal od any in Ireland so who am I to argue..its something ive noticed on visiting other peoples lofts and thats that most over feed ..and heres the funny part, the ones where the pigeons are over weight are in most cases the lofts with health problems

I was in the loft of a top long distance man on Saturday past and every year he goes four or five days withouth feeding them ..its not about weight but constitution ...my own birds get no more than an ounce a day and I do skip days now and then when I think they need it...you can kill them with kindness

Personally I would bin the egg..sounds drastic but selection begins from the egg ...

Most of Jans main pigeons went to the Far East in the late eighties through Herbots Bros...My friends had the pick of them before they went and I was lucky enough to purchase 15 direct pair.These included brothers and sisters to the bourge national winner,sons and daughters of the Orleans 1 and 11 ,the Goede Yearling etc etc. Felix Pauwels based his early pigeons around 4 birds he bought from Grondelaer and then he had a brother of Jans Bourge National winner of 85/6 which he called Broer for some reason lol

Thats what I like about you Vic ..you never miss a chance

I think you will find its the Gin Trap that is illegal

Badly fretted Id say

Keep it simple ..dont try to over complicate things and forget about those purpose built Bull Boxs ..they are more trouble than they are worth

Forget about the Bayers of this world or any of the other pharmaceutical companies because as you say, we would not even register a blip on their radar.I was not even thinking of them But you mention the fact that there are thousands of small businesses supplying our needs and they may indeed be small potatoes as you say but they are all supplied by a very limited number of companies!! Take the grain suppliers..a very short list of companies supplying the needs of perhaps 90% of the worlds pigeon feeds and all through a network of the very "small business men" you mentioned.Now each and everyone who is a part of this "food chain" make a profit,so if we start with the local guys, then surely it will have a viral effect and work its way to the very top. Let me give you an example ...Northern Ireland is a very small country with a population of approx 1.5 million people and out of that there would be around 3,000 fanciers. Now supplying those 3,000 fanciers are three main corn merchants and at least one of those has gained millionaire status through pigeon supplies !!!! Great for them I say but when you take into concideration that their input back into the sport they have made their fortune from is a Christmas Draw for some form of electrical gadget to the value of about 6 bags of corn :( This isnt the crux of what ails the pigeon sport Larry, but its a factor and until addressed along with all the other issues, it will continue to quicken the demise of pigeon racing as we know it.

Daughter of Shieldys Cock..Dam , GDam and GG Dam of winners G Son of Majestic and Princess Son of Shieldys Cock Son of Ian Staffords 69 who won 3x1st Fed G Son of Majestic and Princess and a daughter of Shieldys Cock Staffy..son of Ian Staffords Golden Pair and hes Sire,GSire and GGSire of winners Young Eddie and Pied Princess

It has to be Hession for me but then I would say that as mine are 90% Hession with a small imput from Mardon,well one cock Apollo

Quite a staggering amount Im sure you will agree ..but when you take into concideration that there are roughly 1 million fanciers worldwide, you can see the gross figure per year runs to a Billion pounds(depending which side of the pond your Billion is on )!!! And that is taking it at £20 ,when infact we know the average spend per head would far exceed that guideline. Then we have the money spent on medicines and all the latest must have health and dietary supplements sold to us by the snake oil salesmen and you could possibly double that figure. Add to this the total sales in pigeons and you can see it adds up to one hell of a global economy in the pigeon game!! My point ?? How much of this filters its way back down into the sport ?? Virtually nothing at all !!! Now if we are to indeed concider Pigeon racing as a sport, we have to make changes to that ..name me any other sport/hobby that spends that amount of money and receives nothing in return by way of sponsorship ?? What I am trying to say here Larry is that I am looking at the bigger picture in all this,I have no gripe with people selling pigeons or am I trying to knock anyone who does(though if I feel someone should be exposed as a conman I will do my best to do that) How can we change it ?? Well every man jack on this forum could make a difference when they visit their local corn merchant looking for sponsorship !! Catch him before he jumps into his Mercedes and ask for him to put something back into the game ...and if he doesnt take your business elsewhere !! Simple as

Hi Ben, Put me down for a kit of six Van Reets to race in 2009 mate ..fair play to you I hope its a big success Ian

Sorry should have said £20 per week

You surely had a good grounding in the sport Larry , well how could you not have had, with a good Northern Irishman at the helm Heres a question for you ..have you ever sat down and calculated just how much the global market in the pigeon sport is worth each year..now take it at an average spend of £20 per fancier on feed and additives alone

I would love to meet up with you sometime Larry and chew the fat over some of these issues, as I have always enjoyed your input over the years on posts whatever the topic The mention of websites was a generalisation and the problems mentioned are in no way endemic to the internet. As you rightly said most of the problems lie at the very grass roots level of the sport and until such times as fanciers catch themselves on and treat each other with a bit of respect and conduct themselves with a modicum of dignity, then we are on a very slippery slope. On the commercialisation front...what are we to do ?? Now as someone who has been making his own money since the age of eight, I have no problem regarding a little free enterprise, but when commercialisation is taken to the extreme by dubious methods are we to sit back and take it on the chin?? Give me your thoughts Larry as to how we could go forward in all this ..everyone has his theories as to how to take the sport forward and I sure have mine, though they might fill the rest of this forum ;)