tommy2

Neilia,to be honest the southern hemiphere boys fly pretty much what you suggest,but it would be easier,especially time factor wise,to leave all babies at 14 days old in hens sectionon floor in their nestpans,------then start working the cocks each morning starting 20 mins and extending,make sure you get cocks in before you go to work,then leave traps wide open all day,till you get back home ,-----as time goes by young birds will flit about,then flip and after a while will have learnt so much about their surroundings with help from the hens,very effective,if not to say superb,-----as young cocks show up,get them in with old cocks.making sure you have enough extra perches lower level.if you can leave breeding as late as possible so babies are safe from sparrowhawk till 3ed week of april when they start going out

YEARS AGO NEIL,THATS WHAT MAJORITY OF FANCIERS HAD TO WORK WITH,AND THE BIRDS WERE A MUCH HARDIER,HEALTHIER LOT.

you may be correct owen,but vets outragious charges and obvious very poor knowledge of racing pigeons and their problems leads majority of fanciers to shotgun blindly,can you really blame these lads owen?

I remember ,very well E chapmans yearly advert in the Racing pigeon,very resonable prices for top class Westcotts,Mr Chapman did this for many many years 60,s early 70,s..and could never forget Fws Halls lovely testimony always at bottom of each advert,which was testimont to chapmans honesty and quality of bloodstock,

Hi Alpha al,make sure you mesh wire whatever flooring you decide to use mate,underside,as rats will climb the blocks and if get chance will rip through flooring in minutes,and i think the idea of lino is topclass,just dust or spray permitherin underneath and you will have no problems with redmite ect,

Well dogboy,if you are silly enough to have babies flipping about march april time when the female sparrowhawk is in her zenith you deserve everything you get what

its a very simple thing to break pigeons if you can leave the old loft up for a few says while you do it,and you will find the best birds except their lot quickly,600,700 mile performers will be broken within 3-4 days,just make sure no places to perch inside old loft ,just the floor,they can still put up top class efforts out to 600 miles plus afterwards,but you must understand you would have broken their hearts,and the new loft will only ever be classed as a feeding station to them,its like doing the dirty on old friends,not very nice,and really not the way to treat birds that have have gave you everything in the past

For a start,inflicting your hobby on someone else,and on their property,is no way to make a solid start sunshine,as for louella,does it really matter?you would never give the birds a chance,you wanted answers,hope you understand this 1

to be honest,the scotch distance boys have gone backwards for years mate,they have lost their way,what a shame, best just look to the west section results in pyrenees races the bicc put on,you will find no better birds anywhere in europe,and if the bbc get their heads right and put Palomas back on,thats the cream

\welsh boy,i knew a oldboy who had a setup of single boxes in his garden,and to be honest it was a masterpiece,the way he flew his youngbirds and then oldones was so simple,breathtakingly so,i have sketches and plans i made to use for myself,this was way way before keith moots attept at "small house flying."

\\\\\\\why cry over washed out rubbish like that,those boys and others like them milked dopey british fanciers dry for years,good riddance to bad rubbish, lol

Cannot agree with most of this post,for a start,no need to be competitive whatsoever,any idiot can set his/her birds a goal and hit it,and no way you race only to win,ridiculous, to say the least.we race 1-2 races per year.1 day we will win,but who knows when.No pigeons race directly to home on a direct line,wind tells the tell.No way they need to be extremly fast,racing Palomas ,Marseille ect,will destroy any bird that flys extremly fast.How can a pigeon be intelligent when it hurts itself race after race,i would have thought the intelligent ones wise up and does not even try and goes awol pretty darn quick.

If i were you puzzler,forget auctions,total waste of time for new lad like yourself,easy to fall into wrong trap,you only got to read opinions by many on here who frankly have not got a clue. If you were situated further south in proper pigeon country,i would tell you to study BBC,BICC,NFC,results over last 5 years and find the lads who can score against the wind and drag,and only send a few,but seeing your nehu territory,different type of bird,follow my leader type,and middle didtance stuff easily can cope with that overhyped effort. Hope this helps mate

Try to educate these fanciers concering nature that`s all around them,what it is ,and what it does,alas as the old saying goes ,you can lead a horse to water ,but cannot make it drink. These so called fanciers must get to know their ememy,thats a brilliant start,then use what little intelligence they have to minimise its effects,very easily done with the sparrowhawk,now just a slight inconvenience,if it all,as long as you do you homework,andmost important act on it. peregrines completely different ballgame,but they will bend if you do you homework.

Many peregines/hawks used to migrate anyway,only reason many more stay on here over winter is because most pigeon fanciers contiue to give them easy meals,pathetic to be honest,why do most pigeon boys cry about raptors taking their birds but do not even try to address the problem,proper idiots if you ask me.

Its laughable,just fanciers playing the same old pyramid selling game,just think of the dross all those dealers will be pouring onto the british shores again this year to try to get their money back,will pigeon boys never learn,if the RPRA had any balls they could close all this hype down with more stringent policeing of the pigeon net sites, comics the RACING PIGEON,BHW,ect,sad they will not because they need bhw revenue,even though its strangling the sport worst then the hawks.

i remember buying some off perks bros/or it might have been patrick bros,both flew kirks,and bussaerts early 80`s on a christmas time for the oldman,hid them in our sisters shed for a couple of weeks till christmas morning to suprise him As you say about to many generations gone by,i have also noticed weaker lines being brought in by louella,just look at the aardens,there biggest recent introduction invincable dorrori is n`t even a 500 mile bird,and i know that does not mean it cannot bred proper distance stuff,butits obvious breeding out of those type of birds you have got to be able to read a result,or your in big trouble,finding yourself a few seasons down the line with no workers,you see it time and time again,velocities up into 12-1300 or more,winners,nothing wrong with that if the same bird or close relatives have worked well below1,000 previous,but one off result straight into stockloft dodgy as hell.

You have no worries with those weaklings,they cannot survive for long without human intervention,its pathetic,most are having to be fed each day.

Its condensation mate,and that tells you that you should have insulated the roof,not clever for your birds to be sitting there taking that punishment,not to bad winter time,but think damage your birds get high summer with heat baking down through roof all day,then chilled evening

Can`t agree with that Roland oldboy,that`s the beauty of inbreeding,you can find out quickly what hidden faults your so called "good" birds carry.The good and bad points come to the surface,and wether your a hand selector,or use Mr Basket ,ruthless selection`s the order of the day,i would have thought a chap like your goodself would be pleased to find any latent genes your birds may be carrying,but then again,all we pigeon boys love to deceive ourselfs,year after year,no wonder the dealers make a killing at this time of the year. Thankyou

What a load of bulls**t,what if a novice comes on here and takes any notice of crap like that

Go on and buy the prety ones grizz,they will be no worse then anything up for sale in the winter selling season mate,thing about louella,loiuse always bought the best ,same as the arabs on racehorses,and they got the best now,loiuse was a brilliant racer,but relised it was easier to make money just by breeding instead of racing,same reason those roland janseen rubbish,kirkpatricks,faroes distance,stuff,bred just for colour many for donkeys years,and they still sell,funny,how stupid pigeon men are.

Listen Grizz, makes no difference ,doncaster show,bhw show of the year,sells in fancy press or on this site,mostly everything for sell will be crap,and thats a fact,but if you like those pretty palmer bussaerts from louella,buy what you fancy mate,no one on earth really knows for sure what will bred winners,even thou dealers may say so,if you do not belive this fact ,ask every seller for a cast iron garentee if what you buy does not produce winners in the 1st year,you want your money back,not a replacement of more crap.

Hi Chris ,who really knows mate,such a wide spectrum of distances,weather,bad or good convoyers,if only a pigeon could talk i expect most of them would be fuming with our so called preperations

Bigda,you need never worry about distance racing ending it will go on many many more years,as long as you distance boys stick together,and as basketing centers get further away,helping each other will always give working class fanciers the chance to compete at the highest level,but we got to stick together. Just a little point of intrest,did any of you boys know a certain distance race was always liberated 12 0`clock midnight giving the birds chance to be clocked on the day and some were ,even 18 hour day birds,what do you think of that?