Rooster J. Cogburn

Today was the highest I have seen birds racing for a long time.Had no idea what direction most of them came from as they seemed to just appear,spiraling from the sky. Have heard stories in the past of birds dropping from great heights and appearing ice cold to the touch on trapping. What experiences or memories do you have from birds racing as high as the heavens??Are there any particular weather conditions,racepoints etc you have noticed where flying at such heights is most common??

Well done to you and your da again Alan. If they arenae on the doorstep tonight it'll be hard for them to make it home the morra.Heard its to be a rubbish day

finished the night with 20/22 but they werenae flooding in.Had four before 12 and it was about another ten minutes before anymore showed.Had 8 missing when I went to the club down to 4 when I got back.The other two came around 4ish. How did yous fare?

Well done to Jim

Well done to Jacko :emoticon-0137-clapping: Gus has them coming well also

cheers John.Will keep pottering away with them and see whats what come the YB national,hope to give it a wee try as only ever been to it once and that was 10 years ago

cheers lads

Decent enough race from Consett today with the NW fed.Strange one.Some of them were dots in the sky,not seen birds as high this year. Managed to win the club timing at 1156 from the 0940 lib,although was lucky to do so as the birds were here around 1153ish(poor management lol)currently 4 short from 22.

Your guess is as good as mine

Think it could be less complicated if the decisions were left up to one man. Can see the reasons for it but I'm not a huge fan of this "race control team" format.

thanks

Any information to help get this bird back with its owner?

A bit closer to Hugh and Grahamy this week but still room for improvement .They came well enough and were all home fairly quickly. Will see whit happens at Consett next week Best of luck Lewis

not too far away Scotty Well done Jim

Well done Gus and family got them going well at the minute

up at 1.45 in a brisk WSW wind

The latebred's granny is no slouch either Bred for the job

Have a look and see what ye can find.We won't find out the end result til 2013 but it will give ye something to amuse yourself with for a few weeks over the winter Theres a number of wee selection tips I've been given and beginning to think these are the difference between the good fliers and the top fliers at the distance. Its alright knowing about them though,should grow a pair and put them into practice .Would have nae doos left

Aye the quality of the last flight was a thing I forgot to add to the speel I don't know if its right or wrong,but fanciers with records like his a worth listening to I think.

I was told about this 4 years ago.It was something I never paid any attention to but started to keep an eye on it and been quite surprised by what I've seen.So much so I plan to take notes on the growth of this flight from now on. I haven't quite got to grips with it yet but if studied properly I think you could almost grade your birds on their racing capabilities for the following season,especialy over the longer races. It all came about from a story I was told about a bird that was bred from a pair that had 8 top prizes between them from 400 to 600 miles.The fancier who owned this pigeon noticed in November(when this bird was growing its last flight) a change in this pigeons behaviour.It went from being lively around the loft to acting in a way as if to save energy.Minimal flying and only coming off the perch to eat.The bird showed no signs of illness and handled well but the fancier felt the bird should be removed but was convinced not to do so by friends and family due to the birds breeding. It came to the racing the following year and the bird started fairly well,nothing startling,There was then a difficult 250 mile race into a head wind where this pigeon topped the federation by 15 minutes.The fancier felt embarrassed as this was a pigeon he had considered killing a few months earlier.He went into the loft the following morning to find the bird dead. From then on he started paying close attention to the birds during this stage of the moult and began to find the best birds from the long distance events were the ones who took the least time to grow this flight and showed the least strain(no strain).The ones who acted differently,even slightly during this time took the longest to grow this flight and either performed averagely or were lost when questions were asked of them. The fancier is not a vet but the reason he felt for the initial birds death following the effort it put in to top the fed was a weakness with the heart.I don't know if this is the case or not but he felt with the last primary being the furthest away from the birds heart it is the most difficult for the bird to grow.One thing I have noticed though is my best birds of the last two seasons have grown this flight the quickest and with the most ease,showing no signs of strain and acting no differently inside or outside the loft to any other time. It could be a complete lot of nonsense but we all have our own fads

We use a fairly standard protein rich mixture(as much as the wish)as well as all the usual pickstones and grits.Plenty of red band and a little hormoform.Use De Scheemacker Naturaline and linseed oil with Frazers pink mineral on an ad lib basis.The birds are allowed to come and go as they please and have a access to a bath everyday. A good piece of advice I was given is to pay close attention to the birds when they are growing their final primary flight.You can learn a lot about them during this time.

Otterburn is a racepoint we haven't personally lost many doos from but had some strange races from it Was down visiting fanciers in East Ord on Sunday,one of them has been flying pigeons for 72 years anyway thats by the by-he said he cannot for the life of him understand why Scottish Feds race from Otterburn,the place is "infested" in his words. Is this a racepoint we on the East route should think about bypassing in future??

Good news John Ye cannae condemn a bird for taking its time from that race

Coldstream today with the NW fed bit off the pace but 27/27. can't complain

Well done to Gus and all the top 10