thunderboult

hi taff, the ones i tried for racing were crap in genral but not sick and 1 or 2 tidy ones came from them. you need a bit of luck i guess. and the fancier plays a big part also i think the kits sometimes are to inbred perhaps and need a bit of vitality putting into them, but the way things are in this country most fancier's are obbsessed with pure this or that.

hi taff, and thanks for answering last year was a funny year , if it was down to racing on saturday i'd agree but why could'nt they come out and say that. i did'nt like the thursday racing and i'm sure most other's in combine did'nt either so why could'nt it be changed?(i know we could'nt race from belgium on saturdays) but if the fancier's were asked i think they would have gone in favour of moving racepoints to have sat. racing. it does'nt matter to me so much now as i only send to maidstone and ramsgate with the national prefering to send my long distance birds with the south road.

i've bought 2 kits from louella (10+6) and about 20 or so birds for stock since i started in 2004 and not a single bird as ever had canker. i had all my birds tested last year(throat swabs and droppings) stock,old and young and the only thing there was worms in some, which they can pick up around the garden.

to me no one as answered why they left the combine? also i seen mentioned here that most of the whu commitee are wnr fed members, so why could'nt they have put in propositions to change things if so many fancier's are not happy?

surely chris if their so much better as some seem to think it won't matter were they race from?

white logan that's no problem at all , i was just saying the latest you could get away with. we're going to pair begining of feb.

it varies a bit around the country but towards the end of july for me. if you say around month to wean and around another month learning to fly and raking and 3 weeks or so training before the races start.

hi logan, you can pair up some time towards the end of april/ beging of may.

i like them, i would'nt buy the kits again tried a couple and on the whole not very good, but for breeding i think they're very good. my first bird from tarbes last year was out of a kuyper bros/van geel hen that was in one of the kits i bought. and my first bird from bergerac was out of a van geel hen(g-gdtr of the top birds) and i've another arden hen(g,gdtr of inv.) that's bred some good birds for me and in one loft races(best 14th open europa classic2006) . a dbl g-son of intelt de joop is another that's bred top birds for me upto 1st fed. i like them so much last year i invested in some closer to the tree as they say.

who decides race programmes? i thought fancier's decided themselves what race points they wish to race if so many people are not happy why could'nt the wnr put in to change things? what govering body is the new organisation coming under whu/rpra?.

hi shortcut, and welcome.

i agree it should'nt be allowed to call it self national it's only a fed at the end of day, and i think the same about the midlands national . the boys down south don't call the central southern classic a national, the up north combine boys don't call there's a national what makes' the valley and midland boys any diffrent? the only birds i would recon. as national winner's are bicc,bbc and any other country's national that is open to all of that country, but i don't look at the channel islands as part of the uk as they're in france more or less, the falklands is our's but we don't include them.

my old man flew pigeons 30 years ago and the food was similar then to now, most fancier's flew natural, medication was almost never heard of and hawk number's were lower. were as today i think a lot of fanciers put young on the dark,keep them hungry to trap and medicate with anything and everything, hawk numbers are alot higher also increasing the stress . at our place we treat youngster's like they were 30 years ago, no medication to help them(if they aint got it,they'll never have it) left to grow naturally and also left on their droppings which i think is another important way to build immunity(so long as the droppings are dry) i'll take em upto 35/40 mls training and they'll get single up tosses. we don't normally lose many yb's even though fancier's all around are losing loads and we've never had any sickness even though we hear of others in the area having problems with 1 thing or another.

hi shalis , we always start the season on roundabout, i've tried pairing up when we're over the channel(after 4/5 races), roundabout straight through and last year pairing for the last long races . the season when i paired em up as they got over the channel was terrible, the birds went from winning and having 3,4 or 5 turn up together to barely getting a bird in the result, when i've left them roundabout all season they've flown well even at the end of the season, last year the longest races were over 600 mls and i wanted to give them that bit more motivation to get home. it worked out ok with 3 out 3 back from tarbes and 2 out of 3 from bergerac. so this year i'm going to go the same way .

the busschaerts i have are all dark uns with the odd white flight

hi north walian, the cock in this photo is hansenne x kuyper bros/van geel, some of the other's are ardens,van geels,kuypers and a mix of british long distance .

some more stock cocks

some stock cocks

stock hen

this was my first bird from tarbes last season 614mls and he's my barcelona hope for this year.

some of last years young birds

here's our lofts

here's some of our birds

hi stifler, i know some van reets win at the 500 mile stage and some ardens win at 100 mls but if you set out for long distance racing(5-800mls) with a loft of van reets your going to struggle and vice versa if you had a loft full of ardens . surely if you get the best proven birds at the distance you want to compete you got more chance of success rather than hoping .

the very best lines, a full brother to the dolle bred mooi oog sire to smargd 1+11 and another van geel hen is dam to verreg de beste. what a loft van geel had.