Hogni

The owner of the bird is Egild Sund in Denmark his phone number is 35112165 but i can´t find an e-mail address for him, maybe you can e-mail the Danish union at ddb@brevduen.dk

On monday i had a youngster born 4 days early, the young seems to be fine and healthy, and just when i thought it would be alone in the nest, 2 days later the other one starts to chip his egg. The full story is that on the 28th of april i had a pair lay and i put under them a pair of eggs i had brought with me from Norway that same day, so eggs put under on the 28th of april=youngsters on the 16th of may but the first one born on the 12th and the second one late on the 14th. In my mind there is really only thing that can explain this and that is that the breeder in Norway did not give me freshly laid eggs although he said they were, and the youngsters had already started to develop in the eggs when taken from thier nests in Norway. So the first egg must have been laid on the 24th of april. Any ideas? If this is the case the eggs are much tougher then i thought because they were taken from the nests early on the 23rd and put under late on the 24th and kept fairly cool in the meantime as i thought they were freshly laid.

I have one bird which i suspect to have salmonella (swollen knee joint) now i have furaltadone from Dac and on the pack it says to give 1 teaspoon per gallon of water for 5 days, since this is only one bird my question is, would it be adviceble to mix this and store in a bottle instead of mixing each day?

I said nothing about a fancy loft, it can be an old worn down shed for all i care, but it has to work for the birds, everything must have a purpose, if it doesn´t have a porpose, throw it out, i don´t feel like i have to mention ventilation and that everything has to be dry but some things are not to often said.The birds absolutely have to be able to stay healthy and happy. No use having good birds in a bad loft, it will not get you anywhere.

I agree Merlin, i´m sure we all have heard someone blame thier poor birds for no results.And i´m sure we have all heard, poor birds can get results with good management in a good loft.

Yes a really good post, like you say we are always trying to improve our birds but in my opinion it is more often the manager that needs improving, good management comes first, second a good loft and then third good pigeons. Like Jimmy i have always written down what has worked well and what has not and i try to improve good ideas. For the next young bird season i will try to focus on the feeding as i feel that i have not payed enough attention to it in past years, so that will be what i will try to rectify in my system.

Well done mate, did you pick those 2 birds for him or did he pick them out?

Yes thats what i´ve heard IB, and i do it the same way as you.

I´m not sure but i think i read somewhere that the good stuff in garlic is destroyed aftar a reletivley short time after crushing it and putting in the water, thats why i always crush it in the water and give it right away.

Well, my friend did not go by my advice about contacting a vet and get the birds tested, he decided to test his luck and do nothing and hope for the best. Now i can tell you that his stock loft is almost empty and the future of his loft, the youngsters that were in the nests have also been dying at all ages, some because thier parents died and others for no appearent reason like the old ones. I asked him why he was bothering me to help him and find out what might be wrong and advice him on what to do, just so that he would do nothing only spend my time.

To me it sounds like this would be another contribution to the death of the sport, GREED, but the experienced and intelligent fancier already knows this will not guarantee good birds but newcomers might not and then feel sad when all thier money is gone for bad pigeons with super pedigrees.

Well i would be very happy to get pigeon food for the prices many of you are complaining about, here we have to pay £16-£20 per 25 kg bags and we have only one brand and three different mixes to choose from, but we try to make the best of it. Who knows what we will have to pay for a bag once the raises hit us here.

Interesting, i did not know this was possible but it´s done with all sorts of other animals so why not pigeons, however i don´t see how this would be worth the money as you can pair your best cock to many hens and get lots of youngbirds from that same cock and don´t forget that the best ones happen by accident or luck

Well done Ben, i hope it goes better then my promoting attempts, i´ve been in 2 newspapers and twice on tv, in a show specially about animals and in one news show, only 1 new member that started after seeing one of the tv shows.

Oh yeah thats where i knew the name from, i saw an auction of Roland Janssens birds from this guy on elimar, so he might be a con?????

Well the reason i ask is that last year i tried them for the first time and i have never had more trouble, i always used to use only plastic nest bowles and straw and i never had any real problems, now i am back to that and i don´t think i will ever use nestfelts again. I have looked at all the replies and i must say that even though i have never used felts i don´t know what a youngster with spleyed legs looks like and i know for a fact that the birds don´t need them to keep the eggs and young alive and well, i have been breeding in january and february over the years and the frost here in Iceland has gone down to -16 to -20 degrees and the eggs and young are fine.

Just interested to know whats the reason people use nestfelts.Share your thoughts and experiences.

Here in Iceland the weather is beutiful, the sun is shining, no winds and the heat is slowly going up, also it was raining in the night and early morning so the air is soooo fresh.The youngsters have started to hatch at my loft, looks like all the eggs made it through the harsh weather in the past 2 weeks with frost down to 12-15 degrees, no nestfelts only plastic bowls and straw.

Anyone have pigeons from Jan? I´m looking to bring some eggs to Iceland, probably in may or early june. I handled some pigeons from him some years ago and since then i have been interrested in getting them sometime.

Thanks for all the advice, i told him yesterday to contact a vet and get some advice and he was going to call me again tonight. There is one thing i will not do, go for a visit and see whats going on, i know better then that.

does nobody know something about pigeons dropping dead like this?

A fellow fancier was just calling me telling me that pigeons in his loft are dropping dead, 2 birds now that seem healthy in every way have dropped dead, one yesterday and one today these are both cocks both have good muscle and don´t seem to have lost waight at all. Also a hen lost its feet yesterday and was waving its wings laying on the floor but today she is like nothing ever happened. The one that died today died right in front of his eyes, it happened like this.The cock flew from his box and up to a perch, few seconds later it fell of the perch and to the floor and it was dead. Anyone had something like this happen or heard of something like this?

I started racing in 1995 at the age of 15, managed to get 6th in a hard first race (1st in club), still don´t know how that happened but it still makes me smile when i think about the faces of all those experienced fliers when the race sheet came out.

I honestly don´t know what to say, never seen anything like it.I know that ring collectors would love to have rings like this in thier collection but isn´t it enough just to have pic of the bird????

No i don´t have the loft tied down but it´s got a steel frame so it´s heavy enough, where do you live Lennut?