Back garden fancier

I bought a white hen at Blackpool because the wife wanted something different, Paired it to a blue chequer and they bred 4 dark cheq's! Not even a white flight.

Corn shop by us has wheat/barley/beans at £5.60 per bag and all other seeds sold seperate at different prices. Just make your own mixes for a fiver a bag. If you have the room to store it all. Wife has made me move it from under bed!

Them fantails are ace in tail winds!! Well done

I don't think it's a peregrine, looks morelike a buzzard to me?

There's a previous thread be me, somewhere on the site with stuff on it. I intend to try it next year.

Ring the RPRA and get them to send you a booklet which they have for new starters, It's got loads in it and is well worth a read.

Fly aways can happen to the best fancier, could have been anything from a hawk to just bad luck. If it was a "flyaway" overcrowding is one cause. How big is your loft?

Said in my post on the 13th it would spread, looks like it has!

Once had chickens that had red mite, first they stopped laying then one or two looked ill. Final clue was they wouldn't go in at night. When I spotted the red mite, I've never seen anything like it. There were thousands all crammed in the cracks near to where the chickens perched at night. Duramitex sorted it out, and lesson learned!

Put a tablespoon of TCP in the bath, keeps them clear of tics for ages and clears out nose and throat at same time.

Means you know each pigeon if you only have a few. Last race of season, chap who won sent 40 odd birds. I only sent 5. He clocked six before I got one, but I won the pools the buster and the nom trophy because I knew my birds.

Just been for beans, gone up from £4 to £5.60 a bag.

I have 18 birds, no stock. Nine pairs for next year to fly on roundabout. Trained 14 young this year and only lost 2 in 7 races. Don't get me wrong, I'm no ace flyer but I enjoy my birds just as much as someone who has a 100.

See if you can find the thread on Milton, that has some good ideas and is good for canker. It costs pence to use.

You can buy the products on line, or most corn/pigeon stockists will have them in.

On a similar line to clipping the wing, but less drastic. Try putting a rubber band round the flights on one wing, then let the bird walk around the garden a few times and feed it back in. Also similar but messy is fairy liquid on flights has same effect. Once they've been out and gone back in a few times, should be no bother?

Regarding "low level" ventilation. I have "high level" vents to stop vermin, but I then have a sheet of hardboard on the wall so that the air flow comes out near the floor then pushes the stale air up and out.

Have a look in this weeks BHW, loads of Toeys relatives for sale, might be a pedigree on one?

Think they used to do it during the war, get a pigeon with a message then tranfer it to another fresh one and send it on.

Be careful with Larsen traps, Chap at club had a pigeon in one and ended up in Court. As mentioned before can only be used for magpies crows etc.

No feathers coming out of my computer, so not me!

If there are bottles all over the place, it's not the pigeons who are drinking it!!

Wasn't there a "Uk national" race for the Queens Jubilee or something maybe 10 years ago ish? Think it was from Nantes but was a disaster due to weather?

What I was suggesting was a complete overhall. ALL specialist clubs would be disbanded and there would only be 1 UK club. it would have 2 different races a week to take into account the differing distances.That would be it! No MNFC / BICC /CSCFC / MCC / NFC, No nothing just a UK national. But will never happen. Someone always breaks away to form a club they think they can win.

More likely to be a disgruntled worker at the research place? Or a plot to bring the government down? Just see if it goes away then springs up again!