GREENGRASS

my personal belief is that confidence is the key with young birds so long as they are in excellent health and fit from loft flying and ranging you can start at any distance(within reason). i start at 5 miles and only move on when they kit up real tight and clear straight away. i will do the same at 10 miles and 15 miles and then go to 30 miles until the first race which for us is approx 45 miles. i must add i always train on line of flight and any bad trappers go hungry but i find they are only bad trappers once. this year past was my best year ever with young birds and one thing i noticed above all else was that the young birds after leaving the loft climbed up into the clouds and then dissapeared for hours at a time but when they returned home they would kit up and swoop low over the loft a few times before trapping. i spend a lot of time getting the youngsters used to using the stall traps from an early age and find this helps on race days as wings said with young birds races can be lost on a bad trap. health, fitness, confidence and you wont go far wrong.

thanks to everyone for the kinds words and may i wish you all a merry christmas and a very happy new year. karl.

I have never heard of this silverwings can you explain a little more on what temp they are stored at and are they stored in an ordinary fridge.

no need to apologise snowy as the lad was only asking a question. A touchy subject maybe but one that has to be addressed, so credit to the lad for having the courage to ask.

happy birthday ray glad to hear you enjoyed the book so much as it is a great present to recieve, hope the wife and kids are chuffed that they picked it for you.

I TAKE IT YOU MEAN ARE WOMEN BETTER THAN MEN. I WOULD SAY IN SOME CASES BUT NOT ALL. BUT PREHAPS IF YOU GO ON PERCENTAGES, I THINK THERE MIGHT BE SOME INTERESTING RESULTS. BY THAT I MEAN NUMBER OF WOMEN FANCIERS TO MEN.

that is what i found, at the shows you see a lovely mix dust free and highly polished but you never got the same bag twice. i once tipped a bag of mix into the corn bin and nearly choked on the dust and chaff that came out of it. but with versele laga the quality of the grains was always consistent. it may be that little bit more expensive but you are getting the best and also they do a lot of research into the nutritional needs of our birds.

I was just wondering which brand of feeding everybody uses, i have tried many but found that Versele Laga were the most consistent and of a higher quality, what do you think of the different varieties and brands. I understand there are a lot of local brands to specific areas so if you posted other could you please let us know which ones and how you rate them, thanks.

this is a hard one to get right as jimmy says you dont want your hens too fat as they will not lay but you also want them in good condition for breeding. while mine are moulting i will feed a full moulting mix usually versele laga mutine plus once moulting is almost over i will use 50% V.L best all round mixed with 50% gerry plus this way the hens are never too fat for laying but are always in great condition. once hens have layed i will use 100% V.L start plus. this year i was going to mix gem products new pellets which contain probiotic in the form of gemthepax in the pellet Q10 i think they are called. this is only my own plans but we will see how it works out. if anybody else has any different plans prehaps they could post them.

you should be proud paul as that is a fantastic setup good luck to you for the future.

most of the current successful lofts on the continent start with a mixture of top birds from all the established fanciers. They then breed best to best and through hard racing and ruthless culling are left with a team of excellent pigeons. Then these new "VAN WINNERS" are the must have and we all go and buy some g.g.g grandchildren from them for our stock lofts instead of following their example and racing our own birds hard and culling the rubbish we try and buy in proven winners. we are all quilty of overstocking our lofts and breeding far too many youngsters year after year, then we wonder why we are loosing so many. regardless of how good a bird is it will not want to return home to an ovwrcrowded loft with poor management. take a look at any successful loft and you will see the birds have plenty of space and are always in top condition it is not by accident this happens. agree with the previous posts regarding pure breed as there is no such thing how could there be, as staf van reet would have had too start with a pair of van reets to begin with. i was lucky enough to meet mr bert braspenning at blackpool a couple of years ago and his advice was to be ruthless with your culling and buy the best birds from top winning lofts that you can afford, buy the best feeding you can afford and race them hard, adopt a management system that suits your lifestyle and stick to it. simple advice i know but it works.

you have to feed the egg food to the hens a couple of weeks prior to laying it will ensure a good fecundation versele laga optimal start 25 is about the most popular, 10 spoonfuls per 20 birds and refresh every day, once the breeders are feeding the youngsters give it to both and when the young birds are weened after 24 days keep giving it to them until they start to fly about the loft. you can buy it in buckets and they were on sale at the show on saturday for £10 per bucket.

yes i know there is a lot of red tape but i think we might be getting a review there aswell.

I have just heard that there has been a review of the ban on pigeon shows and shows will be able to go ahead has anyone else heard anything.

hi wings unfortunately you hear of this happening some times, it is a shame that fanciers will change the rules to exclude a top flier. but what happens is there will be a new man to take his place who will find himself or herself in the same position in a few years time. I personally would try to obtain better stock and breed better birds and try everything i could to compete but moving the boundries is the easy option as it requires no effort or courage. Unfortunately those who have control over our sport forget that the sport is in decline and we need as many members as we can get. i would put an option on your voting poll to "try my hardest to compete with the successful fancier". only my opinion but sometimes we as fanciers take the easy option and refuse to acknowledge superior birds and management systems, i remember years ago being told by jimmy carroll that if you are at the bottom of the result you are everybody`s friend but if you are the top you are their enemy, how true those words were.

no silverwings they have offered all hen parties free lemsip in a bid to combat the bird flu.

happy birthday speckled and many happy returns, is that you 40 again. ;D ;D :D 8).

fantastic post silverwings looking forward to the photo. i keep two german sheperds one snow white and one black and tan, the black and tan looks the part ie big mother f****r black face, looks like he could have you for dinner and still be hungry the white one looks like butter would not melt and all angelic. while sitting watching this years y.bs having a bath and pick in the garden the white one called jake bolted over me and raced behind the loft where there were screeches and screams for about two mins then silence out he came face all ripped and bloodied the neighbour who owned the cat came running over to see how his beloved moggy had faired we both looked all around the loft and found fur and hair and blood but no moggy when we came out from behind the loft there was the moggy between the jaws of the black and tan dog but i swear he just went in there and picked it up and carried it out before we got in, the neighbour straight away said to me dont worry i hated that smelly expletive removed* anyway it belonged to the ex wife and when she left she dumped it on me, nature he said cat chase birds dog chase cats. ever since i have never even seen a cat on our street and the neighbour and i sit and watch the birds arrive on a sat with a cold beer and no cats.

yes lets get something up and running and the quicker the better as the winter months are upon us now and we need an interest with the birds as we cant race them. lets try a small trial run and see where it takes us. i was hoping to win the handling class...........only joking.

thank you all for the interest in the birds. they were gifted away to a new start from the fife area so best of luck with them ian.

I have two pairs of janssen Van Den Bosche pigeons to give away to a novice or new starter. these birds came highly recommended and highly priced. In their first year pair one breed me my first club winner and were very consistent. Pair two have breed some consistent birds but no winners. If you would like to see the birds in question just send me a pm and i will send them on.

paratyphoid is a salmonella based infection all birds carry salmonella in small quantities in their bodies but these can multiply to dangerous levels when the birds are stressed, but espically when they are moulting as this is a very stressful part of the birds life. the fact that she is not in contact with other birds would not matter. check her flights and see if she has any blood flights ie new flights that are blood stained as this is a classic sign of paratyphoid. check her droppings tomorrow and tell the vet if he thinks it might be paratyphoid advise him ask him about FURALTADONE HCL (300mg/kg) this works. add 5gm to 10 litres of water of for one bird add 1/2 gm to 1 ltr. hope this helps you out.

one of the signs of paratyphoid in pigeons is sore or swollen joints and birds unable to stand up, but they usually have very watery droppings. how far is she into her moult as birds that are nearly through the moult are very prone to paratyphoid. just mention this to your vet as it is very hard to find a vet that knows anything obout pigeons. hope this helps.

how are her droppings and is she all puffed up feather wise. has she a mate in with her or where did the egg come from. is she eating and drinking as normal.

glasgow fed up at bishop auckland at 09.40am into light north wind.