jimmy white

many years ago i had a few fancy pigeons,, dragoons and show racers , even crossed both > had a cross dragoon fly 250 miles ;D but did enjoy the shows and company,, when racing w,hood these birds were handy for bringing up some of the better eggs [or from the better racers but brought a lot of fun in the winter months,,] one very top national flying judge remarked, after, giving a first, to a 2yearold ;D "ill bet that bird has scored over the water [the channel]" ;D im afraid the only water it could fly over ,,,,,,,,was the burn ;D ;D ;D,,true ;D,,,,,,,,,, but they did give me fun , both judging and showing [but goes to prove , looks aint everything when racing ;D]

probably the main things we need in racing pigeons ,,,are things that money cant buy,, knowledge on pigeons [its actualy fun , learning,,,,and that never ever stops ;D] methods of pigeon racing, systems, learning about your own birds , in fact all you can on learn on pigeons , can be obtained ,all free , if keen enough,,, , as far as the dipping in to your pocket [or what you can afford] all depends on yourself ,,some fanciers have paid thousands for pigeons , equipment etc,,, but if your shrewd enough, all this can be aquired quite cheaply,, loft is the first thing ,,look in the yellow sales paper ,or on pb. anywhere ," garage free for the uplifting" with a little work done , a great loft can be converted from the likes of this ,, most clubs are now getting lottery grants for clocks etc supplied ,, any decent member would soon find you a clock , even free , pigeons can be aquired very easily in fact , but maybe patience is the game here , as good well bred pigeons are needed, but theres many good racing fanciers would give you late breds actually bred from winners absolutely free, [with patience could breed a fantastic team of birds], as the old sunday school chorus used to go, "the wise man built his house upon the rock" this is true,, by befriending the real fanciers , not the ones winning races in the pub, more pints the more races theve won ;D fees can be expensive in some clubs ,, but over the course of a year its not too bad per week , birdage can be dear,,that can be cut by sending less, but better quality ,,[it only takes one to win a race ] beleive me ive prooved that ;D,, also, less birds [more quality]=less feeding and possibly more winning ,,, pools themselves are optional,, so the answer to your question is ;D if your shrewd enough,, keen enough,, all can be done quite cheaply , against any other hobby yes ill give you a pair of free yb,s next year ,,for racing ;D ;D ;D joking ,,but true ;D good luck

if any pigeons are vaccinated , there SHOULD? be no worries whatsoever in catching pmv from any unvaccinated bird but if the birds are not vaccinated and your birds do catch this ,, it will go through the loft like a dose of salts , thats why i mentioned that in feral pigeons throughout the uk , there have been very few ,,," epidemics" of this, compared to the amount of ferals in the uk, meaning that they must have a bigger immunity than racing pigeons

if you look up almond tumblers ,,,,or tipplers on the internet youll see photos of them ,[ill try and find out where i saw them ]

yes theres almond west of england tumblers ,,even almond fantails , almond tipplers

my brother is a keen canary shower /breeder and uses creasote only on the floor in summer with plenty ventilation creasote will kill mite..,, but his canary hut is painted a pale blue,, also their rules state that the show boxes are pale blue inside,, the reason for this was,, as birds see colour different to us,, this pale blue is seemingly used to keep the birds calm ,and as stress free as poss. for this reason i allways had the inside of my w,hood lofts this colour ,, and the same colour blinds,,,if needed > the difference in their rest period was quite obvious as i had a camera in the loft ,,and a moniter in the kitchen ,, where i could see them at perfect peace ,,,,,,,,,,untill the doors opened ;D

this is another question,, again for no apparent reason , ive seen yb,s lib , then off!! then on the same sort of day , same sort of distance , found the yb,s would find it difficult in clearing,, and indeed , seen pigeons still flying round an hour later ,, just makes you wonder

welcome mike,, hope you enjoy the site,,im sure you woll ,, all the very best

this being the topic , being the first posting,, can we stick on topic,, i personally cant speak enough of pigeontracker ,,he has went well out of his way to help me,, i can only speak for myself, but have now found many agreeing

moved to photo page,, p. milker.. you can put on as many pics as you like now,, all the best,,maybe nice to see them growing at a later stage, and follow their progress

yes done it twice a year in the past ,, looked a little drab,, but done the birds no harm, and i believed it was a healthy way to treat the inside of the lofy but wondering what the creasote substitute was, or contained,, i also beleived the birds rested in the loft better ,,,than a snow white interier >

agree with that , but it seems to me that for some unknown reason their homing instinct is not what it was ,, it was mainly sprint i raced tony, even then doing velocities of over 1760 even at near 2000 at times but still not the losses we have today ?? ,, just the odd one or two set up for nats etc, so im afraid to say im beaten on this one :-/ ,,,,but i still say theres a reason beyond our understanding :-/ :-/ :-/ as yet incidently i voted the same as you on the very last one,,type of pigeon we now race ,,i think we were the only two ;D ;D ;D,, but i did vote on the pigeon not being 100 pc , in the sence of the birds ,,not now having the same powerfull homing ability they once had,, this is the bit that gets me?? in a way my two votes were meaning the same

i thought on these lines a few years ago , in fact i stated if it were £5 per ring we would only breed from the very best , and any yb that didnt come up to standard ,i,e perfectly reared and bred would simply not be in the loft etc,,, but have seriously changed my mind, as yb racing is today,, no matter how perfect their reared or bred i still think we would loose a lot of £5,s

tony,, its mostly your middle paragraph that intrigues me,, this most cerainly does happen , and very often in recent times [or races] mostly when we dont expect it possibly on a good flying day,,, this is the bit that intrigues me,, this just didnt happen years ago,, i am also with you ,, with ill birds ,, they cant all be ill the same day , sometimes even flying the same race the week b4, this is the big basic issue i cannot get my head round ,, but there has to be a reason,, but what? i certainly dont know,,,,this is the big " why" or" what" we just dont seem to know,, but feel we should be looking into this most seriously ,, as far as clashing goes we sent far more birds with far more members years ago, probably suffered more clashing than we do now,, but the point being , most of these birds worked their way home,, it just doesnt seem like that now,, once down,,their down ,,,only the odd one gets back occasionaly!! [did you go to the same school as me > > > did i spell intrigue right > >:(im not so sure ;D] yes a big mystery at times

as said in my post,, we now lose more yb,s year by year with the situation getting worse,, it has been said on many occasions ,mainly by the old school ;D[my school was the best,,it was approved ;D ;D] that nowadays you never see yb,s sitting on your loft the next morning waiting to get in, whereas b4 even after a hard race , with birds missing , there were allways many birds back following morning ,,, not so now,,,,,why has the patern of yb racing changed so much ?? im sure the old school will remember getting yb,s right up till darkness ,, when now ,,if not there within an hour of the winner , their seldom seen ,,,,ive taken a list from the poll postings , to see if there are any reasons for this 1, less than 100 pc healthy,,,in my opinion one worth looking at #,, but many years ago , this could still have been the case ,,,,but birds got back albeit some late. 2 too much rubbish bred ,,, there was as much rubbish years ago,,,,but most got home 3 poorly trained yb,s,, this happened also years ago,,,but birds got home 4 clashing,, we probably had more of that years ago,,,,but birds got home 5 mobile phones ,, what are they # 6 methods feeding ,,, even years ago many tried different feeding methods,,,still birds got home 7 types of pigeons we race now,,,definately changed over the years# 8 weather conditions ,,,we had that years ago,,birds still got home 9 same people lose them each year,, maybe not quite so true ,, ive seen champion fanciers lose just the same recently 10 bringing birds in to the country,, didnt happen so much years ago,,but did happen,,still birds got home. 11 over dosing medication ,, we didnt have as much medication years ago as there was not much need for it# 12 resp. probs ,, we had that years ago. 13 basket training ,, we done that, or not, same as now,, still birds got home. 14,,,hawks ,, this is one big problem we didnt have so much years ago # 15 too many yb,s bred ,, some did this years ago [but were still left with more birds. 16 ,, ,,,something we dont know [no answer to that one ,,,,yet]### the things that differed from 30 years ago are ,5,, 7 11,,,,14 ,,,,16,, 5 mobile phones,, cant say ive seen any concrete evidence of this affecting the birds 7 types of pigeons have changed [in my opinion] mainly due to being propped up by medication , antibiotics etc now producing specimans that lack the vitality of a natural immunity, therefore loosing their hard constitution , we once had. 11 answer as 7 14 a most definate difference from years ago [one perigrine will upset a batch of racers , probably killing one but maiming through injury to many , resulting in few of that batch never getting home through sheer fright . 16" something we dont know" but need to find out,,,, whatever this could be,, global warming ?? just a thought,,, airwaves more common now than b4,certainly more of them ,,seasons ever changing even to the extent that the chrismas race is often a higher temp, than our actual first race!! flowers are blooming in my garden now better than a few months ago,, are pigeons being confused by the four seasons now,, as its now difficult to tell these seasons apart god only knows in my opinion ,,,boiling it all down ,, the four main reasons for these ever increasing horrific yb losses are as said in fact the last four mentioned

i would agree with this basicly,, but maybe worth a word of warning in breeding y,b,s too early ,,as suggested in other running yb topics running at the moment as one of the reasons for some losses ,, there are many hatching yb,s in early january [obviously these birds would be on natural darkness] but in my opinion there is nothing to gain by this,, as by training these y,bs at 6 months old after the 21st june, would be far too late , and just like latebreds would go down ten a penny ,, in my opinion darkness yb,s are far better bred after the end of jan.. and use blinds to control the darkness times,,,,,,,,, i think the younger the birds are trained ,[12 weeks in these cases] the better , even if its just short distances and learning them to eat and drink from the basket ,

there seems to be far and few of feral pigeons with an EPIDEMIC of paramyxo,,,,,,,,again hybrid vigour and the survival of the strongest,,,as nature intended

i would go along with this,, if you have vaccinated your pigeons,,,by rights , you should have no worry in your birds contracting paramyxo virus even when mixing with other birds ,,, my worry also would be that by injecting for any desease, a desease would mutate rendering the original vaccine useless , we then [or the powers that be] would have to change the vaccine accordingly , then after a while this mutation would appear again , so again the vaccine would have to be changed ,, the law says we vaccinate so this is a must ,,,,,,,,but at the same time there is a lot of money invoved , and the old adage, opposite way worded ,, where theses muck, theres money off course defra are not worried about our pigeons ,,its the newcastles desease in chickens that is their worry [which again is money] we spoke about hybrid vigour,, this is perfectly true,, youll get better eggs, better meat from "midden hens" that roam free around the farms , than the factory type , that are treated for all and sundry laying eggs that the shells are like tissue paper and the yolk like snot > quite the opposite with the free range "midden" hens" ,,,,,,,,all a sign of the times and all money ;D

"workman" was a blue pied cock bred by alf baker and raced by tommy bowes,,,,,alf baker was one of the trully greats only racing a small team of pigeons , compared to most ,,,, massarreli bought " workman" and alf bakers strain of pigeons,,, massareli have them today i purchased a son of "workman" many years ago also a blue pied, this bird escaped , but left two eggs in which i managed to rear one yb,, again a blue pd , this pigeon scored very well in a yb national [which there was only one bird on the day in the whole of scotland] the weather the next day was even worse,, pouring with rain, this pigeon appeared from under my loft gashed down the front,smeared in blood and soaked to the bone, i didnt see the pigeon come ,only when he appeared from under the loft,, the bird scored well in that race , but damaged so much , never raced again , he never bred anything outstanding but did breed some silvers , one of these silvers did very well

on the poll post ,, i think you could allmost pick every one ,,as to some degree or other,, but on my last post on that" certain something" we dont yet know about , i sincerely beleive this to be true,, on the poll vote , weve had most of these troubles for years ,,,even at that losses were not as bad ,, it seems a pattern now if you dont get your young birds , say within an hour of the winners ,,, you dont seem to see many at all , maybe the odd one or two ,, but nowadays it just seems to" dry up" after an hour or so,, very seldom ,now do you see half a dozen ybs on your loft the next morning after a hard race,,, you just dont see them,, so i still say theres a certain" something" were not aware of ,,, as even on good days we can now have very erratic racing , which really just shouldnt be so im now looking for something ;D ;D ;D

i have went on my second vote ,,,,and now see the result ,,,less than 100 pc healthy pigeons,,it seems most of us have agreed on this

just noticed the" two" part ;D,,,,just a bit slow ;D my second cause of the problem is ,,,,something we dont yet know,,, as i mentioned in my posting, there is much we do know,,, but theres a big chunk of the jig-saw we dont know ,,and thats the main bit , whatever that" something" is,,,,,,,,we have yet to find out

clearly any fancier attempting to put birds in the basket in this condition should be ashamed of him or herself as they should not be in the basket in the first place , and really the basketing committee should make sure of this, but again we have the vicious circle , because fancieres are losing so many , they are breeding more , and probably in the same space as they had in the past year,therefore adding to their losses instead of cutting their losses ,,,,,,,,,and producing more desease , then the antibiotics to prop up , then again the vicious circle?

i know , being on panels with many top scottish distance fliers , that they would never dream of treating pigeons the way that is taken for the norm now,, the greatest to me was robert mc cormack of wynchburgh ,, i think something like in 25 years on the trot was never off the blue ribband national ,,rennes , this was acheived by great pigeons, great management with the constitution bred in to them year by year and certainly not by antibiotics he was a master in the art of breeding and racing pigeons especialy for the distance , allthough robert doesnt race now,,im quite sure he would be shocked at some of the so- called methods now,he put no importance at all in yb racing

a really difficult one to answer , but i have went for" type of pigeon we race now" i beleive, in recent years we are now breeding pigeons that lack strong constitution, with generations now, being propped up with many types of medication ,including the over use of antibiotics in many cases [over a period of years] by the use of all these different medications our pigeons now take longer for any immunity to set properly in , remembering a pigeon is not really fully mature untill two years old ,,,,,,,and its now the case, that its a very carefull fancier who, in fact has many two year olds in his loft