jimmy white

the birds tell you what they want, and at what time of year, i,e theyll throw the maize out whilst feeding young, theyll want more protein whilst moulting, and the racing feed will depend on what races you intend to race, after the moult the birds tend to eat less, its at this time ,you dont want too much fat on them, as fat hens,have difficulty in laying, but on saying that ,nature again takes over, as they tend to loose weight naturaly, when pairing and driving.

really a lot of sense spoken by speckled, the pigeon has an oil gland at the base of the back, and when preening, stimulates the gland to release, this oil ,which is spread over the feathers, to help water proof them. you can see this gland quite easy , and if you rub it slightly with your finger youll see the oil, on your finger. but this is not resistent to detergents, better to use the detergent after the birds have finished their bath, to wash the bath out, rinse and let dry,,,but to use fairy liquid and salt, youll have gay, thirsty,and clean lice . ;D ;D ;D

no comment on the 60s grandpa broon ha ha

welcome to the forum robert, im sure youll find it fantastic.

it is great to see , for a change, pigeon fanciers working together, for the good of the sport, and humanity, we can all thank the forum for this, we are all entitled to our own opinion, sometimes its differant, than others , but we can air our views, sensibly, if need be. to me this forum is a great thing, and we can all make good freinds with total stangers , its a pity the outside pigeon fraternity cant do the same it has to be the way forward, thanks webmaster for a great forum.

would watch the washing up liquid, too much would be a bad thing

hi rose, thats what we call up here a coo lick, i used to put a lump in the garden , they could pick at it when and if they wanted to. i did notice they picked at it more whilst feeding young,

JUST A WEE FOOTNOTE I STILL HAVE THE OLD BLACK AND WHITE PHOTO AT THE PRESENTATION NIGHT WHEN I GOT THAT WEE TROPHY, OF ME AND MY DAD. IN FADED PRINTING UNDER THE PHOTO IT SAYS HOW I WISH THAT I COULD SAY, ILL GO AND SEE MY DAD TODAY TO HEAR HIS VOICE,TO SEE HIM SMILE, TO SIT AND TALK WITH HIM A WHILE TO THOSE WHO HAVE A DAD, HAVE HIM WHILE YOU MAY BECAUSE I WISH WITH ALL MY HEART, THAT MINE WERE HERE TO DAY JIMMY

HI YOUNG WESTY, HOPE YOUR DOING WELL, YOUVE A GREAT DAD,IM SURE YOUR PROUD OF HIM, AND I HAVE TO SAY THAT WAS ONE OF THE NICEST LETTERS IVE RECEIVED, ILL KEEP THAT. MY DAD HAD PIGEONS, AND I FIRST TOOK A REAL INTEREST IN THEM ABOUT 6 YEARS OLD, AND WANTED MY OWN, MY BROTHER WAS THE SAME, HES 2 YEARS OLDER SO ONCE MY BROTHER HAD" 2 REAL RACERS" BOUGHT FOR HIM FOR 1GUINNIE, WHICH IS 21 NEW 5 PENCES NOWADAYS, I WANTED THE SAME, BUT MY DAD SAID I HAD TO WAIT ON MY BIRTHDAY [WHICH HAD JUST PASSED]REALLY MY DAD DIDNT HAVE THE MONEY, SO AT THAT TIME A STRAY KEPT COMMING DOWN TO THE CHICKEN RUN WHICH I MANAGED TO CATCH RING NO SURP 51 CA 4406, IM SURE THE OWNER WILL FORGIVE ME NOW, MY DAD SAID IT WAS A HEN, SO OFF COURSE I WANTED TO GET A COCK TO PAIR TO IT, SO I PESTERED MY DAD, SO MUCH , THAT HE BOUGHT A "REAL RACER FROM THE PETSHOP FOR2 SHILLINGS [10 PENCE]ILL NEVER FORGET THE DAY HE CAME BACK FROM WORK WITH A BOX ON THE CARIER ON THE BACK OF HIS BIKE, THIS WAS A PIGEON, AND FOR ME..I WASTHE PROUDEST LAD ABOUT, WELL THE COINCIDENCE WAS, THAT THE STRAY I CAUGHT ,TURNED OUT A COCK AND THE COCK HE BOUGHT TURNED OUT A HEN, SO THEY PAIRED, AND THEY BRED SO IT WAS MY CHEAPIES AGAINST MY BROTHERS DEAR ONES BUT MY BROTHER THOUGHT THAT BECAUSE HIS BIRDS WERE DEARER,THEY WOULD WIN BETTER, BUT WHAT HE DIDNT KNOW, WAS YOUNG JAMESY BOY TOOK HIS OWN BIRDS EVERY DAY ON THE BACK OF A BIKE, TO AS FAR AS MY WEE LEGS COULD TAKE ME, SO MY BROTHER COULDNT UNDERSTAND HOW MY BIRDS WERE BEATING HIS, SO REALLY THAT WAS MY FIRST VALUABLE LESSON I THEN TOOK THEM IN THE BUS TO THE TERMINUS ,ABOUT 9 MILES, AND WHEN THE BUS CONDUCTER GOT TO KNOW ME HE WOULD UNOFFICIALY TAKE THEM FROM ME AT THE BUS STOP AND LET THEM OFF FOR ME, SO I SAVED MY 3 OLD PENNIES, AND I WAS ABLE TO GET THEM IN AND TIME THEM, SO IT JUST GOES TO SHOW YOU THAT ITS A LOT TO DO WITH THE WORK YOU PUT IN WITH THEM,,I STILL HAVE MY VERY FIRST TROPHY, WICH I AM MORE PROUD OF THAN ANY OF THE REST 1958 R. U. YB AVERAGE, J,WHITE AND SON YES I REMEMBER MY DAD WITH VERY FOND MEMORIES,,,GOOD LUCK TO YOU WESTY

SILVER WINGS A VERY INTERESTING ARTICLE, I AGREE ABOUT THE SOLAR FLARES BEING THERE YEARS AGO AND NOT HAVING THE SAME LOSSES THEN, THE REST OF YOUR ARTICLE ALLTHOUGH VERY INTERESTING, COULD BE COINCIDENCES, BUT ON THE OTHER HAND WHO KNOWS, ITS A VERY STRANGE WORLD WE LIVE IN NOWADAYS, ITS COMMING TO THE STAGE WHERE ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE, I CAN DEFINATELY SAY, THAT DUE TO MY OWN EXPERIENCE, IN THE LAST 50 YEARS, THAT THESE MAIN BIG LOSSES STARTED ABOUT 20 YEARS AGO, AND SINCE THEN HAS INCREASINGLY GOTTEN WORSE, I MEAN WHO WOULD BELEIVE I RACED 9 YBS IN 1958[ AS A BOY], RACED EVERY YB RACE , SENT 2 TO THE YB NAT WICH THEN WAS CHELTENHAM APPROX 300 MILES, GOT THE TWO HOME ,NEVER SCORED, BUT BACK IN REASONABLE TIME, WHAT IM TRYING TO SAY IS FROM THE VERY FIRST TOSS TO THE YB NAT, I DROPPED 2 PIGEONS, AND THAT WAS QUITE THE NORM THEN, I THINK MOST PEOPLE WOULD AGREE WITH ME , THAT WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE NOWADAYS, WILL WE EVER GET TO THE BOTTOM OF IT,,,, [PARDON THAT PUN TO THE FORUM MEBER THAT NEW OF MY RECENT PROBLEM ] IT CERTAINLY IS A STRANGE WORLD WERE LIVING IN TODAY.

WE MAY [ OR WILL GET A VACCINE[ AGAINST THIS VIRUS, HOPEFULLY SOONER THAN LATER, IT HAS TO BE PROVEN THAT THE VACCINE WORKS, BUT THE CHEIF SCIENTISTS HAVENT YET SAID , THAT BURRYING YOUR HEAD IN THE SAND WORKS, SO I THINK WE CAN SAFELY RULE THAT ONE OUT

deadly desease ,,,may just be weeks away from brittain edin evening news frid 14 oct, call to vaccinate a million uk children against bird flu. health cheifs say more than a million children in brittain must be vaccinated against flu as fears grow that a deadly avian form of the desease will arrive here in weeks. cases of avian flu, which have devastated bird flocks in south east asia, now been confirmed in turkey, with romania also expected to follow. a vaccination against avian flu is still about 12 months away, according to experts. but the dep. of health said it was essential normal winter flu jabs were given to children with asthma or diabetes and to other high risk groups including the over 65 s and people with chronic illnesses. around 1.1 million children in brittain suffer from asthma and about 20,000 from diabetes. although the the only human deaths from bird flu so far have been among people who had direct contact with infected birds,scientists fear the virus will mutate and could then be spread from human to humans. there have been 117 confirmed cases of bird flu among humans in s. e , asia, leading to 60 deaths. the "nightmare scenario" is that somone already suffering from ordinary flu could also to become infected with bird flu and as a "mixing vessel" in which the virus could adapt and spread more quickly. there has been speculation such as a developement could lead to a pandemic and up to 50 million people worldwide could die. last month the cheif medical officer for england, liam donaldson, said it was a "biological inevitability that an expected flu pandemic would seriously affect the health of people in this country. he said contingency plans were looking at 50, 000 deaths in the uk from the pandemic. around 14 million doses of flu vaccine are available on the nhs for older people and those with chronic conditions, but officials are anxious to improve on last years 71 p.c. uptake among vulnerable groups,. david harper, cheif scientist at the dep, of health, said if avian flu did arrive in brittain officials would consider vaccinating poultry and farm workers against flu. dr. debbie reynolds, the uk,s cheif vet ,officer, sought to calm fears by insisting there had been no reports of human flu outbreak in turkey. but she said "it shows there is a risk to the uk and this is a developing situation, which we are monitoring closely" samples of the infected birds from asiapart of turkey were taken to the vet. lab. agency [vla] in weybridge on wed. morn. and tested positive for the h5n1 virus yesterday. tests on deseased birds in romania to see if they arecarrying the deadly strain are due out tomorrow. philip todd, the european commisions health spokesman, urged people not to be "overly concerned" and said the authorities in turkey and romania were working hard to stopthe disease spreading. he said "so long as we can stamp out the disease rapidly we hope wecan get on top of thissituation quite quickly" meanwhile, turkish officials put 9 people under medical observation today after reportsthat 40 pigeons in their neighbourhood had suddenly mysteriously died. in kiziksa, where the earlier deaths occurred, vet. officials in full body protection suits were working to cull the few remaining birds in the village. HOW AVIAN FLU COULD CROSS OVR TO HUMANS,,,,,MIGRATORY BIRDS; VIRUS CARRIED IN BIRDS INTESTINES, THE BIRD DOES NOT ALLWAYS DEVELOPE AN INFECTION, BUT CAN PASS THE VIRUS ON TO DOMESTICATED FOWL. DOMESTICATED FOWL; BIRDS EXCRETE THE VIRUS IN THEIR FAECES, WHICH DRIES AND BECOMES PULVERISED AND CAN THEN BE IN HALED. CONTACT; SO FAR ONLY HUMANS LIVING IN CLOSE CONFINES WITH DISEASED BIRDS HAVE CONTRACTED THE VIRUS NIGHTMARE SCENARIO; IF THE H5N1 VIRUS EXCHANGED GENES WITH A HUMAN FLU VIRUS THROUGH A PERSON HAVING BOTH AT THE SAME TIME. THIS DEVELOPEMENT COULD RESULT IN A DEVASTATING PANDEMIC IN WHICH UP TO 50 MILLION PEOPLE WORLDWIDE COULD DIE. SYMTOMS IN BIRDS; LOSS OF APPETITE, RUFFLED FEATHERS, FEVER, WEAKNESS, DIARRHOEA, EXCESSIVE THIRST AND SWELLING. IF THE STRAIN IS VIRULANT, MORTALITY RATE CAN RANGE BETWEEN 50 AND 100 P.C. SYMTOMS IN HUMANS; FEVER, COUGH, SORE THROAT, MUSCLE ACHES, EYE INFECTIONS, PNEUMONIA, ACUTE RESPIRATORY DISTRESS AND VIRAL PNEUMONIA. FLU PANDEMICS; DEATHS; 1998 SPANISH 20-40 M 1997 ASIAN 1, M. 1968 HONG CONG 700,000.

WHEN IDID THE DARKNESS SYSTEM I OFTEN HAD THE ODD ONE START MOULTING THE FLIGHTS, FOR NO APPARANT REASON LIKE CARL. OTHER TIMES THE REASON BECAME OBVIOUS, LIKE A BIRD ROOSTING ON THE WATER FOUNTAIN NEXT TO THE VENTS, WHERE THE LIGHT WAS COMMING IN,,,INCIDENTLY I WAS DUBIOUS OF THIS SYSTEM AT FIRST, SO I TRIED A FEW ON IT IN ONE SMALL LOFT, THE OTHER SMALL LOFT HAD NATURAL YBS IN IT, THE NATURAL ONES WERE STOPPED AFTER A BOUT 4 RACES AND THE DARKNESS ONES RIGHT OUT TO YB NATIONAL , SCORED WELL WITH DARKNESS YBS, BUT AS YEARLINGS AND OLDER BIRDS FOUND NO DIFFERANCE IN THEM WHAT SO EVER, THEY ALL RACED AS WELL.

AGAIN I HAVE TO STICK UP FOR MY SPARRING PARTNER. ALLTHOUGH, YOUR CORRECT,GROVEHOMER, NONE OF US CANT SAY THAT BRUNO HAS REPEATED THIS WEEKS AGO, BEFORE IT APPEARED ON THE MEDIA NEWS, YOU JUST NEED TO LOOK BACK THE POSTS AND SEE, HES NOT TRYING TO FRIGHTEN ANYONE [ALLTHOUGH IT IS VERY FRIGHTENING] HES JUST DOING HIS DARNDIST TO INFORM ALL THE FORUM MEMBERS, THE LATEST NEWS AND LATEST ADVICE ETC AND I THINK WE REALLY ALL SHOULD BE GRATEFULL FOR THE TIME AND EFFORT, HES PUT IN TO THIS,AS BRUNO AND I KNOW WE CAN HAVE A LAUGH AT LESS IMPORTANT POSTS, BUT THIS IS A SERIOUS SUBJECT, AND REALLY HAS TO BE TREATED SO.

HOWS THINGS WITH THEM NOW DEEMAN, ANY WORSE OR ANY BETTER

my brother david, has had to stop feeding the songbirds now , the hawk is killing them off day by day, even allthough he has stopped feeding them, hes also made special runs for this small breed of rabbit his daughter has. the sparrowhawk has even killed in the front garden ,next to the road

i can see a few trains of thought here, but would never darken the loft completely, never, i used to paint the inside of w hood loft a quiet light blue, and put light blue curtains up, the inside of the loft was perfectly light. but this seemed to have a calming effect on the cocks, they couldnt see out, and they seemed quite happy and peacefull, they raced brilliantly, but i had another loft of a few naturals, which had an open loft, i was able to do this at the place i kept them.at that time but as far as enjoying birds, and watching them, it would have to be natural

yes that was the place clockman , i last got beans there about 5 years ago, also white protein peas all were exellent,,, what do you think was wrong with them recently, was it this years crop?

some concern now ,did you see all the news on tv tonight ,its exactly what you say bruno, only you said it weeks ago, about keeping birds in , boot cleaning etc i maybe give and take a bit laugh on not so serious things, but have to say i take my hat of to you on this subject youve dug up some really informative posts allong with others off course, but we can all learn a lot from all these posts, and hopefully act accordingly

hi snowy, if your going to try for the distance it is quite a long patient game, but you would be well rewarded in the end, my advice would be to forget about all the fancy adverts and try and get birds that are either bred off distance winners or grand children off distance winners, no matter what breed they are, and try and form your own team

i think maybe ges is thinking of condies crystals and snowy we used to use a week solution of sheep dip,, or even a week solution of duramitex, but i think that is maybe too strong for the birds, i think nothing beats the ivomec.

im a wee bit confused at brunos post it seems a wee bit contradictive, that on post 6 on electrolytes you say NO ADDITIONAL SALT VIA DRINKINK WATER AND AND DEFINATELY NO ADDITIONAL SALT then you say in one of your last posts on this subject, that you used to put handfulls of salt in the bath, and that salt in water is a week saline solution used externally, but surely your birds will drink the bath water, and if you gave them a bath every sunday, they would drink saline every sunday,,[ salt]

i think maybe , bruno, your thinking of distance rather than hours on the wing you could send them 300 miles , they could possibly do this in, 5 hrs if the wind was favourable, then again you could get 8 hrs out of them at250 mile race with head wind which would be more suitable, i agree with rose trainng them in a head wind, to harden them up, itrained a black cock from near dundee, opposite way of race, and scored with it from sartilly, as i said before no hard and fast rules, but NOT to race or train or breed to early, and remember that the bird usually casts its first flight, after sitting more than 10 days on its second round of eggs, i used to seperate them after theve reared, race them spare then have them sitting [or hatching] depending on the bird, usually a cock sitting 10 days ,,a hen on 3 day old young, after this separation period found that it made them keener, when they did nest, for second time. ,,.only another opinion.,, maybe another interesting point about making sure they have the fuel in the tank for the job, is an example of last years kings cup winner, auld reekie [ what a pigeon] this pigeon was raced lightly as yb, never raced as a yearling , and to my mind must rate as one of the best birds ever, and can tell you its not finished yet, by a long chalk.[its also been 2nat this year, among its other great positions, a great example of management and pigeon, both , hand in hand, another example of getting the best out a bird was my,, fifer,,this was a broken widowhood cock bred for the distance, raced as a yb and yearling then purchased for £8 and broken to me, never raced for two years, sent over the channel as 4 y old just out the result .sent as 5 yold could have been on the result, was at clock station with sir colin, he was in the loft when i got back. as a 6 y old never having actualy scored, but still had faith in him, flew widowhood again, 4 races, every am and every pm he went back to fife [no loft there]approx 16 miles , so on its own it flew 32 miles am and 32 miles pm, this time after never seeing his hen for 4 weeks [off course this is why he was on w hood otherwise he wouldnt have done this]i put 2 3day old ybs under him, he took to them ,like a duck taking to water , without seeing the hen, he rewarded me by being 15 open kings cup race rennes, this bird was tam mcleods breeding, and tam was 6th open in the same race, now i can honestly say that this bird had 4 races no tosses, but he trained himself. wish they all did that.

i really dont think it matters who wins or loses, its just the participating that counts , i think it should be a fun thing so we can all see some nice photos of nice birds, even if the final is in january,,, just to keep everyone in suspenders,??? were all forum members and all entitled to vote, so really, any of us are taking part ,lets all agree to make this a bit fun, and enjoy it .what about guyfawks day for a start, its a saturday this year, then every sat from then, even if some birds are not completely through the moult, its all up to the forum to judge, and allow for this.

with natural birds i found the biggest mistake was breeding, training, and racing too early, agree with the above posts ,only differance would be with me ,up here it used to work out that your 8 hour fly, could be 4 weeks before the rennes race, so after a weeks rest, i would train fairly long tosses,up till a week before they went.to the big one, but i found there are as many differant type races as there is differant type pigeons and you never know what the race is going to be like, some pigeons thrive on hard work others dont, so sometimes it can be trial and error, i used to like sending them with their second flight just bursting through these dates may have changed now , to what they used to be, if the 8 hour fly be 2 weeks b4 the big one, i would be happy to see them comming well, then send them, Maybe just to explain the differance in pigeons and races i won combine sartilly505 miles with a widowhood cock paired in january, this pigeon had 5 races never a training toss, but was flying freely for 2hours each morning and evening [when the rest of the cocks were down and in]now i new this bird was fit , iknew the forecast was good and won with him doing over1600 vel.this bird hadnt even cast a flight, now this bird was no match for sir colin whose vel was way below 600 and treated in a differant way, and over 600 miles, so really its setting them up for the race, then horses for courses and knowing your pigeons.