pjc

as has been said be patient but also let them out for excercise before you basket them and take them for short training tosses otherwise if you just take the birds up the road they will treat it as excercise period before coming home. You need to teach them to leave the basket and head for home asap by making sure there is a treat waiting for them etc.

what happened last year?

12" square even better and as many as you have room for! Idealy 2 perches for every bird then they seem to feel more comfortable in their environment. You can easily make a set of 16 box perches from 1 sheet of ply, interlocking them for stability.

Put a couple of spoonfuls of cows milk in your drinker and see how white and glowing your birds eggs are!

There was a study carried out by Oxford University and that showed birds given the chance to get there bearings homed faster. Birds liberated from a dark box took time to get there bearings before they would leave the lib site!

i seem to remember reading it somewhere but sure someone else will know for sure.

don't worry about it! i seem to recall it was something george buschaert used to look for in his champions.

or shot gun!

dig a couple of splits from the garden for them to pick about in.

if you are sure they are getting everything they need incuding maybr putting some trays of soiil outside the loft then it has clearly become a habit they are unlikely to break!

wifes going from swansea to Stoneleigh, warwickshire at weekend!

over the years, like most we get a load of strays in, report them etc. When a bird comes in and is flown out it will take about 10 days to fully recover and a number of times birds have been fed and watered, given there freedom to leave and will stay at the loft, when it reaches 7/8 days they will start to leave the area but return latter in the day and on the 10th day will head for home! They know when they are ready to leave, get themselves fit, find there bearings and go home if given the chance! Many years ago a purchased a yearling from a clearance sale where the owner had died, i broke the pigeon trained it and raced it, the following year i trained it again and lost it. The bird was then reported in a loft near its original home which was only about 7m from mine and the chaps grandson had taken a fancy to this bird so i told him to keep it. Exactly 2 years latter the bird dropped back on my loft as if he'd never been away!

or try gangstertrax

i would keep them seperate for at least a week, that way you can observe them, droppings, health etc before intergrating them.

would be interesting! ;D ;D

i would have sugested RV but you could always make your own!

I think a mask is a must but some design changes might make them more wearable! I've got love birds in the house and have found running an air purifier next to the cage makes a huge difference to the air in the room!

Going back to the beggining of the thread a lot of articles are dribble, you get to know whats worth reading and whats not! Should we realy though be pulling a fancier appart for what is his opinion, and we all have one, on a forum that i don't think he belongs to giving him no chance to reply and put his side?

nice to offer them!

well done both of you!

whose Tanya?

wheres Tenny?

when you manage to catch the bird open its wing, it may have the owners telphone number in it!

The Dark cock is old line buschaert and the grizzle is old line witha rapido cross.

prob more lost in the last week than there was at the begining of the season.