Castleview

I agree Tammy, but what if he makes it again? I had too many before coming back in boxes and it's true they never returned back in a box they just vanished on race days leaving the answer that they were rubbish. :'(

Thanks for informing me gangster. Yeah, I've seen those on their site. Class Pigeons.

If it has a nest mate and that has weaned, I would give it a day and wean it off. If it doesn't wean I would bin it to stop its offspring becoming late weaners.

Roland Janssens is the new guy on the block, but I'm not sure whether he is related to the Janssen brothers. His pigeons are a different strain to the actual Janssen brothers, but I don't doubt that somewhere in his pedigrees there an Old Janssens Cock or Hen. He's got some ace pigeons though ;D

Thanks ;D After experiencing and breeding 'Rubbish' in 96 due to inexperience (one is my picture, but he was tame and never raced due to bad wing) I'm learning from my mistakes. If the pigeons don't exercise around the loft and choose to sit on the roof then its pigeon pie for the roof sitter and if they all sit on the roof then I've got many pies to eat. I want workers! Not roof sitters, lazy pigeons that float on the air instead of pumping muscle and any pigeon that comes in back on a box comes through the front door and straight into the bin.

The way DEFRA is playing with the sport we'll all be Sprinting

My uncle and grandad always used to pair up on January 1st. They'd spend all of Decemeber picking out which ones to pair then first thing New Years Day, spend the day in the loft. By the time the birds hatched the RPRA Rings would already be in the lofts.

Depending on all my 8 Nestboxes being full I would breed 16 and that would be it. I'd split them into two teams of eight. If I lost the lot in either training or racing then I would assess my pairings and not make the same mistakes again. If only 4 remained out of the 16 I would breed of those four youngsters and their parents. I was a mob flier once (back in 1996) when training my birds they always flew in crowds. I knew alot of mob fliers in our club. This is my second chance at pigeons and this time I'm doing it right. NO MOBS! All birds will be singled up, isolating the best birds during training and telling me which pair to breed from in the future and which ones to put floated eggs under.

Sorry mate.

The winds have been bad. I do hope you get him back. Bet the wind swept him away

Wow, that is a lot Karl. Is it your first training toss? How far did you take them? If that happened to me I would lost for words, but then I would think 'If they can't home from say 10 miles together then they're rubbish and I would repair the parents in hopes of breeding better youngsters'

Will do.

I've been thinking of giving Logans a go and Rapido Busschaerts. Haven't found any White Delbars yet. I might by a pair of Logans and Busschaerts and see where that takes me (when I get the loft done)

Hi, Wondered if anybody is racing Logans? I know there's a few people out there who are using them for dove releases, just wondered if anybody raced and got results with them?

Maize is full of vitamins, and it's the highest grain in vitamin A. I'll be using it ;D

Found an interesting site on diseases of poultry. Don't know whether it's to do with pigeons much (mainly chickens), but I assume they are of the poultry family. http://www.poultryhub.org/index.php/

I think the main things you need to treat for is Paramixo and Canker. As for Cocci, I'd check the droppings via the scope. If they haven't got it don't treat them. The more drugs you give them the more it will affect their performance. If any of you birds become ill remove them asap and isolate them. You can then make the necessary treatments and hope their bodies combat it and make them immune. I found a site with the cocci bacteria. I'll try to find it and PM you

I'm guessing it's because they're still yearling's. They've still got some 'young bird' instincts in them. Their paternal and maternal instinct hasn't quite developed like the old birds. If you have old birds, I'd get some young birds off them and leave the yearling's to decide whether to play mommy and daddy or act like spoilt teenagers ;D This is where old hens come in handy, pair the yearling cocks to old hens and they'll settle them down and break them out of there hormone imbalance. As for the hens wanting to be far away from the cocks, perhaps they don't like them? You never know. You could try pairing them individually in a nest box with a partition in the middle so the cock doesn't scalp them. Make sure they got some food and water each in the box and leave them until there heads start bobbing. If they don't they're not compatible and there's nothing you can do about it. They've had the run of the loft, so now you take control and tell them who's boss. Best of Luck anyway.

It's on the DEFRA Site. They said it's a Canadian Goose. I do hope they don't return to Canada, it could put a stint on them too.

I liked Pigeon Loft Organizer (www.plosoft.com) for £45 it's user friendly and you can print pedigrees, race sheets, pairings and much other stuff. I'm investing in it. ;D You can't beat good old pen and paper too. If your PC breaks you lose everything unless you print out the data from software.

Why not use her maternal instinct? Personally I would let her go down with a cock. As soon as the youngsters have hatched, perhaps four days old, remove the cock. After a day on the nest loose her out or as I did take her off the nest and hold let her go 6ft from the loft door. She'll either return to the nest or return to her old loft, I favor the nest.. The possibility of her returning could be small. I once tried this with my grandfathers '53' Blue Cock. I loosed my pigeons out and he went out while the hen was on the nest, he went back to my granddads loft (who was no longer alive; but the loft was still standing). I rode all the way to my nans and saw him on the roof, I called him and he came down but took off and returned to my loft. He was sitting on his eggs when I got back. Grandad lived 10 minutes away. I did it with another of his, only this time I took the hen away for a day and left the cock to it, next day I took him off the nest and stood outside with him. I let him go and he returned to the nest, he flew with the team next time they went out.

Nice birds George

I have just signed the petition. ;D

Did anyone see the article in the Racing Pigeon (15th Feb 08). When I read it and saw how the officials refuse to see it as a sport I was in uproar. For as long as I remember it has always been a sport, but because the owner of the loft isn't actually getting 'fit' from it they say it's not a sport. Well I sent a letter to be published in the Racing Pigeon (22nd Feb 08) and here's what I said:- Sir - I read the article in last weeks Racing Pigeon 'Is Pigeon Racing A Sport' and totally agreed with author Brian Newson. I would like to ask the people who think Racing Pigeons is not a sport to see it from another angle. For those who think that it is not a sport I refer you to 'Football', which is a regonized sport and one of the biggest in the world. Imagine the city of Manchester as the home loft. You have two teams. Manchester United and Manchester City. In order to get those teams up to competitive they must be trained everyday and eat a well balanced diet in order to bring them into top physical fitness so they can compete against other teams in other cities and towns, but who trains them? A Manager! Each team of pigeons is trained by a manager, he's the one who owns the loft, who must select his team accordingly as football managers do. If a player doesn't fit in with the game then he must be dropped and eventually everyone of your team will be in top athletic form. If you compare both Football and Pigeon Racing together you have roughly the same thing. Footballers need to be in top form to play for 90 minutes on a pitch. For a pigeon to fly 600 miles he needs daily exercise and club races, which is the same as football teams playing at home or away. I do not intend to upset football fans or players, I just wanted to give the people who are fighting to get it a recognized sport some edge. In my theory football and pigeons are similar. Alex Ferguson is the manager of Man United. I will be the manager of my team of pigeons. Both play at home and play away. Perhaps we can use this against the government! How many politicians are football fans? Far more than pigeon fanciers. All you gotta do is change the field of play. What if Pigeon Racing was the big sport as football is, and football was trying to be recognized as a sport? No harm in trying, eh

When I have completed my loft I will put down an 1" of sand mixed with garden lime as Deep Litter. The benefit of sand is that it has minerals and the birds will peck at the sand. As soon as the droppings hit the deep litter the sand will suck the moisture out of the droppings. All you gotta do is rake the droppings and clean them up. Add extra sand for what you have taken away and the loft floor stays clean. Put a pair of slip-on shoes in the loft though. My loft will have a small area where I will change my clothes for added protection. As for the nest boxes and perches I will scrape those daily. This way I can see whether the pigeons droppings are healthy or not. When winter comes (and it's too cold to be in the loft long) I will adopt the deep litter in the nest boxes. But the way the weather is this year I estimate we'll have Med weather in a few years. ;D