Novice

When this happens sometimes it's difficult to find words to express yourself without saying too much.

Sorry about the loss of a pigeon but perhaps as one door closes another one opens.

Why bother about the first race? I thought we should be concentrating more on the final races.

Google English Carrier Pigeon. Quite big birds with a long neck and very heavy wattle and cere.

They are occasionally advertised on Bird Trader

Most Harkers products are overpriced. We can even buy Hormoform cheaper from stockists than we can at Blackpool. Never forget how they ripped the fancy off for PMV vaccine knowing they had no competition at the time.

Happy Birthday John and many of them!

Many years ago I when I was starting with pigeons I was told by a top fancier " never buy pigeons from someone who can put more into them than yourself". That is basically what this thread is about.

Thanks for that Davie. I should have been worried with your birds now in Ayrshire. Thank goodness I have jumped ship.

I hope I didn't spoil a discussion. Now at the risk of putting him on a spot the fancier who comes closest to the criteria you mention might be David Jamieson. It would be interesting to hear his comments on this subject.

The topic is interesting but I note that several people have mentioned medication and, in particular antibiotics. Medications should only be used when absolutely necessary, a treatment for canker, worms or whatever. Supplements are something completely different of course and most fanciers will use these although they might not class them as supplements. For example glucose, oils, iodine , iron the list is endless. Any fancier who wins out of turn without any medication or supplements of any kind has the birds we all need.

If you find any let me know because they have really good pigeons.

That sounds like him!

Vic was a Police Officer who lives in Witney. I believe he lived next door to Clive Merrles. Characters he still refers to are Ray who is on the RPRA committee and Roy Ag. Vic wrote a regular article called Country Scene which, I think was published in Pigeon Sport. It was a sort of John Harwood article which included pigeons but also general interest items. He seems to have looked out the original article and is speaking about the original pigeons from 1941 onwards, trips to Belgium and various other topics. Yes I will pass on your best wishes.

For anyone interested if you google Windy Ridge, Longborough you will see the home of CJ Williams. I have a friend in the area ( Vic Compton ) who once did a write up on CJ during Peter's time there. I have no idea of the article content but I do know that he did one. Actually after I mentioned it to him tonight he is now looking for the original article. I didn't mean him to go to that bother.

KFC is vile!

I would love to help you Andy but I'll just bred fewer and save myself a fortune. My federation had 87 youngsters at the final last year. 20 were mine and 67 belonged to other federation members. I had about 50 at home. I ordered 100 rings and the remainder of the federation ordered 11,000. Something just has to be very wrong somewhere.

That sums up pigeon men. The source I quoted was George McAloney and I always felt it was a very good rule of thumb.

Both open and enclosed lofts can work. I appreciate that but overcrowding (in addition to not allowing the birds to take ownership of territory) leads to contamination of the atmosphere. Ammonia, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide are all toxic chemicals. We also exhale water vapour which causes condensation so there goes a dry loft. As a rule of thumb I was once told by a guy who I rate very highly that " if you can smell pigeon then you are doing something wrong".

I have far too many pigeons. This is a consequence of my reluctance to feed peregrine falcons in August. Over the past 2 years I have only sent a few youngsters past the 100 mile mark. I certainly have plenty of time on my hands to race a bigger team but the big question lies in the quality of air in the loft as numbers increase.

Yes you are correct I mistakenly posted rapeseed oil. The analysis of Soya oil suggests that it may be beneficial to pigeons.

And you had a wee coffee in the garden centre no doubt!

Off hand I am not sure Andy. I assume this is from Aviform. I only said I was looking for Red Cell not going to buy it. They sell outdoor type clothes there and the wife was looking at these so I browsed horse supplements. I try to avoid products with a pigeon on the bottle as these are mainly overpriced sold by crooks.

I don't know what the exact name is . It's something like Omega 3 and 6 oil. It was in Jet Set Saddelry next to Fraser's garden centre in Dundonald. They must think I'm a bit nuts in these places as I wander round reading labels to see it there is anything I can use. Actually I was looking for Red Cell.