walterboswell59

morning and im off to our fed meeting today and hope to get a wee toss in after it

dont worry george we all breed them m8 lol as andy says its only 2 percent so we are are all feeding a lot of turkeys just now pal never mind not be long to christmas pal

be glad to as its been an eye opener to me to about 5 years ago good friend john quinn was over to see me and as he was handling some of my stock birds he was telling me he had won a good race with a latebred i told him i had no faith in latebred always lost them and now just bred an odd one for the stock loft but john said he had a few good ones and that if you look after them they will do you a turn after john went away i started to think of what he said we breed latebred from our best birds there older brothers and sisters win why dont they and the answer to that is us the fancier why because when we breed a latebred what do we do with it we put it in with the old birds or the yb that are now moulting and dont want to fly for more than five min round the loft then back down and locked up half the winter the latebreds are learning nothing so they are backward the following season and go down i had got hammerd in the last yb race that year trying to win a combined ave and it turned out a stinker after 3 days i had 5 yb left from 30 sent i was sick no yearlings again i had 22 in the nest just hatched in the 1st week in september off my best birds they were weaned and put in a section on there own and let out everyday on there own and alowed range once i had them doing an hour or two they were put in a basket all night then given a 12 mile toss next morning i did this everyday for a week 1st week in november in the basket all night with drinkers on and 12 miles next day then the weather was bad for a week or so the first break i got i tossed them 20 miles and got another three and got bopped on the 11th toss 1st week in december so i stoped them they were then out every day at first light in all weather and they ranged everyday till the first week in march when i started training them again same way basket at night 12 mile toss everyday for a week i then stepped them up to 20 miles for the next two weeks then into the training van for another week or ten days learning to break droped 2 with the bop attacks and sent 20 late breds my 5 yearlings and 20 old birds to the first race and was 1st 2nd 3rd and 4th club 2nd sect 5th open with 4 late breds the next week 1 2 3 club the next 2nd 4th 6th and 2 or three in the first 6 in the 4th winning first four race ave we were now at 160 180 miles so i stoped them after five races and had only droped four from the 22 i started with i have now did this every year since and these same birds go on and score in the inland nationals for me as 2 year old late breds eastbourne bovington and newberry this year so for anyone thats been wiped out with youngbirds hear is a way to replenish your team if you are prepared to put the work into them and have better returns than with a yb team if there good birds they will win for you and when they do stop them till next year remember there only babies treat them like yb 5 races and you have a good team for the folowing year

sorry andy the stoc k lofts have shutters for december breeding to keep the heat in if its very cold i use heating bulbs in the loft with the one pair sections and an old 3 fin radiator in the 10 by 6 it cuts on and off when the lofts at a certain temp when the weather heats up the stock lofts are opened up again

and the post i done on storing fresh eggs is on here somewhere in fact some guy that bred turkeys came on and said i was 100 percent right thats the way they store them to

no problem gary glad if i was any help m8 always got time to speak to a gentleman

mines faces noth east andy if wanted more air id remove the 2nd plank from the bottom the full lenth of the loft leaving a 4 inch gap and put mesh along it then put the plank back on at an angle to keep the rain out and on the inside id have a hinged flap so i could open or close it when i wanted if your loft is not made of planks id cut a 4 inch hole with a jig saw and do same i like the idea of chimneys and sky lights but to me its another place to spring a leak so i like to keep it simple its a nice idea to have heat in the loft for the early races but i win as much sprint races as anyone so i dont think it makes that much difference and i dont want to make my birds soft or bring on condition to soon if i only wanted to win the early races i might have tried heating the loft and closing it up but i want to win them all so its plenty of fresh air for me m8 be it cold winter air or warm summer air and if thats not enough id take the top plank off the back to a dry loft with good air flow and no dampness is what i want nothing knocks a pigeon off form quicker than the smell of amonia or damp dropings imo

well come john

the teacher has all the kids doing an essay on what they did at the week end when she sees young john is not writing john she shouts why are you not writing john says miss ive nae f k n pencil the teacher jumps from her chair john john john i have no pencil you have pencil they have no pencil john says please miss whos got aw the f k n pencils then

think we are going a we bit to fast here lads lets just get on the ladder one rung at a time the first step would be to convoy together to the longest race that would be a start and makes sence to both with costs and with more birds coming into scotland it will help the birds to then if it works out we can try going to few more races together the next year dont give the few the excuse to say im not happy with this or that because some will just to scupper it for all the majority and comonsence must prevail imo

been trying to contact mick currie anyone got his phone no please thanks

im having problems to cem but its prob me doing something wrong lol

everyone to there own m8

yeboah mick is your pm box full give me a bell 01698 427551 thanks

there should not be any of that around george once your not in contact with other birds keep the water clean and as dell says wheelie for any that cant handle it the off season is time to let them build up resistance to anything going around

it will do me a turn just now guys for all i use it

tomorrow ill tell you how to win with latebreds that everyone thinks are a waste of time

the best test for ventalation for me is do the birds win if the anser is yes then its right anyway on to the stock lofts and heating ill be pairing my stock birds up in december so the stock lofts have to be closed up with plastic sheets the 10 by 6 has a 3 fin radiator that i got from a junk shop it switches on and off at a certain temp set just warm enough to take the chill out the air and stop the drinkers from freezing the 16 by 4 loft with 5 small sections will have a heater bulb in each section think there 60 watt and there coated with lead or something that holds the heat again this is enough to take the chill off and stop drinkers freezing and then my lights come into play the week before i pair the stock birds the lights go on in the stock lofts from 4 oclock till 10 oclock every night to extend the day light hours ive found the stock birds will go to nest much easyier when this is done even when very cold the idea being to kid the birds its spring once there down on eggs there fine but if its a prolonged freeze you can have problems if you dont give them more heat they just will not lay and you might not get eggs for weeks it seems to set the birds back if you get very hard frost about the 5 th or 6th day they are paired so you need to keep the heat up untill they lay the other thing i found is you must make sure the stock birds last flights are fully grown or when you start using the lights the flight will keep growing ive had some with the end flight 2 inch longer than normal in some birds before i knew what was causing it the reason i pair early is so i can vaccinate every bird in the lofts in the last week in march old young stock and anything in the nest 10 days or older my national birds are not paired till 17 of march so there yb will just be trained and jagged when racing is over so thats the lofts and thats the plans supper time lads

well said m8

got it guys it has both it will do the job thanks to all

i bought this loft off econo lofts 10 years ago apart from the roof sagging a we bit in the middle its been a great loft i put tin sheets on the roof 3 years ago it has a 2 foot over hang and the air flow is bang on for me with birds coming into form when the longer races start i hate lofts that are closed up its not good for me or my birds imo be back on later to tell you about the stock lofts and heating

dead right dell or bring out some kind of converter plug or socket if there as cheap as a tenner ill have one m8 lol

yea i asked that dell but the girl selling did not kmow and its a wee distance away m8

can anyone tell me if a epsom stylus 760 printer will work on my old ets system chance of one for a tenner the one i have is a c 86 its knackd

ok andy ill start with ventalation my loft has a 3 inch gap all round the top and the front is all dowelled from just over half way up the racing loft is 24 feet long 8 foot wide with 3 8 by 8 sections one for yb with 70 box perches one for yearlings with 24 widowhood hen up and over boxes and one with 16 large widowhood boxes for old birds and i now use an 8 by 6 ex stock loft for my channel birds this has 10 nest boxes built flush with the wall to give more room allso have two stock lofts one 10 by 6 with 12 large nest boxes the other 16 by 4 with a 2 foot veranda on front this loft is split into 5 small sections with one large nest box in each for one pair of birds in each and i have allways used deep litter on the floor easy bed witch i get cleaned out after the moult and again just before pairing the walls are bear no paint or anything and when the litter has been lifted the inside walls roof floors and boxes are sprayed with jeyes fluid or allmost raw bleech there is never any shutters on the racing loft lots of fresh air and ive never had one eye cold in my yb and very seldom get respitory of any kind in the 10 years ive had this loft and its wide open to the weather but bone dry inside my perches and boxes are only cleaned once every two weeks as i have pigeon lung and im a lazy bassa id much more prefer to spend my time observing my birds than constantly disturbing them scraping out as long as its dry with a good air flow the birds dont care if its clean or not and as the weather heats up so does my loft and brings my birds into form at the right time the stock birds and loft are a diff ball game which i will go into tomorow guys night night