rasbull

91 is the blue. What are they handling and looking like? Honest opinion welcome, will not be offended!! lol

Whats the activating mean then Tom? When will the birds be basketed then? Hope you didnt squeeze my 3 too hard!!! lol

I totally agree mate, by far the best one loft race in the country as far as I am concerned!

Yeah I just seen!! It would have been awful if we had lost them from the last training toss after all the hard work they have put it. Good luck for Sunday Boxer. I just hope one bird comes on his own and wins the race fair and square. Would hate to see 40-50 birds come and then a dash for the traps. The extra distance and the wind though should hopefully prevent this happening.....may the best bird win!!

Just shoot as many as you can, shoot the first 500 and then mine should all be ok!! I will have a better chance then!! :-)

Thats fine Pete!!! But they will have to earn it, can you arrange for them to stand at the lofts and shoot any that aren't mine!! lol

It would be rude not to indulge!! I have booked the Monday off work so will have plenty of time to recover!! If I win will be booking the whole two weeks off as well, while I am off suning it in Egypt or somewhere nice! ;-)

I remember last year, by the end of the day there were people falling off chairs, flat on their faces in the mud and in right old state!!! Funny as hell to watch!

Yeah that would be great. I'll buy you the bar if I get lucky!! :-)

yeah no worries! hehehe

Cheers Tom, 10384, 10391 and 10383! Let me know which one to lump the pools on! ;-)

Hi Pete, I only started back up in the sport last year but did purchase 2 birds for sale and they competed in the final race. Think the 1 finished 104th. I went down for the final race but there were no birds on the night. I know Derek come in for a lot of stick for liberating on the day. However, I beleive this is the best one loft race in the country and he is a terrific fancier. This was proved with him winning the Welsh Grand National from Thurso this year with birds entered into the Europa 500. The day itself at the loft is fantastic, £15 to get in and then a free bar all day and free food. Great value for money. I think my first trip to the take away van would have cost over £30 alone if selling privately!! lol. I would recommend this race to anyone. I entered mainly to test the quality of stock I have. I am probably the most northern loft in the whole of the Welsh North Road Fed and even my own club is 20 miles south of me, it is hard to judge your performances against anyone as my birds have no chance realistically without a huge south Wind!!

How many members have birds in the Final Race on Sunday? I see they have increased the distance to 285 miles and 1st prize is £21,000. I expect about 750 birds to be marked for the final race from the origional entry of 1,203 birds. Any going down for the race? I sent 3 down, and all 3 have made the final race so I am over the moon with that. I am going down and anyone wanting to meet up let me know. Richard Shepherd www.Rasbull-lofts.co.uk

I think there are lots of different factors as to why the races keep being poor. These include - clashing, poor information collecting regarding liberations, sickness, untrained birds, Care of birds on transporter, Birds of Prey, Airports, Telephone masts, K index, the list is endless. As a fancy we should be looking to solve the list of problems on that list that are in our hands. Things like Kindex and BOP are nature and we can do nothing in our power to stop. However, other things like clashing, sickness,poor information collecting we can most definitely improve. I think as PJC said the different routes should be looking to liberate on different days then at least all the birds will be flying in the same direction. That would go a long way to solving the clashing and there the information collecting would be a lot easier. The airports are another we can look at, why have feds having racing directly in line of flight with airports? Change the race point to another. The same as poor racepoints, if a racepoint continually gives poor returns we should be looking to scrap that and find an alternative. If there are radio masts, bop around these areas we cant do anything about, but we can choose where to let them go! Untrained birds is really upto the individual fanciers concerned, however, if the other factors are reduced to give the trained and healthy birds a good chance then is it going to matter if 100 birds out of 2000 are uneducated? I dont think so. The health of the pigeons must again come down to the individual fancier, but failing this every club should have someone looking at the birds waiting to be marked and highlighting anything that looks unwell. Everyone moans about the things that are causing these loses but there are many, many things that the fancy can do to help improve the situation. Polictics and infighting has plagued the sport for far to long and its about time everyone come together and pulled in the right direction. I agree with what a lot of fanciers have said about the Welsh Feds all liberating together. This is another thing we can change to help ourselves. If the people in charge of these feds are unwilling to pull together for the better of the fancy then surely a new fed should be formed and all members who believe in what has been said and not interested in petty politics and want to purely race there birds for the enjoyment of the sport should join. These others feds will then die off with declining membership and the people who were unwilling to cooperate to help find a solution will have nothing to do with the pigeons and that can only be a good thing! Its about time the people who are unwilling to change, cooperate and listen need to be removed from there positions and people who are willing take up the reigns and carry this sport forward.

had 2 out of 4 now!

same here mate, myself 0/4, others I know are 1/12, 0/7, 1/28, 3/37!!

I had an 8 year old stock cock escape from my loft in mid wales and fly back to london back in 1997. I was so over the moon when the previous owner phoned to say it had just landed on his roof. Considering it was a cold November day and low cloud and light rain, I would say that was the most amazing moment of my pigeon career. I sent Amtrak to pick it up and waited and waited for this bird. I finally decided to phone the previous owner and see what was going on. They had reportedly collected the pigeon on the Wenesday morning and should have been delivered with me on the Thursday morning. After having 4 or 5 very angry phone calls on the phone with Amtrak, it was decided the bird was lost! Then on he Monday morning I had a phone call to say my bird was in Brechin in Scotland, instead of Brecon in Wales! I did finally get the bird back but to think it had flown back some 200 miles, then gets lost on a delivery service was soul destroying but all well in the end!

I built my own. Far better as then you can have it exactly the way you want it. Saying that I have tweeked a few things since the loft went up. Ventilation and light the biggest factors I took into account.

I prefer a corridor on my loft, this way the front of the loft can be open for ventilation but if the rain does get in then its not getting into the actual loft and the compartment with the birds remains dry. Best of both worlds I reckon. I have had a loft in the past with open fronts and when the rain drives the inside of the loft is not nice and personally think not good for the pigeons!

how was the racing today then lads? How long has it taken the birds today?

I think as PJC says floor grilles will prevent any food being eaten by other pigeons and then fanciers who decide to feed on the day of basketing have the choice!

4 or 5 to Newbury 97 miles. Will then start to concentrate on training my second team!

This is mine at present. However the shed on the right is going and a new young bird loft will be extended on from the other. I will also be putting an aviary on the far left hand which houses my stock birds.

I have just started racing again this year and have 6 or 7 in the young bird team, hoping they do the business!

The name is Welsh North Road Fed, but we actually fly south east route!