peter pandy

Next time you are in Falkirk pop along and I will show you exactly what you need as I have years of experience with electric fencing and can assure you the single wire is not meant for the purpose you require.

Court Farm Feeds, Hereford. Best beans and peas and all the Welsh top men get their feed there.

As I wrote in an earlier post Steve "Stress" was introduced into the workplace in 1998 and Old Hand wrote this in 2004 working on a theory that could not be proved in pigeons then, nor now, as much as I would like to give the excuse for a poor result. Poor ventilation and overcrowding results in your loft smelling of its inmates and I dont have that problem.

Any other such as Vircon'S Martin, Local foodstore was flogging it willy nilly.

Stress was never mentioned Steve probably because the dont believe there is such a thing.

You want a bet on that..

Jings Stevie, they twa are copying whit I dae LOL..

Would I be wrong to presume that some "fanciers" blind treat their Birds with Baytril etc, before pairing up ?. The result being the young are bred with no immune system nor immunity being passed on in the parent birds milk. Now that is ok as long as the youngsters are not mixing with others and in a separate section BUT once mixed either in training or race panniers with others.. BANG..You have just pulled the loaded gun's trigger. OMO..

I was invited by Davie Jamieson to visit for a day and handled the biggest bulk of his Old Birds and don't recall seeing a fret mark on any of his Birds either. Perhaps it is in the family ??. We seem to think and apply words as being definable such as Fret equals Worry or Stress. The word FRET meant checkered or patterned in days gone by, But Pigeon fanciers off old, could not call it feather checkering, as it would be construed as the colour so they applied the word Fret..

I believe after reading about certain Olympic competitors using banned drugs with the excuse they are for medical reasons that fanciers will be buying up Asthma Inhalers to give their pigeons a dose on a Friday night.

SNAP.

Having to reply to your post Derek is to enlighten those who could be misinformed by your description of a Fret Mark. Now I believed a fret on a feather was when the feather had difficulty exiting from the quill sheath as I have noticed on youngsters in the nest..Never seen them on an old bird.. As regards witnessing Pigeons being chased by the Perigrene I wrote a couple of years ago my experience of that situation and the outcome, I cannot remember if I concluded the episode that when the birds returned to the loft they ate, drank and went to sleep. The next morning there were the usual firm droppings and no sign of anxiety going out for their usual excercise. Regarding stoats, weasels, cats, sparra hawks or any other vermin ?. They are not allowed in any loft I have owned without dire repercussions taking place. Sorry but I stand with what I wrote, Stress in pigeons !! Never seen it..Nor believe it..

I really appreciate the fact you enjoyed my riposte Del !.

Being thick skinned and having a sense of humour, help's John, Plus a knowledge of what I am talking about, coupled with the experience of attempting to educate the uninformed gives a bit of satisfaction.

STRESS !!!, Now what is that all about, I dont know what to look for so perhaps mine are permanently stressed out or perhaps they arent stressed at all. I retrieved my old Oxford dictionary printed 1962,, Yes I know I live in the past but it is sometimes enlightening to look up words and find they are only recently introduced into our vocabulary. COMPUTER for instance is defined as an electronic apparatus for making calculations and STRESS in human or animal has never been recognised, In actual fact Human stress was really only identified in 1998 and can only be defined by Lateral Thought. Now pigeons or animals dont have Lateral Thought so cannot get Stress.. End of Lesson perhaps.

Much has been written about YBS, One Eye Cold, and other ailments which I have never suffered in my loft with birds bred by myself yet when remarked upon I am a liar or worse still talking P""H. I was of the impression that O,E,Cold was dead and buried years ago and here we are with some fanciers still getting it. Salmonella was spoken about and all the self taught Veteranians pop up with the cure without first seeing the bird just the symptoms, and we wont go down the line with the YBS syndrome. When I see multiple winners being clocked in a race my first thought is what are they giving them because it just is not normal for one person to dominate a result week in week out unless he/she is in a very favourable loft location, sending big teams, or they are on anti's which no one is going to admit doing. IMO. The bird I remarked about in yesterday's diatribe was given a reprieve as the stuff I stuck down its nose resulted in a clearing pink wattle and a lovely shade of pink throat and tongue which was grey 24hrs ago..

Going through all the birds to-day now the stock loft is empty and although many are still the worse for wear with the moult I came to the conclusion that all was as well as could be expected at this time of year with just the one having a mark against it and has 24 hours to perk up or it will be elsewhere. My Winter Robin put in an appearance yesterday so will have to get some mealworms for him and a feline paid its one and only visit to the loft, Luckily the birds were ensconced within and were unaware of the commotion underneath their feet.

Him doon the street has a 10x6 YB loft breeds 24 youngsters and had YBS just about every year, nae over crowding there either. Had 30+ this year vaccinated my way and never had it an topped the Fed tae boot.

Between 30-40 Tommy. Aye nae over crowding here..

P I sh appears to be your favourite word. LOL

I have already put in print what I have found !! What part do you not understand Derek ?????.

I may be talking nonsense however I have given my opinion that I could back up with facts, Unfortunatly it would require naming names which could in all respects end up in trouble for them. I have told those fanciers my view and they carried them out this year and for the first time in a decade they have been YBS FREE. Look to yourself and the answer is there..

I can in all honesty say quite categorically that I have never experienced YBS in my loft or any loft where I have had the pleasure of being in charge of the inmates. I put it all down to vaccination at the proper time and I insist that if you vaccinate your youngsters when weaning instead of a week or two even three before training them then YOU are heading for trouble. Every bird I have in my loft will be Vaccinated at least 8-10 weeks before pairing regardless of when it was previously vaccinated. Every fancier should have a vaccination gun which can be kept in a fridge ready for daily or weekly use..Nothing to do with stress as that is only an excuse trotted out by those looking to put the blame on anything other than themselves..

One little experiment we as fanciers can carry out and probably have is.. Drive your car at 40-45 MPH and stick your hand out the window, After a couple of minutes your mit will be frozen.. Now pigeons fly at approx 2000+ Feet and its blinking cold up there which was something I never really thought about until Scotland's past top distance man said to me.. The pigeons you see racing at 100 feet are the also rans as they are unfit..The really fit pigeons are the ones that get up into the thermals where the air is thinner and they can fly through the air faster..Heavy Pigeons cannot get up there where the ones that are blown up and light can. An experiment I tried a number of years ago was to take a Mealy Cock which was "blown up" a 75 mile single up toss from Gretna. when liberated I watched it climb up till it was a speck in the sky "Binoculars on it" then motored home back up the M74 as fast as I could breaking speed limits the entire way [allegedly] and the Mealy beat me home..Oh and before I forget he had thick feathering across the keel.

Having read the article and some further articles written by the author John Vance, He has no scientific back up rather he is promoting his company "Racing Pigeon Mall Store" and the products he sells.