holmsidelofts

Must be where you live, i get 9meg download speeds from sky, never had an issue with my broadband, would never go with Aol or bt again after multiple connection issues, And the fact i get everything for free as i work for sky im not moaning. Granted virgin medias broadband base is probably better than sky at the moment but sky again were voted as the best broadband provider in which magazine this year again. and they are by far the best provider of digital tv anywhere in the uk. they are also a massively thriving company even when the economic climate is the way it is thats says a huge amount about what sky does and the services it provides.

No test is one hundred percent accurate. By taking multiple samples from around the loft you you get an understanding of the overall condition of the loft. If you have worms showing in one bird you have to treat them all as theres a good chance they will all have them. swabbing for canker is 100% accurate as it comes from the bird itself. I test my droppings weekly as it allows to me to monitor the ongoing help of my birds, it takes 20 minutes a week and will show me if there is an issue on the way and i can tackle it before its to late and the birds are ill. I dont recommend blind treatment, preventative measures are always the way. just out of curiosity kev if you want your droppings tested just to prove a point to everyone pm and i would be glad to do it for you free of charge. Cheers mate. jas.

every pigeon has canker so does that mean we dispose of them all. get real if you get an out break its generally due to something else like stress causing the flare up.. If you have a problem with it you treat for it. everytime you put your birds in a basket they will be exposed to it, if there is a hold over everytime a pigeon picks up a grain of corn and drops it it leaves a tiny bit of saliva on it which contains canker organisms so i guarantee you wont stay free from it for long once you start racing. You can keep your birds as healthy as you want in your own loft but the minute you put them in the basket with others they are exposed to everything. If more fanciers read books on pigeon health like Dr Colin walkers or Wim Peters books they would get a better understand on health. Get yourself a microscope and not a dustbin for the birds you kill is the only way to manage health, get into the 21st century you'll be amazed at what you can do to prevent theses issues in the first place

Hi owen. We have 2 away from our older youngsters yesterday as well. We went on the transporter with others for a training toss yesterday to get them used to breaking from the bunch, had a really good toss they came well, responded to the call when the 1st bunch came over, must have been about 150 birds in that bunch and we pulled 15 from it so pleased with it, Im sure we will see the 2 today if the weather breaks. speak to later. Jas.

started with 32, killed 3 due to not being happy with them, lost zero from off loft and zero from training. Have a total now of 50 birds theses include my second round team which havent started training yet, so far so good. But shouldnt speak to soon. jas

Hi paul. My thoughts are with you and your family at this difficult time, if theres anything we can do to help or support you mate let us know. jas.

Any decent product that works generally has to come from a vet, stay away from products like the old hand treatments they are a waste of time and money. Get them seen by a professional who will give you the right treatment first time and will cure the issue without adding more stress to the bird. If it is respiratory problems you must also look at how they got it, ask yourself how many birds do i have in the section, too many birds and poor ventilation will ruin your birds. I know that getting the birds seen by a vet can seem expensive but in the long run it isnt. We spend hundreds or even thousands of pounds on birds, food, training, racing etc every year so why throw all that away when it can be cured very quickly with the right treatment, left to long only makes the birds worse. Good luck with the treatment.

Each person brings valid points to this argument, and yes we do need something done about the BOP issue that we all at some point have issues with but what we cant do is risk sites like pigeon basics and pigeon chat being closed down, Trust me i have multiple websites up and once people start to make complaints about its content the owners of the servers they are hosted on have the right to close them down, and they will do it without a worry as its important for them not to get black listed amongst the server community, Lets deal with the BOP in the correct way, If people want to talk about actions lets do it via PMs not broadcast it to the world how we intend to deal with it. Pigeon fanciers are always getting bad press when we shouldnt. Good luck to the guys in wales who have youngbirds in swindon today.

same in south wales to

God luck to all who is taking part, its gonna take some gutsy birds from that distance.

I think it should be compulsory, I had it back in the 80's when it first appeared and its a vial disease to have. I wouldnt hesitate to vaccinate. Watch out for salmonella to that is going to be the next big thing to hit this sport, Its is estimated that 1 in 10 lofts have the disease already, again i always vaccinate.

David parsons is one of them

You can still have high worm infestations and the birds will look fantastic, but they wont win anything. All im trying to get across to you guys is the benefits of the microscope. Its not that difficult to understand the basics of it. blind treating is whats ruining this sport. every couple of years a new virus appears. This i firmly believe is caused by over medication and use of antibiotics when they are not required. Get colin walkers book called the flying vets pigeon health and management its one of the best books you'll ever read on pigeon health from not only one of the top vets on pigeon health but one of the top fanciers in Australia.

Totally agree slugmonkey, but what you cant guarantee is when you put them in a basket with other peoples birds who dont look after them like you do and whot dont care about how many birds you have, your birds will catch things from them i guarantee that 110%. the only way to avoid that is not to put them in a race panier with other birds, but unfortunately we cant do that. every time we put them in a basket with other peoples birds they are getting exposed to worms, cocci, canker, ecoli, hexamita, salmonella, pmv you name it. and no amount of natural products will stop that.

contact david parsons at the following website. He one of the uks top pigeon vets and runs courses on microscope usage. One of the best spent saturdays i've ever had. http://www.ukpigeonvet.co.uk/ No need to ever blind treat again. Theres also lots of fantastic books on the market. colin walker, wimm peters, david palmer etc. Take advice from the experts thats the only way forward.

Sorry mate we've had hold overs loads of time and i cant remember the last time they brought the birds back its very rare. most of the time they are stationary, Ive been in the sport for 25 years and can count on 2 hand the number of times they have brought back birds. Thats the nature of the sport if we need to bring them back for the welfare of the birds that cant be helped, what we can help is week in week out stopping birds that have corn in them to start with, thats a huge contributing factor to young bird losses and poor help in young birds. Just touching on the young bird sickness problem, it in my opinion purely a stress related problem, Think about it, our young birds look great for the first 6 months of the year, where we dont handle them then all of a sudden we are handling them and chasing them around the loft, putting them in a basket that they probably have never been in before and taken miles away and let go in a strange place. we do this day in day out for a couple of weeks before we start racing, no wonder the birds get ill, They get stressed out and they stop digesting there food, which then goes sour and they through it up and the rest of the birds eat it. the answer to this is dont chase your youngsters around the loft, I personally darken my loft down and im able to pick each youngster of there perch with no stress at all. So many times have i seen fanciers chasing there youngsters around the loft, smashing them to the floor or up against the side of the loft, it does them no good what so ever. Also training them to far for the first couple of tosses brings on so much stress. its all about getting the birds used to the basket and keeping the stress levels down that helps keep away youngbird sickness not things like elderberries.

just to answer your question highspeedlofts its a different situation on hold overs the birds are not moving at 50 miles an hour on a motor-way, they are stationary and thats the issue with food in the crop its the traveling that makes the bird sick not the fact that they have food in them. so yes i would agree with owen its irresponsible for any pigeon fancier to send birds with corn in them, it should be band i agree fully.

I totally agree with Owen. Fanciers who send there birds racing with food in them are one of the main spreaders of disease in our sport. the is no need for birds to be put in the basket with corn in them. I feed my birds on a friday but i do it early enough so they dont have food in there crop when i take them to the basketing station. I've put birds through at basketing stations and they had that much corn in them they couldnt hardly stand up, As soon as they were on the move in the transporter they would have thrown it all up and every bird in that basket would have eaten some of it and would have picked up loads of germs. The federation needs to outlaw birds with corn in them, every club should have an appointed person to say if a bird should go through or not. This is the way its done in Australia and we need to adopt this method.

Always uses it, youngbirds have at least 25%. Widowhood cocks have malted barley in front of them all the time. jas

The problem with buying from a stud is they are in business to make money. I dont care what you say, if you order a kit of birds of a particular breed and the stud dont have any available they are not going to say to you 'sorry we dont have them' you'll get what ever birds are available and will be told thats the breed you ordered, They want to breed and sell as many birds as they can thats there business. Thats the reason i would never ever buy birds from a stud. Find a very successful fancier with one family of birds and get to now the fancier well, then purchase from him. I know if you buy from Jos Thone you get DNA records of the birds which i think is the only way to be 100% sure that they are out of what they say they are. But as owen said nothing is guaranteed, great racers dont always make good breeders.

Hi i agree with thunderbolt, With young birds you have to get there immune system used to all the common diseases that we come up against, be to clean wont allow the birds to get used to theses diseases, as long as your loft is dry and the droppings dry out quickly with no mould on them then i would clean out that often.

If you know anything about genetics theres no such thing as an all round family, Sprinters have a body shape that differs from that of a distance pigeon. This was discussed by Steven van breeman who is one of the top fanciers of holland and who is an expert on pigeon genetics. Think of it this way, linford christie was one of the fasted men on earth in his time at the 100 meters but wouldnt come anywhere in a marathon due to his physical shape, it doesnt mean was was a bad athlete it was just that his genetic makeup made him fantastic at that distance. All you get when you pair sprinters with distance pigeons is you get slower sprinters and birds that cant fly the distance. You take any of the world class flyers they always have different families of birds for different distances thats the only way to be successful week in week out against strong competition, you can get the odd bird that will win out of turn but not against strong competition. Just remember horses for courses.

Yeah i totally agree owen. Looking for a win in a bottle is a waste of time. If it was that easy then and legal then everyone would be doing it. Also as ribble said you need bloody good pigeons to win, No product will make poor pigeons win, or any animal for that matter. As i always say you cant win the grand national with a pit pony. The best win regardless of what you give them out of a bottle. Supplements are just that, they supplement whats already there and give the bird that edge over others. good luck all in the coming weeks. jas.