W.D.

Anyone lost this one? As it came back to our loft yesterday after nearly a year away.No rubber on so its not been raced.If you had reported it we would have only too gladly transfered it to you.

Congratulations to you both, best wishes for the future.

Is it any good?

Thank you for the advice guys it is very welcome,maybe I'm worrying about it too much but had a situation before when loft was in the shade of trees for most of the day, and when we moved it back to get more light the birds form and results were 10x better. Thank you W.D.

Girlfriend had £1 e/w on Mon Mome and also picked 3rd & 4th!!!

Hi lads, would like some advice please. I've just put up a loft that I got from a retired fancier,its 18ft x 9ft and had to face it north. Would it be be best to put in some triplex on the south side to let in light and heat it up, or should I leave it as it is? It has a tiled roof on top of chipboard with vents around the eaves and along the front at ground level. Thing is it worked very well for previous owner facing west, including 2 RPRA awards last season. What do you think is the best solution as I feel it takes a long time to heat up in the mornings but I dont want to cook them either! Any ideas would be welcome please?

He also had some Jocky Harrison birds as well in his bloodlines.He used to bring his nat candidates up to Jocky's to handle before he sent them in the early days.

Does anyone pay any attention to the colour of y/b's in the nest when they are a few days old? i.e their skin colour or down colour? And if so have they noted anything?

Yes,years ago in lanarkshire,think it was Burrell Bros or Weeks from Douglas Water area and they had some fantastic results the following seasons.

Think it depends on the family of birds and how you treat them.Remember J.L.Roberts saying his needed 3 seasons before he expected anything of them,and boy was he right!They would just get themselves home as y/bs and yearlings but by 2yr old they just seemed to switch on. One of the best distance fliers in Europe at moment only breeds latebreds,trains them as yearlings,2 or 3 350mls as 2yr olds,500 at 3 then 600+ then after,and still he's scoring with them at 8 & 9 yrs old. Not everyone has time room or patience to do this but in his case its paid dividends. My mate paid a small fortune for distance birds off a top flyer then expected them to tow the line like his as y/bs,they didn't like it,until a few years down the line he stopped bothering about y/b racing and and now they are coming through and scoring as 2yr olds.

Done, she's a wee cracker,good luck

quite hard to be pissed and climb 50ft up a tree weecunny?

Good article Strapper,I live in Churchdown,haven't heard anyone talking about it though.Will have to watch out when taking the dog out at night!!!

Was living and working in France at the time and remember it well.My dad called me on the sat aft and I asked him what he was up to and he said "getting ready to go to the dookit to look for birds" I couldn't believe it???!!! The rain had been non stop nearly all day in the north of France,and I mean Rain! We had 3 races on that weekend,sprint and middle dist due for lib on the sunday,and a distance 1 from 300+ miles,Angouleme or Bergerac I think, which should been lib that morning,ALL the French and Belgian races were heldover except one French fed from the mines- Lens which was liberated earlier because they thought they would miss the weather coming in,they didn't and got a hammering! On the sunday the sprint birds got brought back to 5 miles from the town and let go,the middle dist got brought back to club for collection. The dist birds got lib on the monday or tuesday morn and had a good race. For days and weeks after the Nantes race I was getting guys asking me to report English birds they had got in to the RPRA for them,one of them that I remember was one of the Woods brothers who live near the south coast who I had a good chat with,think the bird I reported had scored from Pau the previous year for him. My dad never got any of his birds back inc.1 that had been in the top 100 the year previous, the SNFC only let them up I think because of the NFC lib further down at Nantes.Dont think my dad renewed his membership for the SNFC until a couple of years ago he was that angry, and even then it was bought as a birthday present for him! I remember the Canadian vet Gorden Chalmers did an article on bad races and mentioned this race and thought it was due to some other cause.I e-mailed him and he replied askingme to find out the exact date so he could update his records. I contacted the NFC but got no reply from them,can't say I blame them for wanting to forget all about it. Talking about the Concorde though, when I was a student in Ayr we rented a house in Monkton right on the end of the runway,you can see it when going to Ayr on the by-pass, and when they were doing training there for the Concorde pilots the whole house used to shake and the telly lost all sound and picture.There was a guy who lived in the village though who had racers but I dont know how he did as when they were training as the planes were taking off and landing all day,often wondered if it did affect them,maybe someone on here knows/knew who it was?

Is that the town of Abergavenny at the bottom of the valley in the photo Strapper?

Some of the guys on the continent use what they call a "white nettle" a lot in their pigeon teas.Had a girlfriend who made nettle soup for me ,it's very good, kept the recipe and make some in the spring when the 1st shoots come through.Never had any prob with the diuretic effects though, not as strong as the effects asparagus does.

Peanuts are great for y/b's in the nest, use them on a night as a way to get an extra feed into them after the parents have already fed them on breeding mix.Also good when the cock is starting to look at his hen again or getting on a bit and getting just that bit lazy at feeding them.If you do try them you will be surprised at the weight they put on when you move them over to y/b section. Dont use them much after this except to get them used to eating them and as a titbit,not that we are bothered about racing y/b's that much. Again like Mr. Guiness only buy ones for humans.

Bet you they must get a shock when they get out the baskets and all they can see is water all around them???!!!

What about the birds that are liberated in Lerwick? Where do they stand?

Thanks Lister,thats the ones,remember him trying to get them in his pockets in a hurry at the time thought it odd told my dad bout it but we never tried them.Have you found them any good? Whats in them?

Used to use it along with B12 and Iodine up until about 5 years ago,didn't do them any harm. What is the other product they had? I can remember seeing Jock Allen coming out of a feed place with a dozen boxes of it at least when he was flying his best!Didn't do them any harm going by his results.

Yes, thought the whole of the country was well represented last year too,some good articles about the different fanciers and their birds. I remember that the Ypres winner was on the front page at least,can't remember if any of the others were?

Good qu. be interesting to see if anyone did practice it.Can only tell you my Dad used to try and pair some of his better ones together and let the others pick their own mates.

Do you get pedigree's when buying them? I was told you only got a cert of family origin with them.

Tell your friend to look in BHW Stud book page 390, Spangles for sale there.