Albear

Perspectives on the 'channel' are so different. I respect and appreciate yours but perhaps your post does give food for thought. It's 473 to the channel for you and 17 miles for me, a no brainer far more difficult for your birds to cross the channel than mine, after all the first channel race for me is 176 mile to me, 300 miles less than it is for you. So you would understand your and others thought that that's far enough for yearlings. However generally speaking most of the Scottish races across the channel are to the east of France planned so the birds are coming aross the channel at its shortest point about 20 miles, the birds can see England whenthey hit the French coast. For me well my birds have a 100+ mile of water to cross online. What difference does this make, well I think the birds have to have orientation +. Let me give you an example of thisin the 2008 Tarbes National many top fanciers especially to the eastern side of England had birds reported in Ireland and the western side of the country, there were claims in the fancy press that this was not a true race when such good fanciers/birds got it wrong? Well the explanation for me was that with wthe east in the wind rather than the obligatory west at the end of June these birds found themselves coming across 100/150 mile of water to come in via Devon & Cornwall, they simply were not used to coming across water and not seeing the land on the other side and lost their orientation. I would say that if you have birds to do so well at 473 miles then the extra across the Chnnel will not stop them providing they are 5capable of getting 600 mile. The big if here though is that those birds that scaore from 50 - 500 are generally spent at 500 the old families like AH Benett's who could top the fed at 50 and 600 mile have been lost and that sadly is the reason for not getting yearlings from 600 it is not fo me an age issue rather a genetic stock issue.

A terrific gesture providing from A - Z his own roundabout method. An excellent read and of great help to anyone contemplating roundabout and a great check for those flying it .

You can use the same set up for widowhood and roundabout

Hi J immy, thanks for the plug ;D out of those 2007 yearlings, I have 4 widowhood cocks left in my team (flew widowhood in 08&09). 3 have flown to 556 miles all having scored at NFC section and the other flown Barcelona and won at shorter distances. Now I appreciate what you say about still having them at a late age and that is good in many instances but for me there are two draw backs. 1 If you are a small team loft and I have room for 16 pair whether old bird or widowhood, it becomes a problem, do you keep the older ones and cull youngsters?? Now I know many advise only take through to the ob team yb that have performed, but you can't do that with distance birds unless you hammer them as YB and I am against that , if I can get them to 80/100 mile as YB then I stop them though I have no problem with the idea of racing yb to 350 mile); by hammer them I mean train them hard on light mixture. I am a firm believer in youth and vitality, us older ones Jimmy may think we're still only 21 but our bodies quickly put us right on that score!! 2 With the hawks down here you never know when you are going to loose them. You can persevere with the birds to let them mature and Percy is picking them off, it makes more sense to get them down the road when they are ready. I'm not suggesting all yearlings should do the distance but those that are capable of flyng it and are physicaly and mentally mature can do it no problem. In 2008 I sent 2 to 473 mile and 2 to 556 mile. the 473 milers were 2yo and the 556 milers were yearlings. It should have been the other way around on age but the 2 to 473 mile were slow maturing birds mind they matured enough to take 1st & 2nd. There aremany roads to Rome which is why thia is such a fascinating sport. Jimy's methods have served him well and he is a great mentor for any new starter. My opinion however is that yerlings that are wel prepared capable of doing the distance (the most important factor for me) and with vitality will fly the distance and go on to fly it many more times providing they don't get hit by Percy.

By the way in 2007 when I only had yearlings they all flew to 380 miles on roundabout and at 230, 280, 320 and 380 I was 1st & 3rd; 2,3,4; 2&3 and 2nd & 4th. I will admit to sending 1 to 556 mile and not seeing her, my mistake rather than hers, I knew she'd get about 520 but as she was such a good hen I thought another 40 mile wouldn't make much difference... chasing glory instead of using my head!

Hi Jimmy understand where your coming from. However I don't agree, a new starter needs less complication. a) whichever system you try some birds will adapt better than others so no reason to fly either 'you will learn more about pigeons', well yes if you want to be a pigeon psychologist and find out what motivates each individual. But as a new starter you want a simple system that can get you competing from day 1with the big boys. And don't forget the new starter in our sport is competing with the Man u's from day 1. The sexual urge of the male of nearly every species is the greatest motivater and a simple motivator and if you want to make it more complex and delve into the pigeon's mind you can with widowhood and don't forget the hen psychologically has a huge part to play. c) You can move on to natural when you find widowhood isn't working or you get bored with it and you will still have learnt an immense amount about th different behviours and temprements in the loft. I'm not saying widowhood is best just that it's easier for a new starter and s/he is more likley I think to stay in the sport longer starting on widowhood than natural. For what its worth I think roundabout is the best system but you need a fair bit of time getting the birds in and out of the loft.

I agree. Why waste 2 years learning natural when you could spend the two years learning widowhood? Which is a much easier sytem. The disadvantage of course is not testing the hens. But for easiest it has to be widowhood.

Yearling cock widowhood 2nd club 280 mile only two on the day 5th fed, 2nd club 320 mile 5th fed, 78th open 4000+ NFC 556 mile. Paired Feb 14th not let out of loft from september until April, firts race after two tosses jumped into 123 mile no further training

Hope you've had a good one Best wishes

At my wife's surgery they do!!

WOW!

Tarbes last year 78th open NFC 556 miles, my second attempt. This year tried Barcelona 708 miles first time sent two including last year's 1st Marmandes 473 mile he might be in Morrocco to! The other cock came back two weeks later he was a winner as well. As to Tarbes sent three , two back 1st club, 1st section devon & cornwall combine and 18th section nfc. Hope to race both points again this year!

Going to Mcafee and paying for them to clean her machine would be cheaper than buying a new one, unless of course the machine is not worth saving!

Hiya it can happen if you do not have 3.5 net framework up to date, visual is now out of date and microsoft uses sql., you will also find a recent update fo C++ (14th october). If you can't connect to the internet try working in safe mode with networking and see if it allows you to update (I doubt i will). Otherwise open explorer go to tools/internet options/browsing history /delete, choose all the options and delete. Open again tools/internet options/advanced/reset explorer. Then reboot, this may allow you to connect, go to windows update and check for important updates. Get these up to date. Can't gaurantee this will help but it may get you back to where you want to be.

Have to agree, it's important he puts things in writing and gets things in writing. Tell him to go see his local councillor, most councillors will go out of their way to help .

Can't he take over the tenancy, has he taken advice? If he can't afford a solicitor he can go to Citizen's advice bureau. He should have some tenency right if he can prove he has lived there all that time especially if he paid towards the rent.I'm no expert on this but I feel sure he will have some tennacy rights

Hi Paul, I think we are getting into technicalities now and so be it because often though as fanciers we complain about them, they are essential in areas where there are disputes like this. Now the constitution of the WHU may have changed and of the combine since my involvement nearly 40 years ago, so I apologise if things have changed. The WHU is (was) formed by its member federations. The Welsh Combine is a combination of federations joined together to give bigger better racing to its members. Now I note Tom says the Combine resigned from the WHPU. This suggests that the Welsh Combine had been recognised a s federation and therefore a member of the WHU management committee. I find it hard to comprehend that the WHU would allow an organisation that is purely a collective of its own management committee to be a member of that management committee. If that has happened I am sure that would be lost on legal challenge. So the statement that the Welsh Combine left the WHU seems a contradiction in terms. The second important technicality is that any member of the WHU can compete for the Taffy Bowen trophy in races run under the WHUSo any fancier racing with a Welsh Fed could apply. The fact that the fed got together with other feds to produce a biger more prestigios race is not such an issue, EXCEPT that instead of being 1st from 2000 irds he could now claim to be 1st from 8000 birds. Would it need a Combine result to allow this fancy to make such a claim? I don't think so. On the day if there are half a dozen Welsh feds racing from the same racepoint liberated at the same time. The fancier would only need to acquire the fed result for each one and submit with his claim that his bird was the first recorded from 8000 pigeons liberated at x race point. Unless the constitution has changed, the relevance of the combine's staus is irrelevant provided evry fed that competed is an affiliated member of the WHU. As I say it's nearly 40 years since I attended the WNRF management meeting to discuss the reforming of the Welsh Combine in the early 70's, so I appreciate I may be way off the mark and would welcome someone putting me straight on how the constitution and fundemental principles have changed.

I think Gail above has shown you are wrong? All combine positions considered?

Fantsatic performance , what a pigeon to be proud of. However I do seem to remember when Taffy Bowen gave the trophy he specified under 300 mile (was it Edwards bros of Penywaun that won the first?? ). Could this be changed by proposal at the AGM, I'm not sure? This was the wish of a great man would you want to overturn not knowing his feelings? However I'm sure Bill would have wanted the best YB in 2009 to have won the trophy he bequeathed.

I think the human rights act is a possible area that we as fanciers could use. It's one of the daftest bits of legislation imo. I recently read a case where a drug dealer /gangster was not deported becaue it would infringe his human rights.

:-/

Paulo thank you for that. I have always thought he was a master and never ever doubted his integrity, though I have never met or spoken to the man. I assume therefore from your comments he was never pulled up over clocking methods, you have restored my belief in him.

As a breeder his record was fantastic

He is still a very active breeder and reveered in the far east I believe. Brian Newsom who writes in one of the jourajournals he tends to yo yo between them is a good friend of his I think but he JJ does keep his head down in this country. I would say he is one of the few master breeders produced in these isles over the past 3/4 decades.

Tuplin has some Barkers for sale in the BHW today but he is costly but I suppose it is relative because he would appear to be still the top man in his area? If I was looking for a successful old family and there are many advetising the old starins but many have lost their vitality, I would definately go to Tuplin, if I had the money and didn't need to reduce my stock (cause I can't afford a loft the same size as my current). I would defintately visit him especially when I have a gson and gdaughter of Gala Ch Pied Man and a gson of Gala Reliance and another hen whose details I haven't to hand, but close to the well.