Ronnie

Nahh i was going to but ive just been told i'm going to a christening.Good job i aint at work.I may send a youngster down though.

Yeah its my own fault mate.On the plus side he was a spare cock and wasnt paired.

took my young un's six miles last year for there first trainer then kept them there a week and stepped up another six mile's or there about's kept this routine till i was training them at about 30 miles .

I thought the number ten flight being shorter than the number nine is a sign of to much inbreeding.(linebreeding).I may be wrong i'm still learning and reading a hell of a lot of stuff so i may be confusing myself .If it was shorter then its one sign towards an outcross being needed.

Thanks guy's but i'm no longer holding my breath

is middlewich in the North west? they have a 2bird open.

Hope you have had a good day mate all the best.

Lost a netherlands stockbird two days ago had hopes of it coming back as it got out once before and came back the next day. NL06-1292051 is the ring number . Just got the registraion card back from the reddings to day so hopefully i may get it back . Its a blue cheq with a white stock ring on

Are they seperated rick? ive heard stories of whole groups of birds(usually hens) going missing for a few days then returning a few days later and acting skittish its allways when there seperated though.I think there was a post on the forum about it earlier in the year as well.Heard a few club members talking about earlier in the year. Hope you get them back mate.

Are his offspring usually two cock's? also is he a henny looking cock?if so he could have started out as a hen and changed sex in the egg.Just something i read about but not sure where.

Beer money, Einstein Spartacus

No disrespect mate but if ya let your cat go in everyone else's garden why shouldnt everyone else's go in your's?As for detterants i used carpet gripper instead of them prickler thing's they do the same job for a lot cheaper.Ive got a dog but it didnt stop the cat's on me shed where the dog cant reach.

could be used for extra motivation i suppose.

Didnt think about the macro Tubbles i will give that a try tomorrow

great picture's Rice what camera was it?Ive got a fuji d500 with 8Xoptical zoom but i can never get pic's as good as that

i just keep a watchfull eye on the birds when they come home from the race i wont treat unless i think they need treating.I use cider vinegar and garlic a lot though so that may help.

Great mate.Hope you win loads .

antiseptic spray then just cover wound with vaseline.

I was under the impression Cider vinegar is to higher the acidity level in the pigeons crop .The high acid level is inhospitable for a lot of the pigeon nasties .Its not a cure more of a preventive .As to pigeons on the roof i am in the same position with house's surrounding me and muppets around me who let there birds out at 7 in the morning till it gets dark(usually still out then).I wouldnt mind if they raced them but they just throw a batch of 50-60 up and try and get all the strays.God forbid what will happen on race day's.i'm starting to wonder if i did the right thing moving here i dunno whats worse the cats at the other place or the idiots surrounding me. Still ive managed to keep the young bird team intact with only one loss upto now.Pretty sure i know where that went as well.

Well it aint voluntary round my way the local clubs WONT allow anyone to use it unless there disabled.

Could it be something as simple as bad birds?I mean a gust of wind takes em 20 mile of the loft and there lost the good ones come home the not so good get lost.Also there out ranging and a hawk go's through the batch all of a sudden a bird that is used to flying with 20-30 of its flock is suddenly on its own and has to think were it lives instead of following the batch.The good ones think i live over there and come home the bad ones say i dunno where i am i will just fly and see where i end up.exscuse the spelling and the simple terms.I just think maybe we tend to look for the more complicated reason's instead of taking the obvious out of the equasion first.

If this is the case then the youngster will still benefit by building immunity to the different micro-organisms that are present in the rest of the loft because it will then come into contact with small doses of whatever the feeding birds are carrying.It should be obvious that the feeding parents are not carrying to many rogue micro-organisms because they shouldnt have been paired if ill.Sort of like a vaccination .I would go so far as to suggest that if this is the case then giving stockers a vaccination against pmv may not be as bad as a lot of people on here seem to think as they can then pass on the dead pmv cells to the youngsters so they can start to build there own immunity. I'm no vet and so all this is sheer speculation and guess work on my behalf.

Well the main advantage i see of putting them down on the floor is the boost to the immune system.With the young being fed by different birds i would expect there immune system to be boosted from all the birds feeding them so as a whole the loft would be be collectively at the same level of immunity.Ive got 17 youngsters weaned in a darkness loft now.These 17 all look and feel like a good team(better than the team i bought in last year) my second round have not been put on the floor prior to weening and i must be hohnest and say the first round seemed to be be better at the same stage but i havnt weened my second round yet so time will tell.

If the worst comes to the worst mate join the national or some other big club.And when the birds come good watch them all come grovelling to you. I think i know how ya feeling sometimes you say to yaself is all the fighting and arguing worth it when you could spend ya time doing more constructive thing's.But you dont have to leave the sport just leave the club and join a bigger one you may have to cut the birds down to save on cost but at least you and ya lad will still be flying and enjoying the birds.All the best mate and keep ya chin up.

Aye get us some price's mate