Ronnie

On a side note i have paired nest mates this year as well and they look the part.

If they are superior i think he means the gene pool will be that much better able to throw out the good traits.Where as if they are inferior in anyway they will have more chance of throwing out the undesireable traits.Its all about condensing as many good traits as possible and eliminating the bad ones .Its allways a lottery but the more tickets you have the more chance you have of winning.

Well i am treating mine as a new family this year as they are all bred from birds i crossed over the last three years they where raced hard from day one and last year i had a few good results and this year i am hoping to see the real fruits of my breeding programme. Staf van reets .Braspenning.Bosheind flyers and loca flyers jones brothers are the foundations.Time will tell but this is the season the birds have to stand up and be counted as they say.

Read an interesting article somewhere.sugeesting that the wattle contains elements of metal(not sure what metal is said) and it was to help in the navigation when the birds need to use the polar effects of the earth to determine where they are. Not sure if its true but its a nice idea if nothing else.The article also stated other birds that contain it for migrating purposes not sure where i readitnowthough:(

i tend to think its more the method than the breed

Mine ismy check cock (superman i call him) won niort only bird on night in fed 7th combine he took tenth middlewich two bird open and took a couple of club cards.not bad for a yearling took two youngsters from him last year both took a first club fed card as well and the cock from the pair took 7th middlewich two bird open. Imagine what he might do in the hands of an experianced flyer

Me and the missus made a compromise she bought a campervan and i will follow them on after the weekend racing.

A union is made up of people who agree to stick together they share the good and the bad.I didnt hear of people refusing the pay rises the unions got for them.As soon as times got hard the so called scabs turned coat.Dont you think all them other strikers found it hard as well? We had a strike a few months ago at work and some people turned coat and went in they even took overtime to cover the depots that where striking.We have just been told our payrises for 2010 will not be had unless we agree to certain terms(less staff doing the same jobs is one condition and doing other separtments work is another).Maybe if them people would of supported the strike we wouldnt be in the position we are in now devide and conquer the oldest trick in the book and us Brits are masters at it so much so we use it on each other. The way the country is heading i think the miners strikes will be a comparison to the ones we are heading into.

Well you might see it again but with the railworkers and in the not to distant future.

heard of people putting old rings on younbirds then race them in the old hens national at the end of the year.Youngbirds at that age apparently are a lot quicker than oldbirds.

Its prolly been to cold mate have u a light in there?

Me and the Missus will be there gonna try our new campervan out on a site a mile or so away.I will have the camera as well so might see a few of your ugly mug's in BHW when she does a writeup .

8 cocks widowhood some hens paired to each other (dunno how this is gonna work yet as they will be in with the youngbirds on the darkness) youngbirds on darkness

Lol nice timing mate

I'm the same stuart and as with every team you have individual's who make the team stronger in different situations.

Keep ya chin up mate .Hope ya get better a good 2009 to ya mate.

taylors choice in crewe usually has some in stock

First egg tonight i may have jumped the gun a bit . Asha i dont think i will do to bad mate its all about building my team this year so i will be picking and choosing my race's.And i allways look to myself before i blame the birds

birds have been paired for 2 weeks now and still no egg's. Is it the weather or another underlying fact.Most pairs went together well but not seen no treading as of yet and cocks are not chasing hen's. Any idea's? and would it be best to split them again for a week and repair?

Ahh now this is where it gets interesting. Do you deep down think he will go down so you treat him differently throwing him up in all weathers putting him in race's when u would leave another at home then ultimately make him into a great bird or you lose him and say it was because he didnt like peanuts.Anyway Peanuts are a great source of the fats u need for racing but there are other source's.

Just tobacco stalks for me

Same as that mate.Costa do a 25k bag of rice for about 7quid as well . just mix and match as i see fit i will use a base mix but its not allways the same then just add bits to it. I'm on gem breeding at the moment but i mix a handfull of chicken pellets in with each feed to get the protein levels higher for breeding.

All the Old hand book's the methods are a bit dated now but some of the info in them is excellent.Its what i started with and it put me on the right track .All the latest info on feed and methods can be found around this site .I cant reccomend the old hand books highly enough.

If one in three lofts has this you can bet its a lot more now. Is it salmonella based or are the symptoms just the same?

I think its like has been said the majority just arnt interested in cheating and the one's that are will cheat any system if given enough time.I dont use ETS but pretty sure if i put my mind to it i could cheat it if i wanted whether that be via cloning ring's or other methods less conspicuos .I probably could.But why would i want to ?I race Pigeons to see how good they are against other Pigeons and to test my management skill's.