tubbles

Ahhh what if its a barren hen lol hope it's not like

I use Bucktons wherever possible, have always found it to be nice clean looking corn. Not won any races for a while but don't think this is anything to do with the corn perhaps just the amount i feed. :-/ Birds look well on it and that to me, is the important part.

Tammy i can't really tell you what his system is cos he sells it and i don't want to get into the whole copyright stuff. It is a detailed account of how Mark Caudwell races his widowhood cocks dealing with feeding training and medicines. The man has won RPRA sprint award and come second so he really is a good inland racer. there is an advert for birds on the "other Website"(pigeon Chat) sry for that admin. he races Van Reets but the advert is from someone who has had birds off him.

I have bought it for this season, The birds look and feel good on the system but even now i am still having trouble getting them in. That could be down to the new speed trap tho ( well it was new about 3 months ago) so not blaming the system. the Birds really fly well around the loft at the moment but that will not be too good if the first race is a blow home cos they just wont go in. Ahh never mind i suppose if they come to win and mess about i'll just let them get used to trapping, hopefully. :-/ then next season when the youngsters are acclimatised to the trap my old bird season should really go with a bang. It always comes down to next season doesn't it. :B

Wouldn't it be nice if common sense could prevail but we are talking pigeon flyers here and some of them have Ego's bigger than theyr'e lofts. You know if one of the a**holes gets ten together he will want them all reading and on the sheet. Whilst i can't argue that if they beat me they have beat me, i thought that was obvious. But what would possess anyone to clock so many in just a club race with around 200 birds. That will see more and more people putting the clock straight in the cupboard for next week and who would blame them not I. you hear it all the time, "I had 12 drop together" and such but at least now we will see that they are not together, as i would say together as in twelve in five seconds. I know ETS will not make the birds fly faster but the clocking advantage is all i am talking about.

I don't think DEFRA realise how well run the pigeon sport is, with the restrictions now in place they say " keep your records for three months after the race", We HAVE to keep all documentary details of the race ie birds entered, vaccination certificates, make sure they are wing stamped what basket they were put in etc. etc. but, we have to keep them by RPRA rules for THREE years not months and even then we have to ask permission to destroy old records. They have told us what we must do but they have not even bothered to look at how we manage our sport. they must think ahhhh they have poultry they are therefore farmers.

Whille I do agree with you Roland about the rich can and the poor can't so it's not fair that way, when is the sport fair. I live in council property good size back garden so lucky really. I keep comfortably 15 cocks to race, I am in a club with a 20 bird limit, you can send extras in fed but they play no part in club race or averages, I race in a federation with NO limit and some members send upwards of 90 birds week in week out. That gives them 5/1 odds on me, that means blow home they might get twelve together and i may get one maybe two, in a disaster however they might get 4 maybe 5 and i'll probably get one if lucky. So lets not think the 'Sport' has ever been fair. I know all the arguments, send more, remove limit and such but financially 15 is a lot of birds for me to keep. Picture the "Sport" with a rich fancier bringing his 45 in a squad chelsea team to play Tranmere rovers in a cup match with as many on the pitch as you like. Tranmere cant muster a 45 attendance never mind team. Would FIFA say that is FAIR no chance. So again lets not think what is fair. The ETS while it seems that it was put through JUST for the disabled, who really believed it was a disabled fancier that appealed for it? not me thats for sure. If it was just for disabled people i think it would be good for the sport to keep them in it. but you look to your own clubs at the mob clockers and just imagine what this will help them do, and i am talking about people who actually do get them there fast.

Not sure where you would get them cheaply but the birds of Peter Fox and syndicate lofts seem to do well in my area. I am in merseyside and there have been a number of winners from there either direct or roundabout. Hmmm funny, I have not won for a while and i'm telling peeps where winning birds are coming from. :-/ :-/

Last season i was asked by club members to check on the restrictions and it was pointed out that birds from different lofts had to be transported seperately this was for both training and taking them to the club. the restrictions were about gatherings of birds and that was the sticking point that i was warned about. A "gathering of birds" is birds from different places. that meant two lofts or 200 lofts. this is the point that i would like to have cleared up please.

Hate to sound thick here but, does this mean that my mate can train my birds with his now? It was not allowed last season and it was a real pain trying to get training legally as no-one was going to get the licenses needed by DEFRA. I hope that the training has not finished for ever now, we used to be able to get training on fed transporters in our area from about 20-30 miles but, i like to get the short tosses from 5-10 off my mate. :-/ :-/

Never tried taking pics of eyes before but i think most digital cameras have a MACRO mode. don't know what it means but it is for extreme close ups like insects and stuff but you are supposed to use a tripod or you could put the camera on a table top and set the self timer otherwise you will get camera shake. Then get behind the camera and look at the screen so you know the eye is in the correct position. As for lighting i know nothing but you don't want shadows from your fingers across the eye.

My club 20 bird limit J McLaughlin rules roost and in the Federation Jones & Thomas have been winning here for past few seasons Eddy Bateman was also a contender last year in Federation. Federation has no limit and some members sent 90-odd birds some weeks and couldn't beat Jones & Thomas most times, the partnership split the team to race in two feds last year and still won well. But, this year who knows........ me

I like to have around 40 yb's at start of the season, I always stop the cocks early(may not this year). Race them as yearlings then sort out obvious time wasters then look for the ones that do silly things like fly insanely round the loft when i go in, look at box hoppers, the ones that fight on wrong boxes, really annoying when you put yearlings in :-/ I have one that is nestmate to my only decent one, good as gold in the loft but so far useless. maybe i'm not ruthless enough cos its been a while since i won a race.

After all the talk from distance flyers about ETS not affeccting them, this one should really affect THEM more than sprint flyers as sprint birds are only locked in overnight on most occasions whereas the channel and north road distance racers are locked away for days with sick or dodgy birds. ( i think north road races are over a couple of days ). As for the birds not being accepted.... well we are not vets and while i think i know a healthy bird, who am i to say anything about someone elses. I think the owner should see they are not right but as was pointed out before, people tend to send the birds cos thats what they are here for. I recall a few seasons back when one member missed the first two YB races cos of the dreaded YB Sickness in his loft 2 weeks before the season started. Birds treated and over it for three weeks, he come to the club and was quizzed by a member only to be told that this bloke that sent the week before had it throughout his yb team but he picked he "healthy looking ones". The mind boggles. ??)

I know its a bad habit but, to me the house roof holds no problems. Come race day my birds tend to come and hit the roof without much flying around, now as for those who only let them land on the loft, you hear all the cries at the club of " ohhh it flew around trying to come in on line into a dodgy wind" and all that speel. If you don't want them on roof then throwing at them and starving them seems to be the only answer and, as throwing chases them further from the loft it seems that only the feed can control them. Good luck all the same matey. :-/

I can't see this being true because if you race in a federation that has some clubs with MORE than 25 members, Them members will be able to use it and this would give them an unfair advantage. This is just my understanding but if someone in the federation has it then all members should be able to have it. I also side with Gangsta because if I was to buy the ETS then it would need to be a very well worded rule to STOP me using it as te RPRA would surely overrule any club rule.

I use washing up liquid too. if you leave it a bit late you can use a feather quill to get the back toe through the ring and i ring the same way as speckled, upside down as you look at it walking, on the left leg. If you have not rung one before you would be best trying it on one that is too young then take it off over the whole foot and that way you should know what to expect. As for gangster and his vaseline and rings.......... well I better leave that alone. LOL

Heres mine to add on matey. Not much to look at but functional. This year i built the Aviary with a supertrap on the front, since the pic was taken i have put a roof over it all and finished staining it Red. Hope the pic is not too big. The loft is home made incase you didn't realise lol. It measures 19ft long by 6foot deep and houses at most 15 cocks (widowhood) and perches (46 but hope to get to around 40). Front is tongue and groove floorboards the rest is Ply with a felted roof sloping towards the back. I also have a 12 foot stock and widowhood hen shed, 8ft for stock and 4ft for the hens in boxes(not to race) Lol and i started off with a 14ft everything shed. that was stock old and youngbirds.

In just about Every club that i know there is a "Golden Mile" where the birds are drawn to, Given the right wind and a man on the golden mile that knows how to race birds who also has the ETS, he will clean up. I know that the distance fliers in here say that it won't affect them but in the long races don't you race in widespread combines? In them combines i'll bet that there are some fanciers who are right in the right spot, even before using the ETS one loft could reasonably be able to clock from a place of advantage. And with the advantage of ETS he will clock very VERY fast. We will all end up either having them to have a chance or packing in because of the lack of winning opportunities. Personally i hope the ETS is a massive let down and is bugged by problems all the way. I don't want the sport to be dominated by someone who can "Afford" to be good, but, i never mind being beaten by someone who is just a better pigeon man.

That one that you saw was also nightvision which would be good for a loft because you could look at youngbirds while on the darkness i suppose. but that camera connects to a TV not pc as far as i know. I could be wrong but if you got that you would need TV card or something to view on pc. I bought a DigitalTV USB adapter but it only has an aeriel input not AV wires or scart.

There have been rumblings i my club like i will not set any of them and that sort of thing but, it is not just at club level that this will hit everyone. If for example someone on "the golden mile" gets ETS and the weather helps them, they will have a lot drop together and SOME will go straight in. Now these clubs that say things like we aint havving them ETS things here, have cut they're own throats in Fed/Combine/National levels. It really is a shame, on one hand they are a great idea, the thought of disabled and old fanciers being able to clock at same speed as young runners but then on the other hand you have the huge outlay for system and computer to run them, which, will probably price it out of the hands of the old and disabled and suit more business minded fliers. :-/

Red fox, I downloaded the same form but the price increase was put in from the AGM this year. so the RPRA website needs looking at. It should have been done straight away but I suppose they have to contact the web maker to put somthing new on as the form you download is probably just a file on a password encrypted server. I think that they would soon notice if they were inundated with transfers and £1.00 cheques or postal orders.

Sry to hear of your problems Marvin, I have had the same problems in the past matey and i understand how mad and angry you feel. Don't go too mad though cos you could still have a world beater in there amongst ALL of them yb's. Hopefully your second round from the stock should b better because the weather is a bit milder ( saying this while the cold S.E wind is howling outside and rain falling ). but it is a little milder than when i paired mine up in mid January, I had a few empty eggs but not too bad for me. Good luck

Hey all don't forget, even if you have anti virus running you are still supposed to do a system scan every now and again and make sure antivirus updates itself, mine (AVG Free) updates everytime i turn on computer, also your firewall has to be updated periodically there are free ones out there like zone alarm, the one i use right now is called comodo and have never noticed any slowdown while downloading or online gameplay. Mac1 don't forget if you download something you should virus check it before running it. If you have XP you should also do a disc cleanup and defrag every now and again i generally do that after i have run virus check and adware removal (lavasoft adaware personal) and spyware checker(spybot search and destroy) you should always update these too. Dunno how we cope with these computers but dunno what i'd do without one now. :B

Dunno about the colours Redfox but that is a lovely pigeon, keep us informed about the colours matey. If they come out like him they will be very nice indeed. ;D