Joe Murphy Article 20th December 2024

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The Joe Murphy Column

Firstly, may I wish ALL READERS of my column A Merry Christmas and I hope you all have a lovely time with your families. I would also like to thank the staff at the BHW for their support given to me over the year with my column. These people are the unsung heroes of the BHW as they work very had to produce the paper on a weekly basis. THANK YOU ALL.

Continuing with my short articles for the BHW to cover the Christmas/New Year holiday period, as the majority of us would like to have time to sit down and read about pigeons during this festive period. I thought I would retype an article written by one of Scottland’s great fanciers the late Eddie Newcombe of Macmerry. This article was written in 1972 and goes as follows;

‘JUST HOW much progress have we really made this past 50 years? Take several different aspects; breeding, racing, transport and feeding, to name some, and stop and think awhile. Have we progressed at all? I sat pondering these problems a little while ago, and I can recall 33 years since I started to race with a club, and a few before that just playing with pigeons, and I came to the conclusion that we have made so little progress in these fields that we have nothing to be proud about. There are, no doubt, many who in these fields that we have nothing to be proud about. There are, no doubt, many who would argue with me on this point, but these are my impressions, and as the editor has asked me to make a few observations on the subject of pigeons in general. I thought I’d air my views in the hope that they might provoke a few of our thinking fanciers to come up with some new and fresh ideas on the subjects. Take breeding. Our methods seem to have added nothing, material or intangible, to the birds, since we were handed them by the founders of the old families so many years ago. True we have bred some more in numbers, and in numbers there is perhaps safety of a sort, but I think we are still in the same straits as out Thoroughbred race horse owners, who can do match Derby winners with Oak’s winners, still without having bred their likes in all the many, many years of attempting to do so. In the pigeon world the odd occurrence turns up when a man breeds a classic winner from a from a classic winner, but so rarely as to be dubbed chance-though the man who dies with says there was not chance about it. If dubbed chance-though the man who does this says there was no chance about it! If there was no chance element, it must surely happen more often don’t you think? (Editor; What of the score or so Ace Fanciers who are at the top, and who stay there for decades, these too by chance???) Now let us look at racing. Boys, and inexperienced boys, of 50 years ago could do just as fast a speed as we can today with tail wind, and on poor days their numbers home were only poorer because they were flying less birds. It seems that our sport of today are better because we got that few more home, but in my opinion the racing pigeon breed has not advance for pro rata we are getting no better results than our forefathers. The birds have not improved a little bit in speed or any other fashion since our forefathers flew them. In races of 500 miles most fanciers get their good birds over the years, but extend that distance to 600 and 700 miles, and the numbers who manage to clock a pigeon dwindle rapidly, birds of this calibre are as scarce as a flock of Robins. Why? Aren’t we improving the breed after all? (Editor; In 1970 and 1971 more than 900 birds were clocked in races of over 600 miles each year, even pro rata is this not more than in say 1920?) Housing; Our loft design are just as the style in 1900. A brave few try the fresh air system, but our maritime climate soon makes them put the shutters up again. If this is progress – I cannot see it. The advert of louvres into loft design is both a shutter (to keep the rain out) and a vent to (allow the air in) but how large a percentage of the Fancy use louvring as much as they could? Not as many as you would think! Perhaps fancier judge their bird’s needs on their own comfort, they cannot seem to realise that there is a great gulf between the two needs, with their own comfort taking priority most times.

Transport is a sore point.  Rail was denied to us by the power that be for their own reasons. Finance cannot have been the reason, whatever excuses are preferred from time to time, pigeons paid their way until Dr Beeching came along to say they didn’t. Perhaps he didn’t like racing pigeons thought! Apart from that, road transport is among the back markers when it comes to the bird’s comfort. As has been pointed out by other writers with good reason, the sudden stops and starts at every gear change, cannot even begin to compare to the steady acceleration and braking of a train (or aircraft). The poor birds must wonder if they are travelling on square wheels sometimes. Air travel came to the Fancy for a brief period from 1947, then, perhaps because most fanciers are losers anyway, the cost made them revert to wheels. A pity in my humble opinion. However, we might progress again one of these days with luck. Feeding is a ‘hairy’ one. Fanciers 50 years ago used the same diets as we do today. Some progress with attempted a while ago, but seemed to lose its favour—or flavour-compounds of this and that, tried by manufacturer and fancier alike to stem the loss or boost the profit, came and went. Pink droppings didn’t cut much ice in my opinion, and were in compensation for the fancier looking to win his cash and cups, I think. Advice is the hardest thing to give away I’ve found, but from one fancier to any other that might be interested on the subject, the soundest advice I can think of is that one’s corn must be- like the soldier’s powder flask- kept dry at all times. Nothing takes the fire out of both faster than damp. Good pigeons fly well on all sorts of grain, but it must be sound and dry. Mother nature has her ways, and the man who is fool enough to try to work contrary to her methods always ends up the loser. The wild pigeons’ lives on grain he finds in the fields and waxes fat on it, but Mother Nature sees to it that the grain is sweet and fresh, not gone mouldy for being piled high in damp conditions all the time. Fanciers almost always take the easy way out, very much so when it comes to his hobby, for he is looking for relaxation and not work in the main, and for this reason many try the deep litter idea, and use cut straw in our Edinburgh lofts which we found very good. A week after putting the stray into the lofts we would toss it out and then use it for the pigs bedding, replacing it with fresh material, but of course we found snags, the biggest one in the book RED MITE!! We switched to wood shavings and though the problem was no so acute it was still with us. Then we tried sawdust but still the mite persisted, and we were almost despairing of ever shifting the pest when progress, in the only field that it has advanced in the pigeon world, in the shape of a pesticide came to our notice. We tried it and it worked exactly as we had hoped, the problem was over. If ever knighthoods were earned in the pigeon world, one was certainly merited here, for the biggest worry of all time in the pigeon sport has always been that of parasites, inside and out. In this field I think progress has been made, for today’s advances ensure that the many ailments of the pigeon world can be defeated, completely. The pigeon is born a fool, generally speaking. Like us in that respect. Training benefits the wise ones, those that have the capability of learning, but all the learning in the world is wasted on the thick bird as it is on a thick man. The good pigeon will succeed in the hands of a boy if they are fit, but how clever are we with the other 90% of all pigeons bred? Not very, for it is only that 10% that constitute the cream of the fancy that makes the grade, the rest are followers and always will be. When things go wrong and we are left with the 90% to get on with, both top brass and boys alike can make nothing of them. It is not the fancier that makes the Champion pigeon, the bird is born that way. They are there, always have been and, with luck, always will be. They make the sport, the achievements, the honour and glory, not us. Don’t forget it! We are merely the opportunity to prove the bird ability-or lack of it. The best of us succeed and the rest fail. Sometimes we are the reason why even the best of birds cannot succeed, and when this happens it is up to us to fathom out where and why we went wrong, What we did that prevented the good pigeon from succeeding as it should have done. Especially in the race from 600 miles and beyond. The effort that is necessary for the bird to get home is beyond human understanding, as it transcends every barrier we have ever had to face in physical achievement. We progress only when we begin to understand the tiniest bit of what it is we are asking, and work as hard as we can to help the pigeon to achieve the maximum, we ask of it. When we succeed, we can say we have progressed, and when we fail, we have done just the opposite. How many of us in all honesty send a bird to a race, just that we bit tired or off form, and take a step backward in doing so.  Every forward step that was ever made has always been in the face of opposition of some form or other, it needs effort to overcome that opposition, and effort means progress.

Overview

Quite a hard-hitting article and I hope that this has made a few fanciers think a bit deeper into our sport. I also hope you the reader has enjoyed this article from this late great fancier.   

Please continue to keep the news flowing; to Joe Murphy Mystical Rose Cottage 2 Flutorum Avenue Thornton by Kirkcaldy KY1 4BD or phone 01592 770331 or Email to joejmurphy1@gmail.com REMEMBER THE J IN THE MIDDLE or log onto www.elimarpigeons.com; www.pigeonbasics.com www.thecanadianpigeoninternational.com who wish my weekly contribution portfolio on pigeon topics from Scotland

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