Todays pigeons better or worse ?

[Roland]

4 in one I believe, and I posted the 'Raptures' like your post Pigeon Scout ... it is different, but of course the Falcon Brigade can't admit to it. It works of course, which strangely brings me to another good thing for Hawks / Peregines, They can't combat against Canker. It is deadly to them.

[Roland]

 

I believe this, or something like is what pigeonscout is refering to...

http://www.themodernapprentice.com/diseases.htm

Just a little follow up, and the Rapture brigade are not telling the whole truth... obviously. And it is the POUR on and not the norm .Ivomectin / dectomax...

Extracted from BHW 21st October (Joe Murphy - he of the spanked bottom) p26

 

Ivomectin / dectomax

 

Linda Brooks (SHU Secy) received letter from Harker’s Dr J M Ballany:

 

"Pigeons coming into contact with the above CATTLE products stand an extremely high risk of being poisoned as the dose rate for these products is 500 micrograms / kg bodyweight which relates to 1ml / 10kg up to a maximum dose of 40ml in cattle. Translating this dose rate to pigeons (average weight 400g) 0.04 of a millilitre would be applied. No pigeon fancier would be capable of administering such a small dose accurately. This dose may well be fatal to pigeons as no research has been done in pigeons with Ivomectin or Dectomax. These products are not intended for amateur use. It is illegal to purchase / administer these chemicals for use on other than the licensed species. Dectomax / Ivomectin are irritating to the skin and eyes and must not be used on dogs. Operators should wear rubber gloves and boots with a waterproof coat and goggles / visor when applying the product. "The effect of these chemicals on birds of prey eating treated pigeons would be similar to that of Dieldrin / Lindane as they would accumulate in the bird of prey and,,,, "AND EVENTUALY CAUSE DEATH.""""" Both these chemicals have withdrawal periods up to 56 days after treatment before it is safe to eat meat or drink milk from treated animals.

 

Please advise your colleagues that it is extremely inadvisable to recommend treatment of pigeons with these products."

 

this maybe of help ROLAND, and agrees with my first post on your" sparrowhawks"WHICH I SAID COULD POISON THEM"

Yes and Falconers wouldn't be treating with this either!

However a bit of forethought as to what pigeons falcons eat...

 

Interesting also from another fancier...

 

use a farm product called noramectin for cows and sheep,i buy it from country wide stores or local farm shops.if they ask what`s it for i just say i keep about 20 sheep,they hand it over no problem but take your address.its in a liquid form just put 0.2mil on the back of the birds neck job done.

 

http://www.wetaskiwincoop.com/noromectin_product.htm

[pigeonscout]

Today's birds are down from the best of yesterdays birds, the ones that made it home, the ones that where the fastest, the ones that survived the sickness,

[Guest Silverwings]

cracking info from these posts albear ,scout and roland etc good idea with the ferals ? and the ivermectin take  it the hawks aint to keen on the taste ? going to get me a couple of these van ferals lace 'em' with ivermectin so the hawk works his nack's to catch em ,finds out they taste like' HELL' should soon change his mind about where he eats ? ..........................anyone thourght of using alum or similar stuff in same way ......ray

[Roland]

Well Silverwings our friend Dr Gord sent me the following to perhaps include here:

Quote:

This article came out today: The original work cited is in Nature

(April 20, 2005)

How a white feather can outfox a falcon

 

Tim Radford, science editor

Thursday April 21, 2005.

 

When aerial menace zooms in from behind, the feral pigeon does what a

dove's got to do - it shows the white feather and stands a better

chance of getting clean away, US scientists say.

Albert Palleroni of Harvard University and three colleagues report in

Nature today that they set out to solve the puzzle of the white patch

often found on the rump of the feral pigeon Columbia livia.

 

In seven years the researchers recorded 1,485 attacks by five adult

peregrine falcons on flocks of feral pigeons flying around Davis,

California. They also observed 309 attacks by juveniles. They made a

note of the plumage of the luckless target.

 

And they found that whether the peregrines were at the peak of their

powers, or still on a learning curve, the result was the same. Only

one dead pigeon in 50 had a set of white feathers on its rump.

 

The scientists reasoned that the white patch might be an evolutionary

adaptation that helped its inheritor to live longer and procreate more.

Falcons swoop with fearsome speed: the fastest have been clocked at

157 metres a second - around 320mph.

 

So they tested the idea by capturing 756 white-rumped and blue-grey

pigeons and swapping their plumage coloration. They then released the

birds again, and monitored the kill rate of three particular peregrines.

 

Those birds who could no longer show the white feather fell victim to

peregrine strike as often as the blue-coloured pigeons, while the

newly whitened showed a much increased ability to survive.

 

No pigeon can outfly a falcon. They escape by aerobatics. The white

patch somehow distracts the peregrine.

 

The peregrine falcon almost disappeared from large areas of its range

40 years ago, but has slowly been making a comeback. As more falcons

begin to cull the pigeons in modern cities, the US scientists argue,

an increasing proportion of their prey will start to show the white feather.

 

[Guest Silverwings]

roland ,walked through the market today  and noticed a very high proportion of the street pigeons  were dark cheqs about 60 -70% i would imagine  ,reds and mealys were very few the majority of the others were blues and a few blacks never noticed the white rump but will take a closer look tomorrow out of interest ? mind you i live in an area  predominated by dark wildermeerch and dark buscheart, not that any of those fanciers EVER lost any youngsters ? (will try and bag me a new stock pair in the process)  ......ray

[pigeonscout]

I know of a man who put the bait on tips as they fly high for hours which make them a great target for peregrines.

[Guest]

Yes Scout, what you need is Ivo mec must be for cattle or sheep, three drops on the back of the neck every three weeks, I was worried the mites may become resistant ;D, with so much so often, and of course that it might knock the YB off colour, but by some strange fluke, I was 123, 1st YB race (11 together) and 1,2 2nd another 11 together.......so it didn't knock the birds off colour and they weren't darkness YB either!!

Make sure you wear surgical gloves, you can buy them from Tesco and the like, cause it gets str8 in to your blood, I use it for worms and lice its really good

[Guest]

Ray, ......my bloody memory is a pain these days, when I was younger could remember conversations of a couple of years previous......... today, rubbish!! Anyway your reference to Alum reminded me that it was recommended to me by a fancier in S*expletive removed*horpe I once visited for the birds i.e it was good for them, but do you think I can remember why and what dosage it was, can I chuff!! Do you know, or anyone else?

Thanks

Alan

[Guest]

Roland , so what its saying is that pigeons with white rumps above the tail feather are les susceptible, interesting..................cause I thought probably like Ray that this meant pieds had a better chance of survival.......it ain't saying that though is it??

Pity 'cause I've got a 11 flighted youngster that I want to send to Tarbes next year but he's like a seagull and I feel he will go down to percy before any other colour!! But of course that may just me being colour prejudiced (I hope so!)

[Guest]

Rose its an interesting one, don't know if you remember but a guy called Keith Thomas originally from Hampshire moved to West Wales where it was infected by all sorts of raptors, he tried colour breeding to see what would survive and I think his experience was that it didn't matter and I think he has now returned to hampshire?

A few weeks later apair of brothers wriote in to the BHW from Swansea and I seem to remember thm claiming that Percy used to leave their white pigeons alone (missed them in attack maybe?) But then Keith wrote back to say the whites were the first taken at his loft!!! Does anyone else remamber O may have got it back to front!!!

[Guest Hjaltland]

On the 27th of June 1898 30 pigeons were liberated at Lerwick, Shetland at 3:30am. Later that day, almost 600 miles away, a Mr. P Clutterbuck from Stanmore, near London, clocked his good hen to win the first ever Lerwick race and the Grand National of pigeon racing was born. Mr Clutterbuck's pigeon recorded a velocity of 1098 ypm for the 592 mile journey.

 

This was an amazing performance not only considering the difficulties of transporting pigeons that distance in 1898, but the fact that the birdage was only 30!  I wonder how many present day birds would make it now if the birdage was just 30?

[Guest]

Rose those birds have been lost, the only one still around that used to do it I know of successfully is Des Coulter down on the south coast I think, isn't it sad that they've gone, I have no doubt on tough days under same conditions they would beat any of the continental birds at 600 mile but of course our birds have a much more difficult route and what about the Irish I always remember seing the first eyes ever in a gazette circa 1972 taken by Miller Mcalister (?) , Moonlight manequin was there and some other fantastic pigeons, the eys were like oil paintings, to do this day I have never seen such a beautiful page of eyes and they were all long distance winners!!!

Sadly I don't think the Irish fly 600 anymore but I can understand that, casue for me it has to be the toughest route in Europe.

[Guest speckled]

he lives round the corner  from me Albear, keith Thomas, was in  our club when he came back from  his littlle venture. done a write up in are weekend local paper.hes got dvd out now called racing pigeons for beginners  :X not seen it myself  the artical  was out in july 2006 got it here in frount me.Speck :-/

[pigeonscout]

Two guys from usa done a survey on why the peregrines stick to same colour birds and the results where simple. If one attacks a pied and is successful it will keep going for pied until unsuccessful if a red is its first kill then it will keep going for the reds and so on. It will always attack the same colour bird as its last meal. these two guys where not pigeon men but owned peregrines they let of a red for the bird to kill two days later they let go 10 birds all blue only one red all at same time the peregrine only attacked the red. then two days later they give it a blue to kill two days after that they let one blue and 9 reds up the peregrine only attacked the blue.

[Guest]

Rose, coming back to your post about the competition was to strong years ago.............YES and NO.

 

I have to refer to my experience in the Valleys back in the 70's and I appreciate it may well be completely different to your area. If you take the premise that Thurso was the aim of every fancier, then I do believe that competition at 500 mile was stronger then

 

a)      because nearly everyone was trying to win this race and all their skill, expertise and effort at the time was focused on this big one

 

      because of this focus, the birds that survived and were bred from were birds that did 500 miles or if birds were brought in were from such a base.

 

However, there have to be some caveats to this and this is the professional fancier and modern method of today. Now when I refer to professional fanciers I do not in any way mean that to be a criticism or dislike. I think they are essential to the furtherance of our sport because they can’t afford to let it die, they loose their income, I’m not saying they are going to save the sport, however they are likely to come up with innovative ways of keeping it alive?

 

Competition overall was stronger but the professional guys are now so on the ball, many have terrific resources which us ordinary guys can not match or compete with. They have access to vets and the best medicines, the best methods and often the best fanciers. I haven’t worked for a couple of years and the difference in terms of spending time with the birds is incredible. I’ve just started back full time again and I know its going to cock me up with the birds. For example now I have to drive to the loft every evening at around 8, carry my food and water and torch and then by torchlight put the food and water in, check to see all’s ok! Years ago we all worked, today not so, In Barnsley in my club I think there were only 5 of us working full time and 3 of those were self employed, theb rest were retired miners and this is true I would have thought of all the old coal and steel work areas. So where as competition was stronger, the aces are in my mind far better!(?) and if you have time to spend on your birds you will improve them so again I think because of circumstance the bar has been raised.

 

If you look at sprint racing for me there is no comparison the sprint birds and specialists of today would have wiped the floor with the old day (a generalisation).

 

Another point from one of Scout’s posts (and Ben is going to try this), he says he thinks you don’t need specialist birds for the distance (I think that’s what he said, he’ll tell me if I misunderstood)……..well have to disagree 100%, there are multiple 1st prizepigeons that can go no further than 200 mile (further with a gale up the rear), there are of course pigeons (Rare) that can do 50/500 (and some even 650), they will sprint as well as get the distance, but the sprinter will only ever go to its physical/genetic capability. There is a pigeon on the Ganus site I can’t find him at the mo, but he is a koopman with a white base eye (looks like a blue eye sign) with the iris strangling the circle, that pigeon is a terrific pigeon but if you sent that 500 mile you would never see it, not a snowball’s chance in hell of doing it. Just seen the Golden Witten though one of the finest I have seen, fantastic!

 

[ch pied]

hi albear, your right it is sad that we don't fly the big one's anymore,fancier's on the north coast were flying,

rennes         530ml

st-nazaire     580ml

nantes          590ml

le-sables       635ml

 

oakhampton    300ml, penzance 325ml,  averranch 450ml,  the last three were our jump point's ,MILLER MAc , spot on

  

[pigeonscout]

Northern Ireland fanciers still fly 500+ and that is across two channels and there is a lot of fanciers race and win the short races and still race the 500s with the same birds. I think it is all about setting them up for it. The young birds go to penzance and that is 300 + across the channel.

[ch pied]

yes pigeonscout. we last went to the big one (  LE -SABLES  ) 1982

 

[paul l]

CH PIED WERE U FROM

[ch pied]

paul1, ,antrim

[Guest]

Rose, the Merthyr club before it split in 1971, had 69 competing lofts! That's a fair whack for a Valley town, over the Rhondda they probably had double again in an equivalent similar area!! And as I said the Welsh North Road Fed which was only approx 30 mile North to South and probably 60 East to West had 28,000 birds at its first YB race in 1979! Yes Rose I don't disagree but we do have now back 'back garden' fanciers , more particularly allotment flyers who are very professional and I do believe they have highered the cross bar. It's all down to perspective, if you said I could win 10k or 1st 28,000, I'd be stupid enough to go for the 1st 28,000!!

[ch pied]

rose . good going pushing them out that far ,the odd one shines out ,  i mean the one's with the shorter leg's so to speak good luck hope do it again&again

[blackjack]

Top pigeons are always in short supply its the stockmanship thats going out the window many flyers do not know when thier birds are on form. If many of the flyers who go to the continent buying or are up the pub spent more time in thier own lofts getting to know thier own birds performances would improve. It would also help if fanciers would go off performance and forget paper does not fly and stop using drugs.

[Guest]

Ch Pied I used to have so much admiration for the Les Sables winners, what pigeons, sadly I think their blood must have gone now. So what are the current longest races and their distances?

 

Alan