One Of Bilco"S Bulletins

March 31, 2013

Pigeon Gas - The Loft - Pages 12-35

THE LOFT

Generally speaking, pigeon lofts carry one of two main designs. That which keeps the warmth in, and that which doesnt know the meaning of the word. I have flown pigeons to both, with as much success to both. Today I favour a loft which is roomy, well ventilated and dry, and since half is weldmesh and a sputnick trap, T have to use rain deflection netting outside the weldmesh to keep the rain out but air coming in.

There is also a four inch gap at the top of all walls, to allow the passage of ventilated air out of the loft, the result being that while the loft is not cold, it is also not to warm.

I have had a loft that was no more than a floor, rear wall and roof, the rest being wire netting, and I topped the Fed to it. In anything over a Force 4 wind the birds had to flatten themselves against their perches and cling on like grim death. Their wasnt a trace of dust in this loft, or of smells, dirt, feathers or illness, and the birds all grew a thick of coat of luxurious feather too. Rain used to beat in and soak the floor, but because of the slope from rear to front, the birds remained dry on their perches. The top two feet of both sides was louvered glass, the remainder of the sides was netting. Admittedly I had to shovel snow out one winter, but it did no harm.

For preference these days I would built a brick loft, but cost and planning permission can dictate otherwise, depending on where one lives. Ideally it should be raised of the ground, or have an air space under where a dog can patrol, or where a modern sonic Unit can be installed, the silent noise of which quite effectively keeps rats and mice away.

I prefer an apex roof, which permits a false ceiling of wire mesh, under which can be installed a sliding ceiling which can be opened or closed to permit more or less air current, and consequently, warmth in the loft. Ventilation must be maintained for health, and must never be sacrificed for warmth. If one fails to observe this most elementary Rule then disease will follow as sure as night follows day. Perches must outnumber birds by at least three to two, so that one always has 50% more perching room than stock to fill it. This prevents fights, disease and also gives the birds the confidence of a personal home which is vitally important to pigeons. In fact I consider that the Personal Piece of real estate is one of the most important factors in happy pigeons, and happy pigeons are winning pigeons.

One of the most effective methods of persuading a pigeon to exert that little bit extra effort if needed to win, lies in the provision of an extra box, usually in the most inaccessible place, where the holder can deny access to all. Both Havenith and Devriendt , two Belgian ace fanciers, used to employ this method with considerable success.

In the early 1070s I visited Marc De Decker of Thieusies, near Mons. He had two lofts, one on the ground floor, of orthodox design, where he kept his breeders. The other was raised between four telegraph poles driven into the ground, and was reached by a vertical ladder which came up through the floor.

Inside it was almost dark, even in full daylight, the floor was a foot deep in hay (not straw) and there were box perches on all four walls. It smelled sweet and was bone dry.

The stock cock, known as Marc by Paul Fauconnier, who bought him for Â£1,000, sired the winner of 1st National La Southerraine (320 miles) Y/Bs, 26th Open National, (I bought it), and 2nd National Argenton. A son bred the 9th International Barcelona winner, a daughter bred the 2nd Open Pau winner which I gifted to George Gartshore along with the cock that won 14th Open NFC Pau the same year, 1974, which was sired by a son of Marc. Another daughter bred Geoff Kirklands Pest winner of 1st Open BBC Nantes and 1st Open MNFC Nantes.

A remarkable family. Marc was sold by Paul Fauconnier for a mere Â£350 to a fancier in the USA (Tony Kubatz) who used to fly in partnership with Johnny Federochko in New Jersey, these fanciers also bought the parents of the 2nd Open NFC Pau winner from me.

In absolute contrast to the De Decker loft, Willy Clerebaut of Ecaussinnes had a house custom built for pigeon racing, like so many Belgians do. Downstairs was a three bedroomed and beautiful furnished house, while upstairs is a ten compartment loft, divided by a passageway running the full length of the house.

On one side are offices hospital, corn store, basket store, stock pens, and on the other, widowhood sections facing due south across the fields owned by him. He also had a wood and plastic double decked loft for breeders downstairs and Y/Birds up stairs. At the very top of the house, reached only by a ladder and a knotted rope hanging alongside it, is a small sectioned off stock pen, in which the jewels of Willys entire collection are kept. I can only remember two people other than myself that I have ever seen admitted to this section!

From this little loft came my 636 as a Y/Bird, a son of La Championne herself winner of a 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 10th in National races. 636 was a brother of 639 dam of Le Chateauroux winner of 1st, 5th, 7th, 15th, 24th and 34th in six different National races. Willy refused several offers of Â£10,000 for this cock, and he died at the ripe old age of 15 years on his eggs one night. He was the perfect pigeon.

Where the De Decker lofts were small and in darkness, Clerebauts are sunshine and light, and vastly roomy in comparison. For performance Willy measures up well, he has won 12 x 1sts in National competition.

Willys previous lofts were those of his father-in-law, Papa Hutse, who died in 1972. His farm was situated between Marche and Lalaing, and he used to try and climb up the ladder to see his beloved pigeons as an old man, nearing 80, and would stop halfway, clinging to the ladder with shaking legs, then fall off when his daughter Carmen (now deceased) came and found him hanging there. She would berate him like a child, scolding him with wagging finger, but she never managed to dissuade him from trying to get up to see his birds. Papa Hutse also used floor to ceiling windows, like those pioneered by Dr Renier Gurnay, Dr Bricoux and so many other early Belgian Aces. In Willy Clerebauts youth he was employed as loft boy to Ernest Duray, and no doubt learned from him the National winning ways of the Maestro.

Very similar in principle to Clerebauts lofts were those of the Feluy ace Henri Van Neste, both at his old house in Place Petit Moulin, now dentists surgery where his son Thierry plies his trade, and in Avenue Gaston Baudoux where the new house is very similar in construction to Clerebauts, the pigeon being on the first floor. Henri has probably won as many placings in the first ten in National races as any fancier in Belgium, and a lot more than most, despite the publicity for many men of much lesser achievements.

Another loft of striking light and ventilation, is that of Frans and Dominic Roedlandt of Lede, winners of 1st, 8th, 11th etc International Barcelona (in 1972 if my memory serves me right). Their team of Desmet Mattys cracks are an education to behold, and they were one of the few Belgian Ace Winners of the International I have known who made no effort to capitalise on their successes.

I think one of the finest lofts I ever viewed was that of Franklyn Olivierra, of Trinidad. With my wife I had the privilege to be the guest of Franklyn and his lovely wife Hyacinth for a fortnight during Carnival time in February 1985. We had been travelling twenty hours by the time we got there, and almost fell asleep on their shoulders. Franklyn has bought a couple of pairs of my Clerebauts in the previous couple of years, and had done well with them. With his loft how could he do anything else, for it was all fresh air! I also had the very considerable pleasure to meet several other fanciers whilst out there, and their keenness and sportsmanship impressed me as few others have done elsewhere. The racing was conducted from other islands in the chain that ultimately led to Venezuela, and down into the South American continent. They even had a race point named Barcelona on the mainland!

In the 21years that I have known Paul Fauconnier I have seen his lofts grow from a up-two down garden loft, into the palatial twenty sectioned pigeon paradise that he has now. Literally tens of thousands of pounds have been expended, ad every known variation of pigeon aid has been incorporated from time to time. Baths on wheels are but a bagatelle, de-gaussing wires stapled into the loft walls floor to ceiling, infra-red arrival warning traps and lighting systems around the grounds, his multi-tranporter for training tosses, a permanent always on duty loftman, radiators, telephones, you name it, he has it installed, and he has spent hundreds of thousands of pounds purchasing the finest pigeons in the land, and then given them away when others have taken his fancy.

When Paul decided to race he simply slaughtered the opposition, then because it took to much of his time he simply stopped bothering any more. I cannot think of any loft in the country that could surpass his for quality of the environment or the quality of the birds now, and it is a terrible tragedy that the illness that has been dodged him for years has finally been diagnosed, too late, when both his kidneys failed, leaving him every other day on dialysis machine in order to survive.

From the circular lofts of Harry Nicholls in Newmarket in Suffolk, to the battlements of old forts in Belgium. From farmhouses in Germany to palm huts in Malaysia, bamboo sheds in China to the wire pens of the West Indies, from the palaces of the aces to the orange boxes on backyard walls, I have seen all sorts of lofts that have beaten the best. They come in all shapes and sizes, like the pigeons they house, and every mans idea of a dream loft is every other mans anathema. For me there is no perfect loft, only perfect pigeons!

Small nestboxes are small kingdoms, pigeon kingdoms that is, and the birds that inhabit them will fight their way home across thousands of miles, any terrain, weather or gamut of dangers if they love them enough.

Pigeons are uneasy when they live in a loft that moves, and you are far more likely to experience a flyaway if your loft rattles and rolls than if it doesnt. Confidence, in everything, is the strongest motivation in a pigeons brain. The lack of it is the shortest route to their absence than anything I know.

If you install a spare nest box in the strangest space in the loft (say above the trap) then depend on it that it will be investigated, thoroughly, by every bird in the loft. If it appeals, as being inaccessible to others, easy to defend, roomy enough for two and three with a squeeze, then depend on it someone will move in and moreover, that someone will be the cock of the walk, the one with the biggest fighting instinct of the loft. You can profit from that if you try.

If you can install a crate-loading doorway into your loft, basketting the inmates is easy. Simply load the crate into position, open the door drive in the birds, close door without crate.

De-gaussing a loft is an old belief. It simply means running a strand of copper wire round the top of the loft, then when you heave met the other end, run the strand down to earth and thoroughly bed it into the ground about three feet deep. This is said to earth the loft, and increase its magnetic radiation several-fold. As an old wives tale it has its many believers who will swear by its efficacy.

My own loft is so de-gaussed. In 1990 when only 560+ YBs made it home from the 9,600 sent to the Sartilly YB National, I had five out of nine sent. Only 14 birds were clocked in my Section. In the 1991 NFC Nantes debacle, when it rained solidly from 0600 hrs till 1800 hrs in this part of the country, I sent two yearlings and had both home on the day. National winners were lost that day too. With National percentages averaging 6% I had 55% and 100% back, so maybe theres something in the idea of degaussing the loft.

My lofts have electricity built in. Lights, power sockets, infra-red lamps for squeakers in cold weather, ultra-sonic mouse/cat/rat/fox/ferret/mink/weasel shifters that they can hear but the birds cant. light dimmers, lonisers, infra-red alarms and an electric fence. It pleases me, thats why!

Build in to your loft a small section where you can store some corn, grit, nestbowls, baskets, odds and ends, and some shelves because youll need them a small cupboard with a padlock if you have children for medications, vitamins, vaccine, notebook, rings, pencils/pens, and youre well on the way to completion. Oh yes, and leave a place to sit and watch the birds, even if only a step.

I repeat what I have always maintained, that I am not qualified to teach my fellow fancier about pigeons, and do not set out to preach, instruct or tell others what they ought to do. Only that I do things this way or that, for this reason or that, and that the reader only buys this book because he is curious t discover for himself what I do and why I do it, or even in bygone days, what I did and why I did it!

The object of the exercise is, of course, pigeons so lets talk about pigeons.

They come in al shapes and colours, and some of their shapes and colours would surprise many a racing pigeon fancier who may never have seen the diversity of Fancy pigeons that exist in hutches and aviaries the world wide.

There are more varieties of pigeon than even the most astute of fanciers realises, for many wild birds are a part of the family Columbae, but for this volume at least, we shall have to be content with just one variety, Columba Livia, the modern racing pigeon.

Our sport has a long pedigree. It is noted in history, over 3,000 years ago, that pigeons homing pigeons were used as carriers of messages in Roman, and pre Roman times.

Even the stories of the Bible portray the Dove returning to the Ark, bringing with it a sign that it had reached land, the red clay of the mountain on which it had set its feet before returning, and as long ago as those early records that make up our Bible today, pigeons homed.

Our racers are descended from some of the Fancy breeds, and it is not surprising that some of the characteristics of the forbears of our modern racers can still be seen, in Topknots or as the Dutch call them Kuifs the inverted feathers that adorn the heads of one of our longest distance racing breeds today, Frills again inverted feathers on the breasts of some families, go a long, long way back into history to the Fancy family they originated on.

The white eyes are typical of the Cumulet, the Tipplet, the Smerle - even the Roller - that once helped form the foundations of our racers, many decades ago, and in families of racers like Mike Youngs of Tisbury, the odd colours Chocolates - pf breeds forgotten can still be seen.

Feathered legs are popularly supposed to indicate that the bird is descended from the famous Belgian Gits family, but many, many feathered legged birds were used by many, many fanciers - and the trait still survives today. If memory serves me right I believe Jack Adams famous Adams Boy which won the NFC Pau Grand National, had well feathered legs, and doubtless Jack would be the last to insist that there was any Gits in his ancestry.

Pigeon racing, and racing pigeons, as we know it today, was formed for the most part in the early eighteen hundreds when almost spontaneously it sprang into favour in Europe, in Germany, Belgium, Holland and England, when businessmen saw it first as a means of conveying messages, then as a sporting pastime.

As someone discovered that crossing in such and such a breed increased the speed, another would find that another family could navigate further, and so the inbreeding and crossing multiplied until what we now recognise as a racing pigeon was clearly identifiable from the middle of the nineteenth century.

Some families today all carry the white eye, others are red, while still others sport the yellow iris. It seems to make little difference to their ability, since sprinters and long distance birds can be found with every colour of eye. The same applies to plumage colouring, and no one colour dominates over any other, except when left to nature when the dark chequer colour will eventually take over.

For our part, as pigeon fanciers, we shall ignore all but the racer we all assiduously cultivate, which brings us to families of racing pigeons.

There are two sorts of racing pigeon, those which will quickly navigate their way home, and those which seem to do so by accident.

By cultivation we can increase the number in a family that will navigate well, but there will always be those that make it a hit-or-miss event more often than not.

Just as no Derby winning racehorse, when mated to an Oaks winning Mare, has never bred a Derby winner, so too is the uncertainty in breeding racing pigeons. The best, paired to the best, always has and doubtless always will be, the finest method of raising further champion racers, but there is nothing certain about the production of winners.

Budding pigeon fanciers in modern times have their task made much easier than in the days when the writer took up pigeon racing (pre-World War 11), for in my young days we had no Massarella to spend his millions on buying up the best available, and in making them freely available to the rest of the pigeon fancy.

Whilst it has to be conceded he does so for profit, there is no harm in running a business, for commerce is what oils the wheels of the world. From the business that Massarella started have flowed many others, and where once a racing pigeon winning half a dozen races was a rarity, birds whose wins now number in excess of a score of 1st prizes are now legion.

Not all the dealers, or breeders, of racing pigeons for sale are honest men though, nor

are they all even possessed of decent racing stock. There are a few who purchase, or obtain - since they do not always pay for their acquisitions I hear - anything vaguely related to some winners, and who breed prolific numbers in the hope - sometimes realised - of producing a winner from them, then the tub is thumped loud and long!

Caveat Emptor! Has long been the cry of pigeon breeders, Let the buyer beware - for there is little less sure than the adage that a fool and his money are soon parted.

Those fanciers who produced good, reliable racing families, had their families named after them. These families are what we call strains nothing more, nothing less.

Pigeons can find their way home because they are traitorous creatures. This means that Nature ordained that they should feed on seeds, grass seeds, corn, pulses (peas, beans, tares) nuts of every description - if they can open them, like beech mast or acorns, and sundry other items.

Because grain doesnt fly into the home area of pigeon, like flies and moths do for insectivorous creatures, the pigeon has to go out and forage for them. Nature saw it that the bird was possessed of a crop, for if it tired to bring home one grain at a time, it would not be long before the bird was extinct. The crop permits the bird to fill it with grain, thus bringing home a decent feed for either itself, or its young, which it feeds by regurgitation.

To go out and fill the crop, further and further from home once all the grain near home has been consumed, means that the birds needs to have a homing instinct, the ability to navigate and find its way back from foraging expeditions. It was this ability that man saw and capitalised on, and by clever breeding has improved to the extent that the best of modern racing pigeons, can and do, navigate their return home from release points up to 1,000 miles from home.

What makes the sport of pigeon racing so fascinating is not that pigeons come home, but that we, the keepers of pigeons, can make them come home faster than they would normally do, by dint of motivation. A pigeon will not come home if it does not want to do so. The trick lies in making it want to come home as fast as its wings will carry it, over any country, any distance, through known dangers, over seas, deserts, mountains, just so long as it gets home.

The man who not only remembers this most vital fact, but who enhances it by every artifice within his power, is the man who succeeds beyond all others. The path to fame is littered with impoverished corpses of men who thought otherwise!

Scientists have proved - I think - that pigeons use a number of clues to find their home location. That most commonly used is believed to be solar navigation, and it is made possible by the pigeons biological clock by which it knows the exact time of day at any given moment, and - from use - it knows where the sun is, or should be, at that given moment in time. If the bird is taken away and released, it looks at the sun, and calculates from its position - and comparison with where it knows the sun should be - where it now is. It then flies in a direction which will restore it to its proper location.

Another school of thought states that the bird uses the earths magnetic fields, to return to the location it knows as home. What is unarguable is that the pigeon has in its brain a tiny magnetised area, as has the Bee and certain migratory varieties of fish, like salmon, and it is believed to use it like a magnetic needle in a compass to locate the direction of home.

There is yet another long held theory among fanciers, that the pigeon loft, or home location, itself emits a radiation that the pigeon can detect, and that the bird mearly flies along the beam of radiation towards home, in the same way that a moth will fly towards the light at night.

For many years fanciers held - indeed many still hold - the belief that if the home location (the loft) is degaussed by encircling it with cooper or other conductive metal boundary, they thereby strengthen and fortify the radiation, and make it easier for the birds resident there to locate their path home to it, even in conditions of increased solar radiation as are experienced in electric storms or a weakened Ozone layer. It is a known fact that radio amateurs amplify their signals not only with high wattage at output, but also with aerials built in such a fashion that they intensify the strength of the outgoing, and incoming signals by coning the signal along a fenced aerial, like the present day TV aerial, known as a Yagi. The loft that builds a metal boundary, or two, is thus copying this Yagi system of amplifying the homing signal or beam.

Experiments also seem to conclude that both infrasound and scent is used in locating home, though only in fairly local cases.

Just as careful and controlled breeding has improved the navigational ability of the pigeon, so too has it improved the speed at which the bird can fly. Fast pigeons, paired to faster pigeons, breed yet faster still pigeons eventually and over many years the basic speed of the present day racer is now, in still air, a shade over 45mph, which no native breed of pigeon can match. Under controlled race conditions, pigeons have been recorded at speeds up to 97mph, and the present world record is for birds timed over a 350 mls course in a little over 3 Â½ hours!

The longest distance flown on one day by a racing pigeon, is the 751 miles from Lulea to Malmo, in Sweden, when birds released above the Arctic Circle at Lulea at 0100 hrs, in the Midnight Sun Derby were recorded home in Malmo, 751 miles to the south, seventeen hours later, having flown the entire course at an average speed of 44mph. in Gt Britain distances of over 723 miles have been flown on the day, by pigeons flying home from Nantes in western France to Fraserburgh in Scotland. Released at 0600 hrs in the morning the birds have been timed in their lofts before 10.00 at night.

As in all creatures, the speed of the racing pigeon is governed by its conformation. As the conformation changes so too does the performance. No-one would expect to see a fat little man winning sprint races, or high jumps, but the lean, sinewy types do. They are in short made for the job.

So too are pigeons in some cases made for speed. A structural change has considerably altered the flying speed of pigeons, and if the reader ever has the opportunity to visit a Butchers, Poulterers and Game dealers premesis, he can check for himself the shapes of wings of Pheasant, Ducks, pigeons and other birds, and see how the basic shape changes with the known flying performances of each differing bird.

The broad secondary feathers of the Pheasant and chicken, enable it to rise rapidly, almost straight up, to seek out a perch to roost, but the short primary feathers lack the forward drive impulsion required of a bird of passage. Conversely, the wing of the Swift is such that the bird can and does remain in flight with minimum effort, for days, weeks, months, even years without touching down.

The soaring wing of the Albatross is constructed to extract every vestige of kinetic energy from its airspeed, and at the end of its forward, downwind, diving glide, it uses that kinetic energy to return to its forward tract again, by lifting the bird sharply upwind to an elevation from which it can resume the downward glide. The length along the wing area covered by secondary feathers is incredible, compared pro rata to that of the Swallow, or racing pigeon. That downwind glide is also used across the wind, so the bird can move without flapping in three totally different directions, and, by using different angles of attack by the wing against the wind, can remain in the same area even in wind strengths of near gale force if it so chooses.

A bird flies by moving through the air. If it has no wind to use, it creates its own windspeed, by flapping, or as described in the case of the Albatross, Fulmar, etc, by gliding. It does not swim through the air by pushing with its feathers, as a swimmer pushes through the water, but pulls itself along as a rower in a boat, and uses differing sets of feathers in differing manoeuvres for different purposes.

With its secondary feathers it maintains lift i.e. it stays up in the air, because the curvature of these feathers creates an aerofoil, the formation of which causes the air passing over the wing to flow faster than the air underneath it, thus creating lift since the air underneath tries to fill the impending vacuum.

With the primaries it creates and maintains forward speed, by moving the wing forward and down, which bends the primaries back at the ends, which shapes the wing into a propeller which actually pulls the bird forward through the air, not pushing it as thought for many years.

The upstroke of the wing is a recovery stroke, it opens slots between feathers in the wing like a Venetian blind, and rotates the wing at the shoulder which increases the angle of attack, thus creating lift, and again the primaries are bent back, making each individual feather into a small propeller. The ends of wingtips, seen from the end of the wing, actually perform a figure 8 movement, and the wing drives the bird forward on the upstroke too.

The feathers, primary and secondary, on a pheasant for example, are strongly arched for maximum lift, whereas the feathers on a racing pigeon, are required for speed, and much flatter in cross section and length.

Opening and closing the wing, i.e the upstrokes and downstrokes, are controlled by the large muscles that run alongside the breastbone. By pulling, via tendons, the wing from upper or lower direction, they lift or close the wing, using a rope and pulley action. The supracoracoideus muscles and tendon runs up and over the scapula, and the location of the scapula dictates the flying endurance of the bird.

I discovered, some 35 years ago quite by accident that pigeons that had succeeded in winning races of a long and arduous nature had differently shaped skeletal constructions to ordinary pigeons.

To disgress for a moment, I was actually in the garden of the late and great Ron Mitchesion, at 32 Stoney Lane, in Winchester in the summer of 1955, listening to the great man expounding on the attributes of Linseed which I used to obtain easily because I worked in stables then, rearing bloodstock, and which Ron found wellnigh impossible to get hold of. I used to bring him some and he used to repay me with good sound pigeon knowledge, and young birds which bred me no end of very useful pigeons over the years.

Ron was holding fourth on the quality of feather, and he handed me a red cock, son of his famed red hen that won the British Homing Worlds Spitfire Trophy for her achievement of flying Lerwick, 642 miles, on the day to Winchester. I was suddenly transfixed by the very considerable difference between this red pigeon, and the pair of handsome Blues that I had handled only moments before. They were two birds that had been presented to Ron by Mark Finestone, of Shepperton, and were bred off the German Bachs pigeons that Mark had imported just after the war had ended.

I immediately asked Ron if he had another pigeon, either bred off the red hen, or that had won from 500/600 miles, for I absolutely convinced that the attribute I had noticed in the Red was a sign of its long distance ability.

Ron looked at me perplexed, I had interrupted his discourse, and he wasnt used being interrupted. He had volatile, shortfused temper and did not mince words.

He asked in very blunt terms whether I was interested in learning or not, and I answered yes, but on Linseed he was preaching to the converted, for I used it daily to condition my show horses for the ring.

He said not another word, but went into his stock loft and brought out two birds, a Red and a B Cheq WF. Both had won over 550 miles, and both had the same physical, skeletal characteristic that I had noticed in the Red he had showed me moments before. I started shaking with excitement. I was sure that I had found something very important, and crucially connected with successful long distance racing pigeons. I was not to know then that it was indeed the answer, the absolute secret of selection, that would dictate my selection of pigeons from then on and for the rest of my life.

Hardly a minute later I handed him the birds back, spluttered some excuse, and raced out of the gate, jumped onto my BSA B31 motorcycle and sped off, to North Baddesley, between Southampton and Romsey, where resided the Maestro Vic Robinson.

Vic had won the Pau Grand National that year, with a beautiful Blue Cheq Pied Hen named Mademoiselle and in fact she had been 2nd Open the previous year from the same race.

I barged into the garden, leathers flapping, and ignoring the large Alsation Vic kept and which started right in chewing my boots off my feet. Vic listened to my request to be permitted to handle Mademoiselle and her sisters, Scottie, Spotty and Fraulein and they hadnt changed, so why the fuss now?

I spluttered out that Id discovered something terribly important, I thought, and I wanted to be sure. Perhaps because I still had vestige or two of my native Scots accent in those days, and Vic was an exiled Scot, himself, he reached in and handed me each of the four hens in turn.

They all had the same characteristic, the shoulder that was different to all the rest Id handled, and I knew I had found the answer to selection of long distance racing pigeons.

If you will take up a pigeon in the usual manner, i.e. with the bird held in your left hand, facing you, legs dangling between your third and fourth fingers of your left hand, and then place the thumb over the birds back for security, and then place the thumb of your right hand on to the birds (right, facing you) shoulder, from the front, so that the right hand side of your thumb is above, exactly parallel to, the right hand side of the birds folded wing, you will be able to feel the small knuckle of the bone that marks the union of the Humerus and the scapula. (See figure 1).

In most cases, this knuckle of the bone will fall under the centre of the ball of your thumb. You do not have to go feeling round for it, it is there. The location of your thumb is essential in that the right hand side of it must be exactly parallel to, directly above, the right hand side of the birds folded wing. Pardon me for repeating this fact, but it is most important.

If the knuckle is to the right of the centre of the ball of your thumb, that bird cannot and will not fly successfully in races over 500 or more miles. If it is to the left of the centre of your thumb, the bird has the ability to fly longer than 8/10 hours at a stretch, and the further left that knuckle lies, the longer flying endurance your pigeon will have. Further, it is also an indication of potential speed in the pigeon, and is my first pre-requisite in selection of pigeons for stock, for racing at any distance, and for selection for races over 500and more miles. The reasons are as follows: When the pigeon is flying, as I have explained above it has to open (lift) and close the wing, to propel itself along. If the scapula is long (so that the knuckle lies right of the centre of the ball of your thumb) then the rope and pulley action preformed by the tendon is one of the long travel. This creates heat, fatigue, eventually pain, and then it the bird attempts to continue flying collapse of the muscular and nervous systems.

If the scapula is short, then there is nowhere near as much distance travelled by the rope and pulley tendon, thus correspondingly less heat, fatigue, and pain. The bird can and will if fit and motivated continue flying after all others have stopped, because it is able to do so.

In the 37 years since I discovered this simple physiological fact, I have never handled a pigeon that has won, or even flown in good time, over 500+ miles if it had a long shoulder. Every bird that I have handled that has flown in excess of 600 miles has the short shoulder in very marked fashion. With the birds that have won from Barcelona one has literally to go searching for the knuckle, it is so far to the left of the normal, or usual position.

I explained this system to Denis Belding some several years ago, when he kindly stewarded for me at the Old Comrades Show where I had been invited to judge, He was so excited by that he later asked his clubmates at Northolt to assist him, by fielding some 47 birds in a show, with the view to his finding if he could the Thurso winner.

He selected a Red Hen that had a deformed leg, it having According to Bilcos theory, is the thurso winner. Now tell me, am I right or wrong? The owner of the hen smiled, and told him that she was indeed the winner of the 1st Fed Thurso that year. He had found the winner! The birds he placed 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc were 1st Stonehaven winner, the 1st Berwick winner, and other flown Thurso birds.

D.V. Belding is now like almost everyone else who has mastered the system of selection, convinced that I am right. I have hundreds of letters from fanciers who have tried the system of selection and proved it 100% correct in selecting birds to win, to breed winners and to fly the distance. I have selected blindfolded long distance winners galore, and have never yet lost a wager when I have selected in advance the order of arrival home of birds from long distance races.

With considerable pride I have had fanciers of the calibre of Willy Clerebaut, winner of twelve 1sts in National races in Belgium, right up to and including Barcelona where he won 1st International (Hens) 15th Open International in 1970, pat me on the shoulder and say Youre right, it works. In 1973 I asked Henri Van Neste why on earth he stopped his birds at the halfway stage, when to my certain knowledge they had the ability to fly Barcelona with success. Henri smiled and told me his birds were sprinters only, so I pointed out my theory and asked him to try Barcelona and prove me wrong, if he could.

He agreed, so I selected a Blue cock named Gros Patte and after he had finished his season by winning 165th Open National Chateauroux, Henri handed the bird to me for my action. I paired the bird (he was a widower) and gave him a toss at Ostende and another a week later at Liege. Then he went to Barcelona.

The bird arrived home at 5 p.m after Henri had departed for the club with his clocks, believing him incapable of returning, and when he returned three hours later, was timed to win 285th Open International.

Nowadays the world knows the prowess and ability of this Belgian Gentleman at all distances, he even won the European Cup in 1991, and I am delighted to have been of some little service to him in pointing out the key to success. So far his best performance from Barcelona is 4th National, 10th International. Hell better that yet!

I am not the only fancier to have discovered this secret nor was I the first. I have evidence that others have known of it before me. Unlike me though, the others have kept it secret!

Another visible indication of speed in racing pigeon, is the arrangement of the primary flights when the bird is at rest. The pigeon with a slightly longer wrist folds the wing when at rest, in exactly the same manner as every other pigeon, but because the wrist is slightly longer, the wing, when closed, show the longer primary flights laying across the direction of the smaller primaries, and thus presents a picture to the beholder of crossed flights, i.e. that the shorter primaries actually cross the longer ones.

This longer wrist, when opened, spans an extra inch further forward, and when it shuts, drives the bird that slightly further distance forward, only a fraction, but those fractions add up. At the end of several miles, or hours, the pigeon has gained on its companions if it is minded, or has been taught, to leave them. Look at the posed photographs of so many champion racers and note how many of them show those crossed flights. It may surprise you!

Among the many and diverse types that race pigeons, there are those who are not satisfied to win races. They have to embellish their wins, and add to them, detail that is not correct, either to make their achievements appear greater, or for the purpose of fraud. Claims that a pigeon had won over Â£40,000 were made not long ago, but having access to the racing records of the bird concerned I was able to prove that the claim was totally false.

When the owner of this bird wrote to me asking why I attacked his name, I asked him to write a letter stating that the claims made for his bird were true. He declined to make any such statement! When I asked his pigeon Union to obtain such a statement from him, or a denial of it, they demanded his presence before a board of inquiry . he promptly denied having made any such claims, and stated that others had been responsible for making the claims, not him! Yet when these claims had been made, by others, he had made no effort to deny them!

In recent years, attempts have been made to cash in on the reputations of crack fliers, notably the Janssen Brothers of Arendonck. A fancier living not far from the Janssen Bros obtained several birds in the Antwerp street market, with ring numbers not far removed from the series issued by the Janssen Bros region. They then had rubber stamps made, closely resembling that of the Janssen Bros own, and sold several pigeons with the ring cards stamped, purpoting to having been bred by the Janssen Bros.

The ringleaders of this swindle got away with several thousand pounds. The Belgian fancier concerned in the swindle swore that he knew nothing about it at all, and without any evidence, other than the statements made by the British fanciers who had been swindled, he got away with it. The other swindlers involved were never brought to justice, though their identities were known. The Janssen Brothers were entirely innocent of any complicity in this affair.

Much of the credit for breaking up the rackets in importing and selling large drafts of cheap continental pigeons, is due to Massarella, who by virtue of breeding and selling hundreds of well bred racers for very reasonable prices literally made it uneconomic for the importers to continue!

Many very good birds were imported from the continent and sold by auction in this country, but so too was an awful lot of dross in the 80s.

When I said above that motivation of a fit pigeon was that won races, that was the best half of the story. There are of course other means of winning, by using artificial means of speeding the pigeon.

Years ago this was done causing least harm by adding three drops of Sal Volatile to the drinker which had previously been removed from the loft for the morning of basketing day, and returned just before the birds were removed to the clubhouse for race marking. Sal Volatike is a stimulant, and a heart tonic. Fainting ladies used to carry a small phial of Sal Volatile crystals in their purses years ago, and one sniff would restore the senses to any fainting lady pretty smartly.

The other fanciers, Chemists usually and Belgium had no shortage of successful Chemists in its semi-professional ranks who used Arsenic or other stimulants to win large sums of money. They also killed off a number of good pigeons too, but that mattered little to the heartless types using this stimulant.

Caffeine played a large part for many years, and two baked coffee beans given to a bird on basketing will add to its speed, if fit, but ten will kill it.

Like so many other things in life, moderation is the thing. Kola had its day, then came to the modern craze of using Steroids which certainly added to the speed of the racers, and usually marked the birds with massive frets as a legacy. It killed many of them too.

By far the best stimulant is Vitamin C and a level teaspoon of fresh Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C powder) in a drinker twice a week does wonders. It promotes in the birds metabolic system an acutely sharpened intake of nutrients, particularly iron, and adds measurably to the birds own natural defences against ailments, with the added bonus of increasing the systems waste disposal action which shifts poisons out of the body.

Then theres the stimulant Mother Nature provided, the attraction of the opposite sexes, and more races have been won, and will be won, by this source of motivation than any other. Marry these latter two stimulants together and good pigeons will become very good. They have added attraction of both being entirely natural aids.

Many years ago I discovered that an extraordinary number of animals suffered a chronic shortage of Magnesium. Vets call this state Hypermagnaesemia, and it affects almost all living land animals and birds to a certain degree sooner or later in their life3 cycle. Usually it is not enough to cause more than an attack of temporary weakness, except in nursing mothers shortly after parturition, when a collapse of the muscular nervous system is experienced. This is caused Im told, by the parent dumping most of its own precious store of Magnesium into its milk supply, for its newborn young.

Cattle suffer predominately from this action, but it is quite common in other species with mammary (milk) glands. Pigeons are frequently affected, but the degree of affectation goes unnoticed, or at least undiagnosed, by most fanciers. The difference in affected birds after receiving a couple of + 50mg Magnesium tablets is most marked, and prisoner stock birds are often most affected. YBs in the nest show a marked improvement if dosed with one such tablet a week in the fast growing stage. However, I shall discuss this problem in greater detail later on, in the chapter concerning ailments.

A number of older fanciers occasionally write to newspapers, bemoaning that pigeons never needed all these pills when they were lads. The same fanciers moan that the old hands and bright boys never let their secrets out in the open, and that they had to learn the hard way!

Where, I wonder, is the sense in telling people like these what the secrets are, having learned them the really hard way, by paying for such knowledge, with either cash or expensive experiment or book learning. I worked for many years in bloodstock breeding, and learned many veterinary secrets that I put to good use with my pigeons. Give me one good reason why I should give away my hard earned knowledge for nothing.

You cant think of one good reason? Neither can I.

I prefer to part with my learning for some reward.

Years ago I learned how to catch Bass, a very tasty relative of the Salmon. It is fish with a steel blue upper and silver whit belly, possessed of more brains and cunning that any half a dozen other fish combined. I watched a man catch 12 of them in a row, while I flogged the sea for hours side by side with him, and caught nothing. I eventually gave up in disgust, and watched him, closely, and eventually spotted that where I had been using tasty ragworms and lugworms, he was using a silver of white parchment paper, about tow inches long, a quarter of an inch wide, tapering to nothing at the tail. He spun it through the water like a little fish dodging this way and that, trying to escape. He caught fish, I didnt.

I begged a piece of parchment from him, and copied his manner of using it, and instantly caught a Bass weighing 2 lbs. since then I have caught hundreds.

Knowledge is the key.

On another occasion I watched a man hauling in large Plaice, one after another, while we several others caught nothing.

I watched, I looked, and learned that he was using Mussels which he tied on to his hook with a thread of finest silk from an old stocking top. Since then I have caught plaice running into very large figures, over the existing rod caught record in fact I learned the record weight after Id eaten my catch!

Nothing to do with pigeons? I know, but learning is, and learning, either wit ha fishing rod in hand or a bird in the sky, is valuable currency.

If I want to catch a fish I do not offer a gold watch or bracelet on the hook. Nor do I profer a large fat strawberry. I like gold watches, I like strawberries, but the fish dont. they like worms, or mussels, or little fishes. So I offer them what they like, and I catch them.

Pigeons are the same, if you offer them the sort of inducements you like, they ar every prone to giving you the bird, metaphorically speaking, but if clever lad you offer them something they like, then they will hurry home like billy-ho and you win the race! Which brings us round to motivation. The finest racers in the world are useless, if they wont race, and it is your task to make them do so, willingly.

For years I regarded eyesign as eyewash. I had bird with such a thick black circle round its pupil, I thought I had the National winner. It turned out to be rubbish, both at racing and breeding, and after three years careful trial and failure, it fed the roses.

Quite recently I met Bill Carney (1985) and he impressed me with his talk on eyesign. His publicity too was impressive. I thought about it, but that was all.

Then in 1991 I met Brian Vickers. He came to my loft in company with Doug McCalry, and within seconds of handling my birds in the order I handed them to them, he gave me a precise and absolutely accurate rundown on each birds performance and ability, both as racer and breeder. I told him nothing, he told me, and he didnt make a single mistake. Obviously there is something in the study of eyesign, and equally obviously the man who knows what it is has an advantage over the man who doesnt.

My own system of selection of long distant birds shows which ones have the capability of flying for extremely long hours, and endurance characteristic. Eyesign shows, I think, which ones will do so, if they physically can.

Felix Gigot, S.W.E. Bishop, Bill Carney, Brian Vickers, and others, have, I think, recognised a facet of the racing pigeons make up of that is a pointer, just as my own little secret of selection is, and without these pointers the task of picking out the probables from the possibles is immeasurably harder.

Pages 12-35

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Bill Cowell

Bilco's Bulletin

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