Old British Breeds

June 8, 2015

Nice suprise for me on Friday just gone Durham Combine had a hard race from Queens Cup Roye 390 miles on what we though would be an easy day. Had three yearlings on for the experience turned out a harder day than we all expected with it being a two day race in the club. 1st and 2nd club were on about the 1820 mark we libbed at 0915 in the morning. I was a bit down in the dumps as none of my yearlings back until found out looked like a smash with lots of experienced channel pigeons lost.

Anyway at 1956 my little mealy yearling hen dropped after 11 hours on the wing fresh as paint with clean feet so don't think she has been down and she come out of the west where the drag of pigeons would have been netting me 3rd club. The last club position was taken at 0520 the next day and there were still rakes of pigeons missing then and still are. I have been lucky and have got my remaining two yearlings back.

This hen is a Tom Gilbertson x Kirkpatrick x kavannagh busschaert so was nice to chalk with some old distance blood rather than all the modern stuff. She also had a hard arras two weeks previous when she was in race time but just missed out on the chalks ending up 5th/6th club. She was on 10 hours on the wing for that race and again fresh as a daisy. Moviation was 10 day eggs for arras and for roye she was on overdue eggs so I slipped a small YB under her a hour prior to basketing.

Do the channel fliers on here think I should stop her for next year now and would she do bourges 530 miles to me?

Also any memebers down south what was the weather like or Friday as a lot of missing birds but condiditions were great up here.

Anybody else on here having much success at channel with older strains of pigeons do they think they are more tougher than the modern birds we have?

showman · June 8, 2015

Definitely stop her for next year. My thinking would be to allow a bit more time for her to gain a little more maturity. As a yearling she's performed really well. Patient men know how to 'race' a pigeon, any fool can throw them away. OMO.

dal2 · June 8, 2015

I have a shed full of Tom Gilbertson Kirkpatrick. They perform well at the channel 590+ the hard thing is getting them to that stage so I would be patient

eastcoaster · June 8, 2015

I have a shed full of Tom Gilbertson Kirkpatrick. They perform well at the channel 590+ the hard thing is getting them to that stage so I would be patient

I have a shed full of Tom Gilbertson Kirkpatrick. They perform well at the channel 590+ the hard thing is getting them to that stage so I would be patient

Can I have the second lot please lol