jimmy white

has anyone seen a pmv epidemic in feral pigeons ??

many very interesting veiws, but on the above quote, which to a certain extent in my opinion is true,, but for the fact ,,,that a darkness yb fully feathered will beat a natural yb heavy in the moult , but the natural yb heavy in the moult , really should not go to a race,,, but could proove a far better bird in the future than the darkness yb winning the race :-/i.e a fully feathered pigeon will fly faster than a non fully feathered pigeon , but to me wouldnt tell me which one was the best pigeon,,,or capable of becomming the best pigeon. but going back to the original post ,, why are most fanciers breeding more y,birds only to lose more y,birds ?? why have the losses in the main, have worsened each year,?,, steadily getting worse each year,, even a bad pigeon should home from these first short races or at worst come the next day,,, we dont seem to even get that now,, what can be the reason that so many yb,s are lost ,never to be seen again i,e,, still have loft book 1958 started with 9 yb,s at the first toss,, flew to , yb national ,,,then it was 300 miles ended up with 7 , the velocities were the same as todays [we certainly had better summers ;D] but at this time,, this was of the norm , if " mob"fliers then [racing 50 say] would shock everyone when saying "ive dropped 5 today" then the likelyhood would be that 3 returned sunday, this just doesnt happen these days ,,,i would like just like to know why ???

absolutely lovely, interesting clips both for fanciers and more importantly non fanciers ,,, really well done

if a very young bird would say a cock,, sometimes these whitea are hard to tell [no pun indended ;D] whether a cock or a hen ,,he or she , wont be long in letting uou know ;D good luck

well done vinnie and young sam,,

who sponsors the website , taylors loft has put on,, !!!!! could be a good thing for the uk [think bernie, will make sure of that]

it might be the case tat the s h u were not given the phone number,, maybe worth checking

max and speck

max and young mike [wee gangster]

max

max

very sad to inform the members who new max my parrot , that he passed away at approx 7pm last night,, max has been my mate for about 30 years [allthough reckoned to be over 60 years old] hes been part of me and my house as i live alone , he has cerainly been with me through thick and thin,,, max free flew until recently and allways greeted the neighbours and visitors with a loud " hello" very well known in the neighbour hood mainly due to his dancing to the music ,,, bbc 3 were going to put him on their series in spring namely animal e,r, sadly that, now will no longer be the case, he would whistle the popeye tune , also wolf whistle at the young girls passing , his reparture was fascinating , in saying good bye to my best freind [as i obviously feel it] ive been up all night unable to sleep, if you dont mind id like to put some pics on of the old man , whom ill never forget,,,jimmy

allthough i agree with most you have said [being of the old school myself ;D] i think its a little unfair to blame convoyers for yb losses , as the race controllers are really the ones in charge , but , again , convoyers are only human,and can make a mistake ,,,,,,,,, but to the thousands of yb,s lost each year in recent years , i honestly think theres a lot more to it,, my main concern is now growing to the side of immunity , with all the modern day treatments methods etc, as i have said in previous threads , were now breeding pigeons pf a poor costitution , with little inbred immunity,,,,,,,,,,,,i would wonder ,if by allowing their immunity to grow, along with the pigeon , say to the yearling stage by training [if you preferred] privately, as yb,s ,,,not just simply throwing away many a good prospect pigeons ,by the thousands !! in packed transporters only to find the number has dropped by half after the 4th race or so,, then the out come of this, is blame , then blame causes split ups of clubs , then the members are few , the old birds are few,,whether we like it or not , and for whatever reason pigeon racing is going downhill fast ,, is it now we should at least be thinking of some re-vamping of the pigeon game , god allmighty when any national can resort to sending jusy over 100 birds against sending 7,000 birds some years ago , this to me is ludicrous [and this is not meant to be political, just plain common sense] in my opinion we need to look at these yb losses first,, find out how where why and what , as im sure there could be many reasons,,find some way to re-vamp these yb races to cut down losses , as with less yb,s [after breeding more] we obviosly will have less old birds,where, if we leave things standing as they are , the very same expansion of losses will continue and in fact carry on getting worse,, maybe need vic on the case but im sure vic would agree its becomming no joke, in fact a farce

looking at adverts continualy will cost you money,,, looking at methods may,,,just may, earn you some ;D ;D ;D

must say i agree lennut ;D ;D sometimes its not the outside of the bird that counts,,,,,its the inside ;D ;D ;D at least were in a class of our own,,,,,,,or more honest than most ;D ;D ;D

rats are never very far away , and bad for disease ,both for the pigeons and yourself , allthough a rather serious topic, it can be a serious problem,,, grain left out,, any food at all for the wild birds will attract rats , rats will actually kill the pigeons , to eat the contents of their crop.where i live , more or less in the country have poison allways down [out of harms way, except to the rats] also traps set ,i also have allways kept ferrets most of my life ,,, anyone seeing rats near your loft will automatically blame the pigeons , which is not neccessary true, i will enclose a very contravertial picture, of which i have a few,, any neighbours blaming my pigeons are shown these ,,,,,and explained "im doing my bit,,are you doing yours? by leaving nothing edible out over night for the wild birds etc

my farher would give them burnt toast , it never did the birds harm,,,,,he reckoned the charcoal was good for their innards

yes , i completely beleive you need the tools for the job ;D but sometimes a master craftsman can work his tools better ;D ;D ;D good luck to you and once more ,,,well done

i wish they were ;D ;D ;D,,,,,, but really great performances

i think you could well be right old yellow

looks as you have did a great job birdlady, , you might have found that "honey" would have probably stayed with you, but being frightened by the presence of a nearby hawk would naturaly have made quick get away , and headed to the only place it new of safety , which in this case would be its old loft ,,,,,,,,mind you i think" honey" would have been safer for your fingers than the hawk probably all happened for the best ,, as the hawk , sadly, would have killed the pigeon

i had allways been an advocate of this also,, untill i heard of a fancier who didnt race yb,s only trained them up to 50 miles , the folowing year this fancier " cleaned up" and did do for some years , so in following this up i trained half my yb,s to 100 mile stage [well trained and singled up]] sent the rest on to the yb nat, about 280 miles roughly, i was obviously left with less yb,s after the yb nat,, but the following year found these birds that went to the 100 mile stage and were singled up [when ready off course] flew much better

hi tango kid very basicly these "systems" are,,,,,, [1]" widowhood system" ,,,where the fancier just races the cock birds ,, these birds learn that their hen is awaiting on him on arrival from a race. [2]" roundabout system",, where the fancier races both cocks and hens ,kept seperated but put together b4 going to the race , [3]" basket training " can mean getting the birds used to the basket i,e, learning them to eat and drink from within the basket may just add ,, that sometimes basket training can be confused with" tossing " which is taking them ,by basket to a training point some miles away, then released to fly home,, hope this helps

easy mistake shotgun if its of any interest , it would be off the alf baker strain , alf who bred many silvers, reckoned that the silvers were the breeders ,,,,,,,,",workman" was a blue pied bred by alf baker , raced by another fancier , being a big winner.

hope your not calling mean old dog ;D ;D ;D no i completely agree with you ,, most of these very early breds are in fact , really late late latebreds of the previous year being rung asap in the currant year ,, these birds are in fact just like late breds ,,, and go down ten a penny ,, like you , i beleave a youngsters should be trained in fact from birth,, i,e in first normal flying then ranging then basket trained then tossed at approx10 weeks old,, i think the situation may be slightly different in scotland [as i think you have more races down your way] i think what im trying to say is up her as far as club races inland are concerned in the whole season we have approx [normally] 17 races , whereas this way ive said we would have 20 races plus any specialist races ,,,,thousands of yb,s are thrown away, with each year getting worse,, ,, these will never be on the transporter again , whereas this way the normal club racer would have more birds ,transporters would be more regular birdage wise,, and any club racer would have an extra three races ,,plus his specialist races if he so wished ,,,,,but i agree entirely what you say in these early bred yb,s ,,its like trying to potty train a 40 yearold man [my age ;D] [dont even try and answer the "potty" one ;D ;D ;D]