THE RACING PIGEON 26 APRIL 2024
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they were waiting for me to give them a fresh one and it stopped them from fielding immediately. Fielding can be a benefit to pigeons if they are eating good clean soil apart from the exercise they take flying to get it. A friend of mine had birds that used almost to live on a football pitch near his home picking up the worm-casts. He had his best year ever, then. Just after the war I had a caravan at Bembridge on the Isle of Wight, birds from the mainland used to be waiting regularly each morning for the tide to go out to pick among the seaweed. I have seen them pick lumps off and eat them. I bet there was not a fitter team of pigeons. But fielding today can be deadly with the amount of insecticide and fertiliser that is put down on the land. It’s not like the old farmyard manure that never harmed anyone; that’s why I now always try to stop my birds from fielding.
I have written many times how dark my nest boxes are owing to being creosoted each year. This is inclined to make the old bird loft much darker than the young bird side, which is more beneficial to old birds for rearing good young- sters. It also helps them to rest more quietly than if their loft was very light. Not so the youngsters, they need a well-ventilated loft with plenty of light, as I am convinced most flyaways happen when the eye is changing. Whilst youngsters are developing and getting stronger on the wing, the eye change in a semi-dark loft is much slower, and when let out they are very nervous, having, as I have already said, not seen the surroundings and the rotation of the sun. The slightest noise or movement will put them up, and they will be most confused when they are in the air and you will be more than fortunate to get them back. Although the changing of youngsters’ eyes differ in some families according to the depth of colour, light-eyed youngsters change much quicker than the dark eye in your family, also the healthier the youngster the quicker the change. I have never been in favour of a skylight in the roof as this does not reveal the sun’s movement and is no benefit to the youngsters and I have never seen one that is completely water-tight. Also if cats can get on top of the loft this will stop the youngsters getting the rest they require at night. Although you would not call my old loft elaborate, it gave me good service for over 35 years and I would not alter it to keep up with the Jones’s. Tea-Cup Critics One is always open to criticism no matter what sport you are successful at. There are a lot of good fanciers who have never worried about eyesign, and this
Chapter 19 Overcrowding Dangers
I remember the year I was never more pleased than when the old bird racing finished, since a bad race from Northallerton I had been scraping the barrel each week to find a team to hold my own. When you get seven very good pigeons that are finished for the year or will never fly again owing to injury through wires the odds are against you, but it has been said many times I am never more diffi- cult to beat than with only a few pigeons to concentrate on. One is inclined to get a bit slack when one has a big team and hope for the
best. I am sure most fanciers keep far too many pigeons to get the best out of the good ones, taking into account that when you first built your loft it was built to house a certain amount, and before long you have got double the amount it was intended for, and therefore the good ones are not given a chance to show how good they really are. Overcrowding is worse than a damp loft, and has been many a good fancier’s/downfall. I know of many fanciers who have 200 pigeons and always give you the excuse they have not got the time to race them, if I have not got the time to race my pigeons, I certainly would not keep that amount. Even if one had all the time in the world, even with all my years of success I could not handle that amount. I don’t keep pigeons to look at, everyone has to toe the line and give me my bit of pleasure and sport at the weekend. When I was waiting for my birds to be liberated from Fraserburgh, with a three-day holdover I began to wonder whether their keenness would hold, but I was rewarded with two good pigeons 22nd & 35th Open, 4,448 birds. My second bird was ‘Alfred the Great’ which I went to Holland to get back. He had always beaten the chequer cock 18724, whenever they met, and I am sure he would have done so again if he had not hit the wires, he was skimmed clean of all the feathers around the keel, yet he was only four minutes behind him. They said I was lucky to have had him reported from Holland, but I am sure I was more fortunate to get him from Fraserburgh, if he had hit the wires across the wing I would
coming from them is good for the sport in general. But the man who writes criticising one’s feeding, training and even eyesign when the only cup they have held is a tea- cup to me has no right to put pen to paper, as it is most confusing to the novices who don’t know how their pigeons fly. I wean off my last round of young- sters the middle of August, and wait for my birds to turn in the dummy eggs before I part them. Then I cannot wait to give the old bird loft a good clean out, especially the nest boxes, and the outside a coat of white emulsion. Speaking to a friend who won nearly every young bird race in his club the previous year, I asked him how they had flown this year, not one of them had flown the same. I don’t know how he flew them but give me the youngster that wins flying to the perch, and not the nest bowl. These you can rest assured will win not only because they are healthy pigeons, but they are born racers. I know of many fanciers who fly a good young bird, but struggle each year with the old birds, like the novice when he first comes into the sport, everything is in his favour, apart from being dead keen he has a brand new loft free from all vermin, dust and germs which lie dormant through the winter months. He also cannot get home fast enough to train them, making him almost on an even par with the old hand. He gets one or two in the first batch in the early races and begins to think the pigeon game is easy, and the next year they quite expect to do the same, but racing young birds is quite different to
NO DOUBT 1st Open London NR Combine Berwick (8,176 birds). His sire also 1st LNRC Berwick. Great grandson of Champion ‘Mick’.
never have seen him again. These have shortened the life of many a good pigeon, those that for years have been good winners, and one day you don’t see or hear of them again. Whilst writing each chapter I try not to go over the same ground, if I do you can rest assured that in my mind it’s worth mentioning again. After having a long talk with one of my good friends who was most downhearted since building his new loft, having lost 56 youngsters in flyaways in the last three years, we came to the conclusion that his youngsters were not seeing enough of the surround- ings outside, like they did when he had a wire aviary for them to fly into, where they could also see the rotation of the sun.
racing the old birds, where the old hand has a trick or two up his sleeve. I have seen a lot of novices g$t very downhearted wondering why their youngsters have not flown the same as yearlings. Although most of my young bird winners win again the next year, those that don’t and are just that bit behind after four or five races I stop, and their young bird form has come back as two-year-olds, giving them time to mature and having their first perfect moult. So to the newcomer in the sport don’t thrash the life out of them in their second year trying to repeat their young bird form. Take them to 150 miles, and call it a day, and during the winter months you can look round your loft with confidence to some good sport the next year.
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