DEESIDE & NORTH WALES
with Paul Jacobs
Hi all. I trust everybody had a fantastic Christmas and didn’t drink too much on New Year’s Eve. What with all I’ve eaten and drunk over Christmas I’ve got another couple of pounds to shift now! Got to get myself in fighting condition for Blackpool you know! I’ll have to go on a salad and water from now on!
Some serious news now. I’ve recently heard on the grapevine that John Millward took a very bad fall around the holidays resulting in a broken leg; I would like to wish John all the best in his recuperation and hope he gets well soon.
Some show news now. Shotton's fifth show was held on November 27th with yet another good turnout from the members. I was unable to attend tonight and Steve Burgess of Wrexham who both did one show each and did another cracking job considering the strength of the show. The birdage in the OHTTW class was slightly down on the last hen's class whereas the YHTTW class was on the increase. This must be down to the fact that most of the darkness birds had cleaned themselves up in the moult so there is more of a choice of birds to enter now. Altogether there was £261.00 to compete for tonight. Here are the results of both classes with the old hens first.
There were 97 birds entered with most of the birds nominated so the total to compete for was £142.50. Winning yet again was Neston’s N. Favager and son who won with a cheq hen. Neil is having a super season again with his birds in super nick. This is the partnership’s third first in Shotton this year which takes some doing, believe me. He was nominated as well so he takes away some £113.40. Including this show, Neil has won around £350 this show season! 2nd – with a blue hen was another new name to me, G. Matthews winning £14.55, 3rd – with a cheq hen was Colin Lamb taking home £9.70, 4th – was Great Sutton’s George Harrison winning £4.85 with a blue pied hen, 5th – Little Sutton’s Brian (BV) Jones with a cheq hen, 6th – Shotton’s record breakers, Davies and Baker with a light cheq hen, 7th position was filled by Wrexham’s Davenport and Roberts with a blue hen and finally 8th - Brymbo’s Tony Murray and Son. YHTTW class had 83 birds entered and there was £118.50 up for grabs and a very happy partnership tonight was J. & S. Peers of Neston, they won the 1st and 6th position as well as the nomination to pick up £83.60, well done fellas, 2nd – to yet again, N. Favager and son winning £12.45, 3rd – A. Dutton and £8.30, 4th and 7th – Rhos clubs “Phoenix” D. Wright and son who won £4.15, 5th – a new name again to me, D. Rule. It’s very nice to see the lads who are travelling far and wide to come to Shotton HS and picking up the prizes, 8th goes to Rob Fryer. Here are the leaders in the show points league and Neil Favager is making his presence felt by taking a large lead with 53 points, 2nd again is Rob Fryer with 29 points, 3rd goes to Brian Wilcock who stays on the same points as last week 22 points, 4th Tony Murray 18 points and 5th is Mark Jones and son on 17 points, that’s three Neston members in the first five positions. Must be something in the water over there! Anyway, our thanks go to the judges Charlie and Steve Burgess for making the journey and doing a cracking job (see you in Blackpool Steve).
Our sixth show was held on the 4th December and our judges were Chester’s Ronnie Dodd and daughter Emma. The class was again OCTTW and YCTTW and there was a total of £198.50 to show for. This was a sharp drop on the week before so I guess people are getting their birds ready for pairing up now, I know we are. The old cock’s class had a total of 76 birds on show for Ronnie and Emma to cast their eyes over. The birdage is down 24 on the last cock’s class but the quality was still there. There was £108 on offer in the old cock’s class. As I was having a look around the cocks class I noticed the usual suspects such as Fred Tilston’s pencil pied cock looking stunning as ever, then my dad shouted over to me “have a look at this cock Paul”, it was a blue pied cock and not a feather was out of place, it would not have looked out of place at the Blackpool show. I had this down as the winner but as I studied the rest I noticed a cheq pied cock who was just my type, if anything he looked like a Jan Aarden (probably wasn’t though), I thought nothing much would beat him, even my dad’s choice, the blue pied. Anyway, would you believe it, these two won the 1st and 2nd prizes, my choice 1st and my dad’s 2nd, not only that, they belonged to the same partnership, who else but N. Favager and son. I have run out of superlatives for the way Neil has shown this year, absolutely brilliant, Neil won 1st, 2nd, 4th and 7th prizes to take home a total of £100.40. That must be around £450 he has won in Shotton this year. 3rd – Fred Tilston and sons with his pencil pied who must have won nearly £1,000 in the shows, 5th – Rob Fryer again showing his consistency, 6th – Brian Wilcock, Brian has shown very well this year also, 8th – another Neston member, Graham Matthias. YCTTW had 67 birds entered which is 9 birds down on the last young cocks class. There was £90.50 on offer here and another Neston partnership, (in fact, lads from Neston won the first four places!) that of J. & S. Peers, went home very happy. Fresh from winning the young hens class the week before, they went and won the cocks class this week and scooping £70.40, obviously their birds are in smart condition. A young blue WF cock taking the honours here. 2nd – the long distance enthusiast, Graham Matthias winning £10.05 with a cheq WF cock, 3rd – Mark Jones and son winning £6.70 with a blue pied cock, 4th – Neil Favager and son taking another prize with a blue WF cock and winning £3.35, 5th – with a cheq cock, A. Dutton, 6th – Shotton’s hard working secretary, Terry Allen with a cheq cock, 7th – Shotton’s show ponies, Brian Hodson and Ronnie (squeaker) Martin with a blue WF cock, and finally 8th went to Llanrwst’s E. Stevens with a cheq WF cock, Shotton HS would like to thank this partnership for their kind donation of prizes for our raffle. Our thanks go to Ronnie and Emma Dodd for doing a great job judging. Here are the leaders in the show point’s league and with two shows to go I think we can crown the winner already as I think he has an unassailable lead at present; however I may be jumping the gun. Neil Favager and son lead with 80 points, 2nd – Rob Fryer on 33 points, 3rd – Brian Wilcock with 25 points, 4th – Mark Jones and son with 23 points and finally Fred Tilston and sons on 21 points.
DEESIDE AND NORTH WALES FEDERATION
I’ve probably left it a little too late, but the Deeside and North Wales Federation and North Wales Championship Club are holding their presentation night on Saturday, 3rd February starting at 7.30pm. Tickets are priced at £10.00 each which includes the cracking three piece band “Twilight Zone” and a buffet. The venue is the Carlton Club, Shotton and tickets are available from me at the address below or Deeside Federation secretary Glenys Huxley.
AROUND THE LOFT
We had a bit of a shock recently. I had been catch pairing my 2007 roundabout team and my dad, “Hattie” was cleaning out the hens' section when he shouted over to me that he had noticed a worm on the floor of the section. On looking at it myself confirmed the fact that it was indeed a roundworm. Now this surprised me as I was convinced that I had wormed them during the 2006 young bird season (most of my cocks and hens in the roundabout team are yearlings now) and the fact that they looked so well. Anyway on looking at my 2006 diary (I write everything we do in the BHW diary) showed that I didn’t worm them at all. So, we kept the food from them and treated them with an “Avicas” tablet about four in the afternoon the next day on an empty stomach. I didn’t think much of it as the next day there was no reaction to the tablet. But the second day after treating I received a phone call from my dad and he told me to come down ASAP. I couldn’t come down as we were preparing for our daughter's third birthday party but dad described to me the amount and size of the roundworms that were coming from the birds. I went down on the third day and he showed me what the birds were excreting and it was incredible. Some were two inches long! I was completely taken aback as I had used “Avicas” before and had no reaction. I usually like to alternate whatever wormer I can as the birds can become used to the same treatment year after year. Anyway, a thorough washing down of the lofts with “Virkon S” was the next step with us washing down the utensils as well. I shall treat them again in eight days time as per instructions and hopefully there should be no problem after this. I usually send off the droppings to be analysed, so this is the next course of action. What surprised me was the fact the birds were bouncing, had a great moult and had no ill effects, but shows you can’t rest on your laurels.
Next up is Blackpool Show of the Year and I for one am counting down the days. We are staying at the “Beechfields Hotel” on Hornby Road and have been there for at least 10 years and have had some superb nights there with many memories. No doubt 2007 will be the same. We will be travelling down on the Friday morning and staying until the Sunday afternoon so there will be plenty of time to get a headache! A report of the weekend will be published soon. So, until then adios!
If you have any news don’t forget you can contact me, Paul Jacobs at 20, Lon Dderwen, Connah’s Quay, Deeside, Flintshire. CH5 4WG and phone (01244) 819934 or e mail at
15/1/07
