L J Parkinson
What’s on my mind this week.
Boxes
Well, the nest boxes have now all been cleaned out for the winter with nest bowls removed. They needed next to no cleaning because I wrap them all in newspaper, so they are clean and don’t need washing. I do spray them with a good disinfectant so there is nothing on them when they come out of storage for the following year, when they will of course be sprayed again before they are once again wrapped in newspaper for the breeding season.
Losses
Going back to losses, what I can’t understand is why none are turning up, every morning, in fact every time I go into the garden I am looking to see if any have turned up. I am not short of pigeons for next year’s race team, far from it, this is more a case of wanting to know what has happened to them. I find it odd that so many are lost never to be seen again, in my early days you would see them returning days and even weeks later but now it seems that once they have gone that is it, they are gone forever. The one thing I was discussing with Chris Knowles was the health of pigeons and there is the possibility that this might be a big contributor to those losses. I often wonder how many pigeons are sent to races with an underlying illness that hasn’t fully shown in the pigeons before being sent to the races. Enough said on that subject, let’s move on. The biggest problem is fanciers breed more to try and compensate for the losses but in doing so create an overcrowding problem that also leads to losses. We can’t win.
Loft.
Now that I have had a full season with the new loft how am I finding it, is there anything I would change, or anything that needs attending too. As we fanciers know we are forever looking at little bits that we can change. I am going to have to buy myself a sander for the floor because in places it has not been nailed down very well and I have caught the scraper on it. In places this has made a bit of a mess so that is going to have to be done. I have had the same suggestion of moving the pads from two fanciers but that’s not going to happen. We had a visitor from up-country collecting a pigeon, not far from here so he called in to see how we were getting on. When we went round to the loft, he was saying how well it looked. He asked if there were any changes that I would make, I stopped and thought about it before answering and saying no. I went through and pointed out the sections and what they were for, and he agreed everything was about correct. He looked and said, “There is one thing you could do to save a few seconds and win another prize or two” Instinctively I knew what he was going to say because I had previously had the same point made to me to save those few vital seconds and win a race instead of being second. “You could put the trap on the outside of the wires instead of the inside” No I couldn’t because that’s illegal and if I am winning, I want to know that have I won fairly and not cheating to do it because that’s what it is when you break the rules set out by the governing body. Moving on, I asked what else I could change to improve anything, “Nothing, that loft is set out well” What I have done since the loft was erected is to change a section to put 4 old pairs in for channel racing. I have also made it easier to have a section for Darkness, that is if I decide to do it. The door on the right-hand end is fully covered with netting so that the stock birds have more than enough fresh air all the time, the door is closed at night. We now have three sections for the roundabout cocks, one for their hens, one for 4prs, then there are two sections perched out for young birds, one being darkness. The other section is next to the stock birds and that will probably be used for the stock hens once breeding is finished. As our visitor turned to go, he said to Elizabeth, “You want to get him to move the pads” her reply was, “I don’t think so” My view is, there are still fanciers on the old-style clocking catching their pigeons through an open to take the rubber off. I see a small delay in the trapping system for ETS which only partly compensates for catching and taking the rubber off. I remember a top winning fancier once saying to me, “Even the ETS won’t beat us when we are trapping through the open door”
Les Parkinson.
11 Rushton Drive, Middlewich, Cheshire, CW10 0NJ.
Tel: +44 (0)1606 836036. Mob: +44 (0)7871 701585.
E-mail:
Web site: http://www.elimarpigeons.com
