Les J Parkinson - What’s going on this week.
I finally got the young birds into the sky, well behind time but they are flying. Usually at this time of the year they have had a few training tosses but even my trusted trainer Steve cannot take them if they are not ready. Their first time in the basket was on the lawn where I let them know that when they are in the crates their aim should be to get to the loft asap. What I should do is handle them a bit more before I get to this stage but with everything that is going on, that has not happened, and they are a bit wild. The problem is when they start their lives being wild, they don’t all come round to the fact that they are going to be caught on a regular basis. I have 4 sections for the old birds and the farthest away when you go in is the worst to enter. This is because I don’t go into that section as much as the other’s, mostly because I go through the other sections and have just been looking through the dowels into the end section. This is a lesson learned, if I go into one section, I need to go into them all. Oddly enough the hen’s section is the first one I go into but the quietest are the next two sections which are for cocks, they don’t bother at all when I go into their domain. What I am going to do is change the feeding of the young birds and give them a bit less and make them come to me at feeding times. Now that the old birds have finished, I am going to have more time to spend with the young birds so giving them less corn at feeding times should bring them closer to me and quieten them down. Going back to getting them into the sky, it was nearly two weeks later before they all batched up together. One thing I will not be doing next year is have them bred with too much of a gap in ages, it’s been a nightmare getting them going. Mind you, next year I will only be using one section for young birds, so the numbers will be reduced by half. I am hoping to hold on to at least half of this year’s crop of young birds, but as we all know disasters do come along and we can do nothing about them.
National feeding
I was wondering why the pigeons from the NFC races this year arrived home in the condition that I had not expected. Over the years I have flown and been happy with the National races, but I have found a difference since starting back again. In the past I have flown them out to Pau and Tarbes, and they have come back better than they have done this year. About 10 days later I had a conversation with a fancier who was telling me that the NFC birds are only fed on maize while being transported to their races, not a good idea. Now that I know that I am convinced that is why the pigeons came back looking a bit more shattered than they usually have in races gone by. Steve took my pigeons to the National marking, so I was not aware that the members were being asked about maize or mixed corn for the National pigeons, with the mix being favored. Word is that maize feeding is falling in line with the international method of feeding for their races, perhaps that's why the international race's do not look as good as they could with the results that are the panicle of European racing. Personally, I think the results should look better, especially with the quality of fanciers we have here in the UK. Maize on its own is probably why the UK fanciers don't make the impact as I would expect them to. Personally, I don’t think Maize on its own isn’t good enough when the pigeons are up against it, a time when their energy saps, it's okay for the shorter flying members, the speedsters but not those who are up against it. UK fanciers have put up some cracking performances over many years, but I would like to see them go back to a good quality mix for racing no matter where they are from.
Changes.
I am now back in full swing talking to fanciers far and wide with some very interesting conversations. Everything is a lot more expensive now than it was when I stopped racing, corn has certainly gone up. Nearly all the clocks are now ETS, I used Unikon but since starting back I have gone onto the Benzing which I find easy to use. Also, with this system both Ebony and I can use the same clock, the only problem I have is she has 3 good pigeons that I find beating me on the trap and winning the race. This year there have been two races where she has beat me by 2 seconds and one race 1 second. All year I have been asking about the ETS and am finding that there are still issues with the main one being where the ETS pads are fitted to the loft. I had a fancier over in Yorkshire who went off on one about the pads and their location on the loft. He was saying that “A club member of his has the trap set before the pigeon enters the loft therefore is gaining an advantage against the RPRA rules” I asked if that was what he meant, a quick reply was, “No it’s downright cheating”. I understand what he is saying because unless the pigeon enters the framework of the loft before it clocks then that is wrong and should not be allowed. As I pointed out, no matter what we do in life there are always people looking to gain the upper hand, even if it’s by taking advantage of the situation they will do it if they can get away with it. As we know, most “cheats” as our friend said get caught in the end. The ETS is a good system, but we could never police the job, because we wouldn’t have the manpower and more importantly the right people to do it. No doubt there will be more on this issue because there are quite a few irate fanciers out there who are still not happy with the ETS even though it is head and shoulders above other systems.
Les J Parkinson. 15 Rushton Drive, Middlewich, Cheshire, CW10 0NJ.
Tel: 01606 836036.
Mob: +44 (0)7871 701585.
E-mail:
Web site: http://www.elimarpigeons.com
