“Superstars Christmas Paper Panel” – Part B
8. If your loft is not performing to the standards that you have set yourself what actions would you take? Do you have notes or a diary that you refer back to, do you consult fellow fanciers or is it a case of seeking advice from a vet and getting the birds tested first and foremost?
Gordon Bros & Son’s Gary & Niall.
We initially trust our own judgement and management, but we are also very quick to consult trusted friends too in case we are missing anything. Assuming that we’re talking about in the race season now we’re sending our droppings and swabs away after every race anyway because if there is a problem beginning to arise then we need to know about it immediately before it affects a performance. One bad performance is a week lost. Two successive bad performances are a crime, and we would do everything within our power as decent pigeon men to address an issue if one was present.
Les Green
I have a daily diary, which I write in religiously, my memory isn’t great, so I write things down as I see them happening in the loft. I write down what time they go out, the weather conditions, how long they fly for and the manner in which they exercise and the length of time they fly for. What they eat and how much they ate and I refer to the book on a daily basis, I might want to know how long the pigeons were exercising for this time last year and how they performed around the lofts for instance and I can refer to last year’s book to know the answer, that way I can judge what kind of work I might need to be doing with the team or indeed if they want holding back a bit. If I get a dip in form and it lasts a few days and I can see they are not right, I will get the droppings looked at and swab them. I would put them on a good probiotic and a good dose of Tollyamin forte and keep them on a diet mix. When the results come back, I would react to whatever the vet has seen. If he sees nothing, I rest them for a week, leaving the pigeons to show me when they are on their way back to form, sometimes I give them an open hole for a couple of hours but do not force them to fly, I leave the traps open and the doors so they can come and go as they please, I watch them intently at this time to see if there is any spark coming back into the lofts. Most times this has happened then within a few days of a different regime the appetite to fly comes back and even with the traps open and the doors open the birds fly well for over an hour, when this happens I know they are ok again. It could just be they are a bit jaded and as a fancier you must notice that. I would not hesitate to also phone friends and see what is happening in their lofts and ask advice. How else do we learn if we do not ask other top fanciers for their take on certain things? We can all learn something from the most unlikely sources.
Andy Miller
First of all, health, so consult a vet, secondly an inferior or a bad batch of feeding, something I’ve experienced and finally look in the mirror. Although do be careful not to panic and see the wrong things via the medicine cabinet usually because a fellow fancier has shared an experience that worked for them, although I’m not condemning a second opinion but weigh everything up. Sometimes lean years come and go usually on a 7-year cycle for many successful fanciers.
John & David Staddon
Firstly, a discussion would happen between dad and myself, usually we can work out the problem by looking hard in the mirror!!! Sometimes just some rest and recuperation are needed. Many fanciers under value rest in their daily program. I do keep a diary and I do look back at previous years to see what we were doing. Lastly, I would seek the advice of a vet but as we routinely test anyway, we are normally on top of any issues. I would also have no issue in phoning a fancier friend and often do. I may not take their advice, but it gives you some balance in the decision-making process. As I say Dad and I usually sing from the same song sheet and are brutally honest with ourselves, nobody would be more critical of our performances than ourselves.
Ian Stafford
If my birds were performing under par, I would thoroughly examine them and treat accordingly. I think this comes from having pigeons for over 50 years and it is not something you can specifically pinpoint. We test our own droppings and try to keep medication to a minimum with the only exception being treating for canker every third week in the racing season with 3 different types of medicine, i.e. Flagyl tablets, Belga Magic tablets and ronidazole 10% in rotation.
L & K Buddle
If the same pigeons/family have performed well in the past to the same loft and systems, then any lack in performance must be an issue with the health or happiness of the pigeons. Firstly, I would get the relevant tests done from a specialist pigeon vet ASAP and treat accordingly. I would also have a look around the loft, especially during the night. It can be something as simple as a Fox or Badger disturbing them and making them feel uncomfortable and unsafe with their home (the loft).
Geoff & Catherine Cooper
I have all my loft books going back to 1984 and a constantly using them as a reference. If the season is not going as it should I will get the loft books out and look at what I am doing now compared to a really good season a few years back. I will ask a couple of good friends for their opinion if the birds are not performing as I think they should be, but if I think they are unwell then I consult a vet.
Barry Kinnear
The first thing I would do is have a ‘droppings test’ done on the birds by a vet, mainly looking for cocci, canker, or worms. I would also have them tested for
Paratyphoid although this does not always show up in a droppings test. Take droppings from different areas of the loft. Although pigeons are cleaned and given fresh water twice per day, I continually remain observant looking and listening for anything that may be brewing. I keep strict records on everything to do with my Pigeons.
Mark Bulled
Look in the mirror, do not make excuses as many fanciers do but question why they are winning, and I am not. It is too easy to say fanciers live in a better position. Yes, sometimes they do but the wind changes and we all get our turn. It is important that when it is our turn the birds are right to take advantage of it. Another bug bare of mine is that fanciers say their birds are ill when they are just behind. We cannot all be winners every week. Some birds are just fitter, or in better condition or more motivated. It does not make the birds behind ill and reaching for the bottle will usually make things worse. So, if I am behind, I will question what I am doing. Am I putting the work in, if so, what am I doing differently? If I am doing the work and are the birds are healthy then why are they not winning? Do we need to introduce new birds or methods? Form should not be taken lightly. I have had years with super form and stars in the loft that do not stop winning. But when the stars are gone it can be a tough few years before you reach the potential of the lofts. Get back to basics. Work hard and try and find some new Stars. Yes, champions are born but they also must be made. I keep records of bird’s performances to my loft, but not a diary as such. I have fellow fanciers I hold in high esteem I can talk to. I would rather test than treat blind although my visits or vet tests are very few and far between. However, if something was seriously wrong, I wouldn’t hesitate in consulting a vet.
Malik & Khan
Firstly the best vet is you as a fancier, if there is something wrong with the birds you should be able to pick up on it, if the “regular medicine” doesn’t work don’t waste time and eliminate them, it cost nothing to breed them and when you have a solid stock team behind you it makes the job easier.
Mark Gilbert
If my loft was not performing to the standards I had expected. the actions I would take would be, firstly I would question myself, am I doing the right things? Am I overworking the pigeons? Do they need a rest? I would also send all the droppings and swabs to the vets and see if there is a problem with the health of the pigeons. I am also always talking to good fanciers and listening to their advice as often you can pick up good tips.
9. Some clubs have league tables for their members, is this a benefit to the club or should members all be competitive for the same positions. Do you think some fanciers should work harder to make the top spot, what help, and advice could you give them to reach their goal?
Gordon Bros & Son’s Gary & Niall.
We have made big progress to reach the point where we are at now. No one has given us anything. We have pushed ourselves physically and mentally to become better and better each season. That must continue too because we can get better. We sought help and advice from friends throughout the UK and put into practice some of what we learned and trying things ourselves. It is ok to experiment and fail. Some of the things we absolutely swear by now were experiments at one point. We are very quick to try and not replicate a mistake though.
Les Green
I think whatever your club can do to spread the prizes the better, if this means having a league table system then great but the problem with a lot of clubs is they don’t have enough members to do this. If you have a big members club then that is a great idea and even have promotion and relegation. The problem with that is some weeks the fancier in the say 2nd division might beat all the other fanciers and even top the fed, then it looks a bit daft when he has won the 2nd division but a fancier he has beat on that day can boast that he won the 1st division. So, it is difficult to really answer that question accurately. It is only my opinion, but I think you should just get on with competing against every fancier in your club and if you are behind most weeks, do something about it, try get advice from top fanciers as to how you can improve. Ask them what they do on a daily basis; you would probably be surprised how hard they are working. Try to match their work ethic, look after your birds, have a good routine and keep them fit and healthy. Once you have a good basic way of looking after your team, they really should start to win you prizes. Most fanciers work hard, some have better circumstances than others but that’s life I suppose. I offer as much help as I can or is asked for to anyone in my club and I like to think I am approachable, and I give honest and sound advice.
Andy Miller
Many club champions can be a victim of their own success under the present regime of most clubs. Leagues are a good idea for novices as this can allow them not to become disheartened and can give them a goal to aim for while learning and building their experience. Dedication is so important to be successful nowadays and sometimes modern living determines the levels that can be achieved. As for helping a novice the best advice I could give them is not to go to every Tom, Dick & Harry for youngsters.
John & David Staddon
It is not for me to judge if someone should work harder for a top spot. Everybody's lives are different and filled with different pressures and resources. Some people get immense enjoyment from just watching their birds return from a race no matter if they are first or last and without those members there would be no league and no top dogs. We should appreciate all our members and respect them. I do think a club league would be a particularly good idea and it would keep members engaged for the whole season. However, introducing it in itself would create problems, as how do you decide who goes into Div 1 and Div 2 for the first year? lol. As for helping other fanciers, Dad and I have helped many over the years and it gives us great satisfaction when they get a good result because of it. However, there are some individuals who you just cannot help, they don’t want to listen and keep making the same mistakes again and again.
Ian Stafford
This must be the only sport I know that in most cases does not cater for the novice. Everywhere I know novices fly against the fully experienced top fanciers with very little chance of winning, however more thought and help must go into keeping the novice in the sport until they become accomplished as far too many fanciers fall by the wayside after becoming disillusioned at not winning. I would say to any novice fancier befriend a top fancier who is willing to give his time to help you, not just emptying your pockets. Take notice, write everything down and always remember Rome was not built in a day
L & K Buddle
As we don’t race in the local club or fed on a competitive level we don’t look at averages or league tables at the type of racing, but if we were to get into this type of racing it would certainly be one of the main aims each season. To win a league table or averages you must compete consistently at a high level for the whole season. We do however love to compete for the averages within the BICC for the international races and have been fortunate to win the ‘Europa Trophy’ in the BICC twice, in 2014 and again last season in 2020. This is for the best average from ALL 7 International races. The 2020 season was different to other years because all 7 races were within a 5-week period!! That is 7 races of between 500 & 685 miles 5 weeks in a row!! This season the BICC will be introducing Ace Pigeon awards for 3 different classes. National, International & Young Birds. So, we will be having a good go at competing for the ‘International Ace Pigeon’ award. As for reaching those goal my advice to any fancier would be to find a system that suits your everyday work & family life, keep in simple and do not keep changing too much. Then when you get a few pigeons that take to your system and do well build around these pigeons.
Geoff & Catherine Cooper
I fly in a competitive local club, although I only send to a few races due to competing in National and International races. It is noticeable the top flyers in this club also put the most effort into their racing. My advice to fanciers who are struggling to be successful is to set realistic goals, for example, long distance racing is hard and if you want to be successful at the long distances races you have to learn how to clock them in from the shorter races first.
There is a lot of advice about, but you must be able to filter it out and apply what is needed for your racing.
Barry Kinnear
Our club has a 3-tear league system with 10 lofts in League 1 (premiership) and 14 lofts each in leagues 2 & 3. Any new member starts in League 3 and there are 4 lofts promoted & relegated from each league at the end of each season. Only the top 10 entered pigeons on the members entry sheet are eligible to win points and each member only accumulates points from One (of their) nominated birds. This system ensures all members are competitive throughout the season as members not sending loose out in points and believe me although some individuals say ‘It’s only a league’ they all strive to win promotion and avoid relegation. Clubs should give it a try! My advice to fanciers that are not successful would be after the season review where thing have not gone as planned and think about doing things differently going forward. A great bit of advice given to me many years ago was ‘If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got ‘
Mark Bulled
Clubs are not big enough these days to have leagues etc. Unfortunately, there are not many new starters anymore so Novices etc are more a thing of the past. Professional fanciers are taking over and even good back garden/working men fanciers are finding it harder than ever to compete and never really will against the big team professionals or fanatics. Enjoy the sport for what it is. Get your team as well as you can and enjoy the competition. Specialise in a certain area if that is your preference. Enjoy the sport in your own garden and the friendship at the club. Be keen and work hard and results will come your way. From my experience most genuine fanciers are only too happy to help other fanciers.
Malik & Khan
League tables doesn’t sound like a bad idea if the clubs were big enough, club racing is not very appealing anymore and national racing is getting more popular, so we do believe the better club/fed flyers should step up and compete in national races and leave club racing to fanciers who haven’t reached that goal yet, fanciers who don’t make the top spot need to ask questions to the top fanciers in the club and most importantly listen to the advice.
Mark Gilbert
Our club does not have a league table, but we do have a 2 bird nomination club within our race, all the main prize money, pools etc is in the 2 bird club. Therefore, this does go around more as it is a level playing field; 2 birds against 2. I do think it is a benefit to be racing against the best as it makes you try a lot harder and improves your own performances.
10. This question is all about hens. How do you rate hens for racing, or are they better as full-time widowhood hens? Good for sprinting or long-distance racing. How do you rate the hens for breeding?
Gordon Bros & Son’s Gary & Niall.
Hens are at least equal on our garden if not more important. On our “Pursuit System” the hens always fly well. It is probably a system that favours the hens more than cocks and by racing both sexes thoroughly then we are testing out the offspring of our breeders thoroughly. It is only by racing the offspring week in week out that you learn which are the better ones. We want winners yes, who does not, but we are also looking for multi-performers. We are looking for the pigeons that come time and time and time again. You then work with those pigeons and their parents in a bid to become stronger. Virtually all of our best racers go onto become good breeders. For instance, in the winter of 2019 we retired our good racer “The 50 cock”. He is loads of Open positions to his credit. He is a real racing machine. The first offspring from him were raced from him and most of them were really good and one was a 2 x 1st Open Combine winner in 3 weeks. That was not a total shock to us, she just followed in the footsteps of her father. Good pigeons make pigeon racing easy, that is the key.
Les Green
Hens are fantastic for racing no matter your chosen distances. I race them on widowhood, not roundabout as they have their own section, I don’t let them into the box section after exercise or road training, they enter and leave their own section as do the cocks. I do not have a set of cocks that stay home for these hens, I show all the race hens to their race partners on Fridays and I send them all, cocks, and hens. As to what I think of hens for breeding I’m not sure what you mean, we can only breed from a hen and a cock of course but I think you mean what I think of race hens for breeding from. That is an easy answer, they are invaluable, too many good hens are wasted in widowhood hens’ boxes when they could be racing. If you get a good performance hen what could be better than breeding from a proven hen or cock for that matter, I would much prefer to have a direct child of a winner than say a brother or sister, winners seem to breed winners, so I try to get new acquisitions from proven racers, so when you can produce your own performance pigeons your loft will become stronger and stronger each season.
Andy Miller
I have won Nationals with both cocks and hens and each are as important for breeding, however I believe the majority of racing hens can take far more punishment on the road than cocks at all distances. The problem with hens is the pairing together but this can be eliminated over a few years by discarding the guilty ones as these will show their lesbian tendencies as yearlings and are moved on. I have 3 and 4-year-old racing hens that never look at each other but it is a game of elimination. However, watching them at exercise does not compare to watching widowhood cocks.
John & David Staddon
We love racing hens and would not be without them, in fact if I had even less time with work, I would most probably race hens only on pure widowhood. On our chaos system, our hens fly better at exercise than the cocks, they recover quicker from hard races and can score from the first to he last race. Having said that, we win equally well with our cocks; they are simply different. I rate cocks and hens equally in breeding terms. I could not imagine wasting hens by not racing them. Pairing of hens together can be an issue but when this starts to happen, we shut our hens in the aviary 24/7 day and night, and this drastically cuts down on any eggs. There is no doubt you could eradicate the issue by removing lesbian hens from your team and their parents and eventually you would end up with a family of hens who never look to pair, the problem is how many national winners may you have got rid of in the quest for a non-lesbian hen team. We prefer to manage it and keep as many soldiers in our army as we can.
Ian Stafford
My answer to this is short and sweet, hens are far superior to cocks in the present climate and racing we get nowadays, and good hens breed good cocks and vice versa.
L & K Buddle
We race all our hens alongside the cocks on a form of widowhood. We really rate our hens for the long distance international races, For instance we have been lucky enough to win 7x 1st Open National with the BICC & BBC from between 544 miles & 673 miles, Of these 7x 1st Open National wins 5 of them have been won with hens raced on our widowhood system. They are simply raced to an 8x6 section with slope back perches. Every year do race lesbian, pair & lay eggs. In the early part of the season if this happens we simply take the eggs away, but as it gets into early to mid-June we then put nest bowls down in the corners for them to sit the eggs, they are then raced lesbian.
Geoff & Catherine Cooper
Hens are equally as good as cocks for racing, the laying of eggs can be a problem, so I prefer to race hens on widowhood. I think a good breeding hen is as good as a good breeding cock, it helps to have one of each.
Barry Kinnear
I do not race any Hens after young bird racing, not because I do not believe they can win but purely because it complicates my system/routine. When I retire and have more time with the birds then I would consider racing the hens along with the cocks. There have been many great multiple performance hens over the years. I rate cocks equally to hens for breeding and although I do not race hens after young bird racing, I do breed youngsters from a selection of them.
Mark Bulled
Hens and c0cks are equally as good at sprint and distance racing in my opinion, with certain fanciers better at getting the best out of either gender at whatever distance. When I flew sprints, I kept my hens at home in boxes and worked on their rankness for their partners and believed this to be particularly important. I now race both sexes and this means sometimes the partner is not there on return and I do believe this to detrimental, especially in sprint racing. With my own methods I find my c0cks are better inland, but I have had a lot of success with hens over the water, but not more so than the c0cks. What I have found though that earlier in the season when the channel is cold the hens are more reliable and find their recovery rate quicker.
Malik & Khan
We love racing hens and have tried many ways to race them, we find the cold hard days early in the season are best for them, they can when motivated right do the near impossible and be world beaters as previously stated when we were 3rd open national Alencon this was achieved with a hen.
Mark Gilbert
I rate hens as equally as good as cocks for racing and race all my sprint, middle- and long-distance pigeons on Widowhood. We do not show the hens or cocks before the race and on the return leave them together all-day Saturday and part them on the Sunday morning. We race all cocks and hens on this system. I rate the hen as equally as the cock for breeding and I like the system of racing cocks and hens as it proves the hens for breeding.
11. Looking at advantages/disadvantages, do you consider that a person’s loft location is or can have an advantage, what are your reasons for that answer. How many are there working your birds, singular, partnership, silent partner, does it make a difference to the end results that you achieve. How many birds does your loft enter into a race, short, middle distance or long-distance races, and would this change with the number of people working the pigeons? If you have a big team do you enter a lot with thoughts on them all winning that race or are you preparing some for other races.
Gordon Bros & Son’s Gary & Niall.
This is always an emotive subject and one that we have clear views on really, so we’ll try and give you an insight into the lofts and our mindset. We are primarily a sprint orientated loft and our big focus is on 0-200 miles racing. At this distance we fully expect our pigeons can go hell for leather and not even look at each other on their way home. Our expectations are that it is foot to the floor, eyeballs out, flat out sprint all the way home. Flying our “Pursuit System” we are now often getting anywhere between 30-40% of our entry into the race homing together. I do not mean a few minutes after the early arrivals either, these are the first birds’ home. In Sprint racing there is a few especially important factors that will directly influence where the race SHOULD be won if the loft is good enough. It is not necessarily loft location, but WIND and MAPPINGS are critical. Mappings are brutally overlooked by most and we are red hot on this. We will address this in a moment. In any organisation, if the competition is strong then you can rely on a few basic factors. When the wind is in the West the fliers in the East “should” have the edge. Likewise, when the wind is in the East the fanciers on the West side of the organisation have the edge. In recent seasons we created a few records that we will find it extremely hard to beat I am sure. You can try though! In the NIPA we know that if we want to win the NIPA then certain things must be in place. Firstly, the birds have got to be jumping out their skin. It does not matter whether you have the wind with you or not, if you are not good enough, you are not good enough. That is all there is to it. Secondly, it is the wind. We know for instance that if our birds come through Newry on the route home then the lads in Newry will pick us off. We cannot have our birds coming through there and expect to win. We need them wide of that, nearer the coast and they will only get that wide if there is a decent West wind helping them over that way. IF the wind is like that and IF we are good enough on the day, then we (like other fanciers in our area) stand a chance. People often criticise our results and say “they should do it on that wind” - but we’re not the only good loft looking for that wind, and the birds have got to be good enough on the day to take any advantage that might be there. Mappings. Now let us say we are mapped to fly 120 miles and 800 yards from Tullamore. That mapping (like any fancier) is mapped from the race-point to the home loft in a DIRECT LINE. So, if our pigeons take a route home that is say 121 miles and 800 yards then they are basically flying 1 mile and getting nothing for it. They are losing that time because it is extra mileage that we are not mapped for. So, we need our pigeons flying the exact distance that we are mapped to. How do we accomplish this? If you look at Google Maps from any race-point (say Tullamore, Thurles, Roscrea or wherever) and draw a straight line to our own loft in Portaferry you’ll see our birds need to hit the water and go out to sea. That is the fastest route home. That is the route we are mapped to, so that is what we want them to take. So, right from the off as babies that is what our pigeons are encouraged, trained, schooled, and nurtured to do – hit the water and do not blink twice. We know they do this because we witness them do it in training. On to the other parts of the question. Our partnership now has 3 active people, our Uncle John and 2 brothers Gary and Niall. The 2 brothers do the bulk of the day to day work as John lives a good distance away from the loft: but he’s unvaluable at certain times of the season helping us train and taking the clock to different places. Having the two of us working hand in hand with the birds is our greatest strength. We know what each other thinks and we both desperately want to win. Two pairs of eyes are better than one and the one can remind the other about certain things if it looks like something is not quite right or may have been overlooked. So yes, I would say being a single partner is far more demanding than flying in a partnership, especially family partnerships. Next part of the question. We are sprinters so we sprint every week and we sprint to win. Very rarely are birds being entered with another plan in mind. Saturday matters. When we wake in a morning our only thought is Saturday. That is the same for every day of the week. We generally start the season with around 40 pairs of Old Birds to race and of course both cocks and hens go every week on the “Pursuit System”. With YB we start with around 100 as a rule.
Les Green
Of course, a loft location is important and can and does help you win on certain days, but I do not put as much emphasis on that as some others do. It is more important to have good pigeons than a good location and that is a fact. I am sure we can all look at the top fancier in an organisation and say he or she is in the best spot, but I will bet there are other fanciers in just as good a spot who win next to nothing, no matter where your loft is located, you still have to have good pigeons, you still need to look after them and manage them well. I fly to the west of one fed and to the east of the other, I am not the furthest west and I am not the furthest east in either of them but on so many occasions I have won both feds on the same day. I have topped feds and combines against the wind many times. There are times when I have been beaten in a west wind by a fancier almost 12 miles to the east of me by just a few seconds and you might say to yourself, if I had any help with the wind I would have beat him/her, but where are all the other fanciers who fly within the 12 miles between him and me, if it was just about loft location they should all beat me, the fancier who beat me is a good fancier who deserved to win the race no matter where his location is and he is doing his job right. Good pigeons managed correctly will win in any wind. I have the help of my wife Ruth; she is not really a lover of pigeons in any way, but she is a great help as she trains the pigeons when I need them training. I will basket them up and put them into the van and Ruth takes them down the road and releases them in 10s as I put 10 in each basket for her. If I am away from home, my wife will clean out feed and water them for me, which is a great help. As for the day to day running of the lofts, cleaning home training, feeding etc that is done by me alone. I try to start a season with 25 couples of widowers, by the time of the first race they are usually down to less than that, the peregrine will have a couple, some get smashed up on the road and some get hurt on the wires around home, so I race with about 22 hens and 22 cocks all entered in 2 different feds on the sprint races only. I send everything that is fit to go and that I think have a chance of winning the race. Some may be entered to gain fitness for later races if it has been injured earlier of course but generally I send a team to win. With YB racing I breed around 75 to race for myself and if luck is on my side, I like to get to the first race with about 60 of them. Once racing starts, I really don’t lose that many at all. In 2017 I started with 63 and finished with 63 and they went to every race. I would not consider ever having a partner again. I have done that with great success over 18 years but I enjoy my pigeons much more now than I have done in the past, probably because I have total control over what I want to do and I have to stand or fall by my own decisions.
Andy Miller
Loft location is definitely an advantage in most races up to about 5- or 6-hours flying time, thereafter it can still be beneficial depending on wind or drag. Racing into extreme areas of the country with few entries can look like a different race when studying results but an observant fancier can pick out good performances especially in National racing. Regarding partnerships there is definitely an added bonus to this, usually when each have their own disciplines in the loft and each partner respects each other’s views. I race my birds on my own but my wife is very capable and a great help in and around the loft and has even won the Federation in my absence due to work commitments and she doesn’t let me forget it! Although I have to remind her, she is working to my instruction I usually start the season racing 30-36 pairs on double widowhood and 60-80 young birds and 8 pairs of stock birds although the 2020 season is slightly less. I very seldom send all every week preferring to select the fittest on the day of basketting. For cross channel events I try to select my best or proven which is usually between 6 and 10 entries.
John & David Staddon
Of course, loft location gives you an advantage or disadvantage depending on the wind or racepoint. You cannot beat the wind no matter how good you or your bird are. The longer the race the less important it becomes but it is still a factor even in 600 miles races. We never moan about it, we prepare our birds and send them if the wind is not favourable so be it, it will be good experience and fitness work for them. You need to have your birds healthy and fit for the days when the wind does favour you, that is all you can do. We are a partnership, and it is definitely a big help. Dad now looks after all the stock birds and I look after the race birds, if there is any road training to be done dad does most of this and this is a massive help to me. We meet most days during the season for a coffee and to discuss the birds and the plans for the coming week and what birds we might send to which race. We very rarely disagree or fall out. We both know the other is vital in the partnership and work well together. I respect my old man as a top-class fancier, to be able to call on his knowledge has leapfrogged me up the ladder. Dad would rate my enthusiasm and attention to detail. We start the season with approx. 80 old birds and 80 young birds. We would send everything to the early races and perhaps even to the early channel races depending on the forecast, at least 80% of our team are distance pigeons and they are being sent for fitness and experience in these short races. Once we get to the real distance races, we would send 5 to 10 birds usually.
L & K Buddle
The loft location is a definite advantage, especially when it comes to National & International races. The wind will nearly always dictate’s what area of the country will get the best pigeons on that day. With the International races where the majority of the pigeons are entered from country’s like Belgium, Holland, France & Germany if the wind is a West wind then the Eastern part of the country is the favoured position. But on the other hand to win an International outright in the UK I feel that the wind would need to be Easterly and this is then the ideal conditions for the Western parts of the country to win the International which has been done on a few occasions. I honestly feel an outright International win is not really possible with a West wind in the East of the country as this favour’s the big majority of the other country’s international convoy. Our loft is only managed by us both. Dad has been retired about 2 years now so has a little more time around the loft, but we haven’t really changed our systems or routines from when we were both at work. We send large teams of around 60-70 birds which will be the whole of our Cocks & Hens race team in the early inland races to get some fitness on them. They will then be split between the BICC National races and the EECC to gain a bit more work in preparation for the internationals which start in mid to late June. We send all our 2-year olds and over to the International races, and the teams we send for these races ranges from 2 - 12 birds per long distance international race.
Geoff & Catherine Cooper
The wind is the biggest factor in determining what area the winner will be located in. The further the race distance the less this applies. As most of the summer winds are westerly, then living in the east of your combine/section must help, but if a bird is strong enough it can hold it’s line and still be in the reckoning whatever the wind. In the early races we will send all the birds, usually about 56 cocks and 27 hens, this is preparation for future races, after two or three races the teams are split with the older birds going into the early National races and the yearlings continuing in the club for a few more races. Our send to an International race is normally between 2 - 12 pigeons.
Ian Stafford
I think loft location plays a massive part in sprint racing both here and on the continent. However, when the distance increases, loft location becomes less important and good birds become more important. In the last few years, I have flown with my partner Mark Wilson who I have found to be the most dedicated young man I have ever known in pigeon racing. He is without doubt in my mind the best fancier I have ever flown with and with the two of us working in tandem it has made the job and life so much easier as I think everyone needs a little time away from the birds to spend with family and this is quite hard to do when flying as an individual. In the last few years, we have flown on average 30 birds a week, 50 with the youngsters.
Barry Kinnear
Absolutely loft location has advantages/disadvantages the wind direction/location of loft is the number one factor in where the winning pigeons will be located this is particularly prevalent in shorter distance races. I normally have an old bird team of around 50 cocks in total and try to be competitive in all races over the entire season. As stated in an earlier answer I have a section for the shorter races and a section for the middle/long distance races, on average I would send between 30-40 birds to the early races and normally between 6 – 10 to an SNFC race, although this year was different due to Covid dictating only having 1 channel race in the SNFC, I sent a team of 17 to the gold cup. The main channel pigeons must have a race of at least 250 miles before their target race and on many occasions go to these races purely as prep and are not mentally motivated until Such time as their main target race of the year. I believe patience is essential and far too many fanciers try to utilise their birds in early part of the season and come the better races at the end of season birds are over the top.
Mark Bulled
Loft Location as we all know is massive, more so in the shorter races.
Where I fly now in Harlow it was a great position on the north road in the LNRC, but now I would say it is not so great. The main drag of pigeons either go well to the east of me into Essex or to the west side of London. There are not a great deal of fanciers flying South in my area and so the birds must break and do it all alone. Also, strange as it may seem the birds do not seem to like crossing London which is 15 miles South of me. My birds always homing from the East, West or North. Now is this something to do with London? the drag of the birds or looking for their Inland Line as we race weekly from the West? I have my theories, and this is something I am looking to address this coming season. My birds are worked totally on my own with no assistance, although I do team up with a club mate for some young bird training and National Marking Station sharing. I look to start the season with a team of 60 Old birds and 60 young birds, many of these are long distance birds and are going to the shorter races solely as preparation. My young birds are raced Natural so again education is my sole aim. I have no real interest in Inland racing anymore. I am interested in Channel racing from 200 to 600 miles.
Malik & Khan
We don’t really look into ‘loft locations’ or the so called ‘drag’ and have a different view on it and find only people that are behind come with these excuses, obviously the wind plays a big part in were the race is won but a good pigeon will create the ‘drag’ and no which route/line to get home the quickest. There are 2 of us in the partnership namely Imran malik & Atif khan we race no more than 12 cocks and 12 hens and around 40-50 youngsters we send the whole team every week and can have 5 channel races consecutively, we try not to rest the birds only when we feel they need it.
Mark Gilbert
Loft locations can be an advantage or disadvantage but to me it is no good moaning about it, you just have to get on and enjoy the sport as there’s nothing you can really do about it. There is currently 3 of us working on the birds, this changed a year and a half ago when we decided to split the stock loft and also take part in sprint and middle-distance racing. Nigel Langstaff, a particularly good friend of mine, then took over the running of the stock loft and helps at times with the racing. I also have a good friend called Troy Birch, who comes over 4 half days a week, to look after the birds and help with training. He also looks after the race birds if we are ever away on holiday. In regard to the numbers entered into a race, we have been known to send as many as 300 at one time, the long distance pigeons (which are the majority of the pigeons we have) will be sent to middle-distance National races in preparation for the longer races of which we have 8, which are over a distance of 540 miles and therefore need a large team to be competitive and complete these races. Out of the 300, 180 would normally be yearlings in preparation for the longer races in the following year.
12.Looking to the future what needs to be done to take the sport forward, with the reduction in members each year. What do we need to do to attract more into pigeon racing?
Gordon Bros & Son’s Gary & Niall.
It is really difficult because we’re a minority sport in the grand scheme of things. Generally speaking, most of the youth coming into the sport do so because there has been some family presence already in the sport. That is certainly true for us. Birds were on the garden growing up and we inherited the passion. Children today have the world literally at their fingertips. We see this daily because between the two of us we have seven children currently going through various stages of their school life. The addition of a Development Officer at the RPRA was a good move and I guess it would be good if that area could be expanded on.
Les Green
What a difficult question, it is hard to know what kids want these days, but I do not think racing pigeons is one of them. In my area now there are a few schools involved in racing, which is really fantastic, and I hope we get a couple of young kids who get the bug. Perhaps we should turn our attention to the older generation like people who have recently retired, they have time on their hands, need something to do and may be more affluent to afford to keep pigeons and maybe this could be a higher catchment sector. It is a hard one to answer as most fanciers are willing to help any new starters with the likes of clocks, free pigeons etc but still we do not seem to get many takers at all.
Andy Miller
First of all, Joint convoying to keep costs down. The days of half empty transporters travelling to the same liberation site needs to be addressed. Also, clubs and Federations should amalgamate even if this means Section and Open prizes and Pools, leagues etc. Attracting youngsters is the hardest task with sensitive modern parents and idle youngsters of today. I feel the way forward would require people with far more tact and political correctness than me to answer your question on this one!
John & David Staddon
An exceedingly difficult question. Firstly, I would like to see the region and national awards scrapped and replaced with a coefficient-based system. The current system is archaic. It’s all about opinions and this can get political. Once you get through the region awards the national awards are equally backward with opinion-based voting. Each region should have identical categories based on coefficient with the winners going forward for national awards where the lowest score is the winner. No opinions involved just maths and then the awards can reclaim their former glory. As one of the younger members of the sport at 46 it is clear we are going to have issues down the road. I welcome the influx of eastern European members who are passionate and love their pigeons. We need more of these guys. Small modern gardens and restrictive covenants on keeping livestock are all challenges. Ultimately I believe our membership will stabilise at a much lower level but we will likely be left with mainly specialist clubs and national racing and we will all have to accept more travelling if we wish to race our birds. Lastly, I would like to see all monies raised from the show of the year ploughed back into the sport. I would believe we should be using this money to buy new national standard crates and racking for every federation and national club, this would facilitate much easier amalgamation of liberations as you could simply swap crates and all go on one lorry without the logistical issue of transferring birds etc.
Ian Stafford
The future of pigeon racing looks bleak as the average age of a UK pigeon fancier will be 60/70 years old and the sport is now awfully expensive. We can only target ex fanciers who have left the sport that will hopefully still have the bug in them as it is not very appealing to young people with everything else, they have available to them.
L & K Buddle
I really think the multiple National & Classic clubs should get together and be racing 3/4 big races a year together. They could still have their own individual winner but one big Open winner. The NFC, BBC & CSCFC did exactly this from Pau in 2020 and it was a great success. With social media the RPRA could try to put out some sort of advert out that would pop up on people’s social media feeds, especially for the sort of people that have an interest in other types of things that could be similar to pigeons racing, for example people who follow song bird pages/groups or poultry type things. Also, a bigger and wider spread schools’ campaign could also attract some fanciers of the younger generation. Could some of the major race results be printed somewhere in the back pages of the daily big name newspapers, these same newspapers have recently picked up on the sales of racing pigeons for large sums of money so someone could contact the newspapers off the back of this publicity to see if they wish to take peoples interests in pigeon racing further buy printing a few of the race results?
Geoff & Catherine Cooper
No one can predict the future; most houses now have small gardens with restrictions on keeping any livestock which makes having a loft almost impossible. More should be done to keep existing members, as too many are leaving due to reasons other than old age. One Loft Racing could be one way to encourage new members into the sport, yes, it is different and not the traditional way but as membership shrinks it could be a way of saving the sport. Imagine if every town or sports club had its own loft which local fanciers would breed young birds and place in that loft. The loft could have a series of races along the same lines as the big OLR’s, and members of the general public could get involved, watching the birds returning from races etc. We have friends in Australia who only have room for a small breeding loft, he breeds birds for small OLR’s in Australia and enjoys following their progress. Not pigeon racing as we know it but racing must and will evolve whether we like it or not.
Barry Kinnear
Due to the lack of garden space in all the new houses being built these days I can only see the problem getting worse. Modern technology has now taken
Younger people under its grasp. I believe it would be beneficial if an established fancier could take a younger individual under their wing and show them the ropes (without the cost) in pigeon racing. Another initiative would be to encourage schools to run a ‘school loft’ and join the local club. With the increase in one loft races it would appear that this is the way the sport is heading.
Mark Bulled
Publicity is the big thing. Making non fanciers aware of the sport in the first instance. Giving good publicity to the winners of big races is another. It is been said many times before that the money generated from the sport at shows like Blackpool etc should really be poured back into the game. This could be for such publicity, pigeon health and fanciers’ health (PFL). I think the current RPRA are trying to do a lot of good things, but their hands are tied by the apathy of fanciers and the historic system its working under. It needs abolishing and restarting in a new dynamic, business way. But this costs money, and it will not happen. I think we should target the older generation (over 40s) people that have more spare time/income as new fanciers.
Malik & Khan
It’s the million dollar question, we have just got to take a look at our own children and see how obsessed they are with computer games etc, its very difficult to pull them away from it, however come to think about it maybe if we were to get ‘Sony’ to make a pigeon racing game for the PlayStation were they basically be a loft manager etc could get interest from the younger generation and they might consider trying it in real life.
Mark Gilbert
Looking into the future, we need to market the sport in different ways in order to attract a younger people in the sport. Unfortunately it appears that club flying is dying out, I am glad to say that the BICC seems to be getting stronger with more birds being sent and maybe this is the way that the sport will go in the future; to National and International races.
13. Are the following of any relevance to the way you look at your pigeons for certain events whether racing or breeding, Wing theory, Length or width of flights, Eye sign, can they indicate the distance you are aiming to win at.
Gordon Bros & Son’s Gary & Niall.
We do not look at the wings in any regard to be honest when we are pairing up. We pay some sort of attention to the eye when pairing but to be honest we would not class ourselves as experts. We are still learning about the eye. We like to see a rich, vibrant eye but when we pair up, we take other things into consideration more. You will see more on that in the final answer. Regarding racing we handle our birds on a Monday and Tuesday religiously. It is at this point we make an assessment whether the birds are on track for the weekend or not. For instance, if we think they are too light it gives us chance to address that. If we think they are too big we can take steps too. We monitor the flights just to make sure there is nothing amiss, but we pay lots of attention to the skin colour on the breastbone. It is a perfect indicator of what is going on inside.
Les Green
I pay little attention to eye theory, wing theory or the width of the flights really, I do like a certain type of pigeon, of course we all like to see a pigeon with a nice coloured eye but I really don’t pay much attention to any eye sign as such, I like them with an eye that sits well in the head, hard to describe it really but I don’t like it when a pigeon has an odd shaped eye. I also like a pigeon with a bit of depth and strong pectoral muscles, wide across the front and tapering off to a wedge shape, it is really important to me that a pigeon has real good feather quality and I would never introduce a pigeon with dry brittle feathering. I also like strong tight vent bones as it shows the pigeon has a good strong structure and we can work with that. Do not really like a pigeon with a weak back but I do like a pigeon with character and intelligence.
Andy Miller
I am interested in all theories more so the wing and throat. Looking in the bird’s eyes for me is more about the first signs of health, rather than breeders/ racers etc. Probably better looking up their backside! Speaking of which tight vents is a must. At the end of the day the basket and performance will determine all. Good racers win races and good breeders breed winners, just like nice pigeons win shows.
John & David Staddon
I believe in no theories. Much of pigeon racing is based on BS spread by fanciers who like to pretend they know something all the others do not. Ignore the BS, breed your birds, race your birds, and take action upon the results.
Ian Stafford
For every theory there is the opposite. Since restarting in 2015 I realised that looks, handling, eyesign or any other theory are not important. Try to stick to winning genes. The more winning genes in the immediate pedigree the better. When I was a young lad there was no such thing as stock pigeons, you only bred from your winners or best birds. If you did not win a race you still only bred from the first birds back to your loft on most occasions and by doing this you gradually crept up the ladder.
L & K Buddle
We do not really pay any attention to the eye sign theory, wing types etc. When selecting new pigeons for breeding it is purely done by past performances of the actual breeding pigeon or if it is descended from performance pigeons, ideally, we don’t like to go further away that a grandchild of a performance pigeon. If it is a grandchild of performance pigeon, we would prefer it to be a double grandchild of that one pigeon or have multiple performance pigeons as it is grandparents. When it comes to racing theory is, we simply stick to the racing test. All our pigeons that are two years old and over will have to go to an international 500+ mile race each season with the BICC.
Geoff & Catherine Cooper
For long distance racing I like to see long flights, if you look at wild birds the longer, they fly the longer their wings are. I like a bird to be light for its size, and for long distance racing I don’t like them round apple bodied, I much prefer them slim and sleek, although you will always get exceptions and because of that I would never get rid of any bird for its size or shape, the basket is my ultimate judge. I take no notice of eye sign.
Barry Kinnear
Not a believer in any of the theory indicated, the best guide to building a team of winning pigeons is to breed them from performance pigeons and test them via the race panniers. I believe one of the factors (only one) is that far too many pigeons are being bred from pigeons that have not raced in generations.
Mark Bulled
Controversial but I do believe in eyesign. I in no way use this 100% but do believe there is something in it. I have been to many lofts and picked out their best birds. I use eyesign in my own family of birds when it comes to breeding but find this more difficult with new acquisitions. I also like to see length in the tail and a high back wing in my long- distance candidates. I dislike big, deep pigeons, and try to eradicate these from my loft at an early stage. This all said, the basket is my no 1 selector.
Malik & Khan
It all starts when we purchase the pigeons, like we mentioned before results matter nothing else, we buy pigeons that come from a line of top national performers multiple times or national ace pigeons, and then let the basket be the judge, everything else is just a theory and yet to be proven.
Mark Gilbert
I do not take into account any wing theories, the length or widths of the flights, the eyesign when breeding or racing birds. The only thing I follow is the performance and health of the bird. I do believe as mentioned before that you need a different type of bird for sprint, middle-distance and long-distance racing to be the best.
14.Have you any other comments regarding pigeons or the way the sport us organised.
Gordon Bros & Son’s Gary & Niall.
Nothing of any value I am afraid. We like to support our local club as much as possible so we do what we can on a local level to try and ensure everything runs as well as it can do.
Les Green
I do not like getting into the politics of pigeon racing, I would prefer to concentrate my efforts into racing the pigeons and leave the running of the sport to them with better knowledge of it than me. I know it sounds like a cop out, but I do not have any real comments on how the sport should be run. However, I am not a big fan of falsifying results, I am right behind any club that want to give say 4 positions per member or 1 loft 1 prize but I really don’t agree with the fact that a combine that sends upwards of 6000 birds only allows me to have 4 birds on a result. I understand why they do it, but I do not agree with it. Imagine if they did that at National level it would not be tolerated and I am not sure if it is within the RPRA rules but we have it in my combine and I have to accept it because it’s what the majority of the members want. What does puzzle me about the rule is that it does not come into force for channel racing, only land races. If it is good for one it should be good for another, that is only my opinion.
Andy Miller
I started in pigeons as a young boy of 8 years old in 1975 with my dad and saw the best days of the sport through the late 70s and 80s. We had banter camaraderie friendship and most of all respect. Something sadly lacking in the modern era.
John & David Staddon
I love our hobby and the friendships it makes us. I have been involved all my life and intend to enjoy every moment. Try not to get too caught up in politics and remember why you keep them in the first place. It frustrates me that club/fed/combines compete with each other in the same area. Bigger clubs with leagues and bigger federations would mean less liberations, less clashing, money saved and would prolong the sport far longer. I do believe the current CEO at the RPRA is a good man, but he can only do as instructed by the council. I feel the independent review of the RPRA was excellent and an opportunity was missed to move the RPRA onto a more professional and business-like footing. I live in hope that this will one day be streamlined, and money saved.
Ian Stafford
No Comment.
L & K Buddle
He I am going to big up the way in which the BICC is run by its officers & committee. This club offers to its membership 7 old bird National races from across the channel, 7 International races from 500 plus miles and 2 young bird/any age races each season. Although there is a lot of races in a short period of time the race secretary Carol & her team always manage to get out a provisional & final race result in very good time, this even so when the BICC have multiple National & International races on the same day!! The level of contact and transparency within the BICC organisation is also to a high level. On the rare occasion that a mistake or accident happens the BICC are noticeably clear and transparent with the members about it and put our full statement for all to read.
Geoff & Catherine Cooper
Fanciers seem to find it extremely easy to criticise but extremely hard to offer solutions. I think the time has come for online voting, with one member one vote at all levels. There seems to be a resistance to any change, in nature, the old teach the young, we should learn from this when racing young birds, they should be able to race with the old birds, I am sure this would help with losses.
Barry Kinnear
Far too many small clubs/federations in the same areas, in my view the historical politics need to be removed and we should have fewer bigger clubs rather than lots of small member clubs. (some club results published are embarrassing with exceptionally low membership and birds competing) BIGGER is better!
Mark Bulled
I would like to see one National club, and this would be the only overseas racing allowed. Racing would be every two weeks and on National weekend there would be two National races. One of these races would be the same racepoint in Northern France, say Fougeres 250 miles. The other race would increase fortnightly by 50 miles. So, every fortnight there would be say a 200/250-mile race. And every fortnight there would be a race of 300, 350, 400, 450, 500 and Pau/Tarbes. These would be true Nationals, and sections would be equally important to make racing fair and competitive. Local Federations can adapt to the need of inland racing.
Malik & Khan
We need to change the way we are governed by the R.P.R.A and need to be more like the K.B.D.B in Belgium, as the country in long in length it needs to be split in 2 with a line across half the country, so we have 2 nationals north & south, so basically we basket birds in your club which gets entered into your fed then a combine then a national, we could be racing against over 15,000b every week.
Mark Gilbert
I think the RPRA do an excellent job and feel they get a lot of unfair criticism. Unfortunately, younger people do not seem to want to be involved in pigeon racing, greyhound racing and all the bad habits I have. I must say that I have found it a wonderful sport to be a part of and I have made some excellent friends and look forward to all the social events in the winter. Disappointingly, with COVID19 they cannot happen this year, but I look forward to their return.
15.When it comes to breeding do you line-breed or use a first cross or just pair winners to winners. Which of the two sexes do you consider is the most important when it comes to breeding? How and when do you decide if pair are worth persevering with in the breeding loft, how many would you breed off a pair before you made such a decision.
Gordon Bros & Son’s Gary & Niall.
There are four questions there, so we will take each one in turn. For racing we like the cross. We basically have as many crosses as we can get really – but of course that is assuming that the pool of talent that you are working with is strong. Both sexes are equally as important when it comes to breeding. You cannot be a successful loft and not have strong cocks or strong hens. The stronger your pool that you must work with of both sexes the better. Of course, you can “do more” with a cock in the sense that you can run him with multiple hens, but you need strong hens too. Having said that our “Dream Rode” cock has bred 1st prize-winners with 6 different hens in 18 months. That makes you think that whatever “it” is that makes a pigeon that little bit more special than the others he has “it”. Breeders get no more than 18 months in the breeding loft and no more than say 4 from any one pair until we know that the offspring of them are top quality. One thing you do not want to be doing is littering your YB team with a host of pigeons whose parents are not proven breeders. Let us say we have a new stock pair. We will take 4 off it in Year 1 and assess how the YB have done. We will probably split the pair in Year 2 and if Year 1 pleased us we would take 2 pairs from each. If they did not please us in their first season, we would take 1 pair at the most. Our reasoning is this. Our YB will probably get 8 races, and maybe 10 or so as yearlings. That is 18 races that the offspring of the original pair have had to show their talent. 18 bites of the cherry. If they cannot inspire us in 18 races, then we are not going to sit around and wait for another 18 races to see if they are any good. The standards that you set yourself, must be higher than that.
Les Green
When it comes to matters of breeding, I like to outcross for racing, inbreed and line breed for future stock pigeons and I like to have my breeders as close to the champion performers as possible. If fanciers, ask me for youngsters that will be good for their breeding lofts I try to give them inbred ones or double grandchildren from my best. I consider the 2 sexes to be equal to be honest, some people say that good hens are the backbone of any loft, but these good hens have come from good cocks have they not. I think it is incredibly wise to pair winners to winners, you create a strong winning gene pool and that can only be a good thing. I like to change the pairings around, sometimes you hit on a good consistent breeding pair and a lot of the time it comes about by luck more than judgement but I believe by swapping the pairs around and trying the children in the race loft it gives me a higher percentage of winners and as most of the pigeons handle the same, it makes pairing easier. I do not like pairing 2 big pigeons together for instance much the same as I do not like pairing 2 small ones together, I try to strike a balance with a consistent shape in mind from their offspring. If a pigeon has had 2 or 3 rounds taken from it for 2 seasons, giving you about 8 to 12 pigeons to race and it has not produced at least something half descent I would get rid of it. The way I look after them and the effort I put in should give them every chance to prove they can breed pigeons that are up for the task. No pigeon breeds only good ones but if you have a good team, your percentages of winners bred from your breeding loft should be quite high. You must be ruthless in this pursuit both in the breeding loft and the race loft. If a breeder is not breeding winners or prize winners, they have to go and if a racer hasn’t shown me any signs of coming in time to win top prizes by the end of its second season racing like from a YB and yearling then it has to make way for a younger pigeon and I will try that one. By the time a pigeon is 2 years old in my loft if it hasn’t won a prize in the first 3 of the feds then it has to go. The only exception to that is if it has been beat by loft mates a couple of times when it was just a case of how they hit the traps. If that is the case, he or she will get another season. I really like to have a young team and I retire all my racers by the end of 3 years old, I like at least 2/3 of the race team to be yearlings and the other third mixed of 2 and 3 year olds.
Andy Miller
I do all the above trying to get as many winning genes as possible into each pairing. Both cocks and hens are of equal importance. The Belgians for years have always swapped, bought, and bred winners to winners at each discipline i.e. old bird winners, young bird winners, sprint middle and so on. Something that we Scots did not or could not seem to grasp for many years, always trying to breed to a line which probably nowadays only succeeds to a varying degree on long distance racing
John & David Staddon
We do a little line breeding especially around our Miracle pair lines. I don’t like to breed too close as I have found we get problems and poor specimens when we do. We prefer winners to winners as a rule or close descendants thereof. You also need some luck in the breeding loft, sometimes a pair you have left over pair together and breed you winner after winner. We have also recently had success by choosing a quality youngster from our best breeders and putting that straight to stock. We would never have done this in the past, but it is proving quite successful. We also try and put a couple of latebreds from our best racers to stock now each year. We like to keep our stock team on the younger side if we can. Cocks and hens are equally important. We believe in good pigeons and bad pigeons; we all get plenty of the latter, but it makes finding that diamond breeder or racer all the sweeter. I really like six youngsters from a pair per year to race. I think sprint pigeons should show straight away and long-distance pigeons two to three years and you will know. However, we constantly change pairings and find certain birds click with a partner, whereas they didn’t with their previous, this is where a little luck can be involved.
Ian Stafford.
For my whole race team, I try to breed totally different bloodlines, i.e. I would pair a Lambrecht onto a De Saer then pair the offspring of these back either way, only ever inbreeding for stock purposes and trying to retain the winning bloodlines. I try and race or at least get raced 3 full rounds out of the breeding loft, this way thoroughly testing our breeding stock as I am first and foremost only interested in breeding and racing winning pigeons.
Footnote: I would like to thank Les Parkinson for giving me this opportunity to share a little bit of the knowledge I have acquired over the last 50 years in this wonderful sport.
L & K Buddle
We like to keep our own family of pigeons as a base as these have been successful for us over the past 10-12 years. We have recently introduced birds from the lines of New Laureaat, The Special One, Golden Barcelona, Kannibaal Barcelona, Iron Man, The Proof, Verweij - De Haan, Perpignan-06 & Marseille-09. etc. these will gradually & slowly be put into our own family and also some will be tried uncrossed into our family as we want to be careful as not to lose the base of our own bloodlines by crossing to many, too quick into them. We breed 2 or 3 rounds from each stock pairing, and if a number the offspring of these aren’t still with us by the age of 2 we will then decide to split this pairing or remove one or both of them from the stock loft.
Geoff & Catherine Cooper
I like to line breed to all my top racers, but I introduce a cross if it is equal to or better than my own. I have retired racers paired together in the stock loft, so winners to winners but as I have a family of birds they are still related.
Wollongong has for the last two seasons spent time at Hugo Batenburg’s co-breeding with all his top Barcelona winners, also she was paired to Armando. The young from these are a first cross but as they are 50% our family, they are perfect as a cross, keeping the family bloodlines but adding vigour and new winning blood. Either sex is capable of breeding winners. Sometimes if after a season, two well-bred pigeons are not breeding as I would like I will part them and repair to different partners. This can often be successful.
Barry Kinnear
I would prefer to pair winners to winners, but as previously mentioned in many aspects of pigeons, I would prefer to keep my options open, i.e. Grandsire to granddaughter or granddam. to g-son. I am not too keen on closer bred than that, i.e. brother/sister etc. I remember reading an old book of my father's, “Creation of a strain" This was how pigeon racing started in Belgium, in the middle 1800’s with the Antwerp pigeon, the Liege pigeon etc. these breeds were said to be the start of our modern day pigeon. The Belgians have churned these out to the uk, in the last 150 odd years, so you would think they will all be related by this time even king Leopold gave these birds to the queens father King George who in turn gave them to the queen. I digress, but the point being, I would suspect, that most of our modern-day pigeon be related in some way.
Mark Bulled
I have owned the same family of birds for many years and they are proving to be successful still for me and many, many others. I line breed and inbreed on type as much as anything as their blood is so similar. Introducing the correct cross is vitally important and I spend a lot of time searching for what I am after. Most have been tried and disregarded. If the cross is successful, then this is put back into mine. I decide to persevere if they perform. They must also conform to my type. Good birds or breeding pairs usually show you at an early stage if they are what you are looking for.
Malik & Khan
So when we buy a new breeder firstly we always think before the purchase, can this pigeon be paired to the very best cock or hen in your stock, if the answer is yes then the purchase is made if NO then we don’t buy the bird simple, when pairing the stock birds if a pair haven’t been together then a pair is made, we don’t worry about wings eyes etc just best to best or if a new pigeon is bought in then it goes to the best cock or hen first, we try and have 2-3 rounds off our stock to race a year and keep only 12 pair of stock, again if new stock is introduced then one must be eliminated we do NOT put a extra box up.
Mark Gilbert
Regarding breeding, I always line cross for the stock loft and always first cross for racing and believe you need to be as close to the winners as you possibly can. My first judgement on whether a pair is worth keeping for long distance racing is how many I have managed to keep at the end of the young birds racing season. The sprint pigeons need to be winning as youngsters and this is how I judge them. In fairness to any pigeons you need to be breeding at least 6 youngsters to be able to test the pair and I would always give them another opportunity by splitting them up if they weren’t successful at breeding in the first year. If they have still not bred anything good after the second pairing, I move them from the stock loft.
LJP.
I would like to thank those who have taken part in this “Paper Panel” and if I get the response like I did on the others then it will all have been worthwhile.
We at Elimar Pigeon Services Limited would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Les J Parkinson. 11 Rushton Drive, Middlewich, Cheshire, CW10 0NJ. 01606836036 Mobile 07871701585. Email
