Mid Cheshire
That’s about it for the racing side for another season and no doubt the birds will be getting through the heavy part of their moult. For the darkness fancier’s some will be wondering if their birds will manage a full change of clothes or some may carry the odd flight or two over. Most fanciers have now mastered the darkness system and worked out how to get their birds through a full moult. Messing with nature in any way is never a very good idea and no doubt this has caused a lot of health problems in young birds, that were not there until fanciers started using the darkness system.
The last race of the season for the Mid Cheshire Fed saw 35 members send 515 birds to Portland when they were liberated at 8am in a North-East wind. The well-known all round winning lofts of R & B Smith from Burtonwood topped the last racing list for the season.
The Middlewich FC were also in this race when Syd Latham, Son & Daughter picked up the red card ahead of W Wilson & Son who took the last two in what must have been their best season ever winning somewhere in the region of 16 x 1sts. Still with the fed over at Acton Bridge they have been competing against one of the best racing lofts in the country but the members have kept going and they themselves have pushed and had some good fed results. In this race, the partnership of Jones Bros and K Jones are 1st 3rd & 4th with their first being a blue hen sitting eggs just chipping, in this race she was 2nd fed and she also took 12th fed earlier in the season. Their second in the clock is a chequer hen flying back to the perch followed by a chequer cock sitting 2-week-old eggs and as always, they are the Andre Clemens lines. Most fanciers change but this team have stuck to these lines for a very long time.
Rob Bebbington is second club 4th fed with a blue which is bred from the un-rung pair. I remember Rob buying this pair at the North West Classic presentation at the beginning of the year. Mr & Mrs Bill Lewis were presenting the prizes and brought along a pair of pigeons to sell for the club. This could be a good buy for Rob because he only bred two off them and the hen has shown great promise and the cock has done even better. When he bought them, he was bidding mostly against his brother Geoff who knows how well Bill Lewis does at the distance and himself being distance minded fancied them himself. The cock did get out and went missing for a few days but came back so a sensible pigeon all round. I must say when they were being sold at the presentation I though the cock was a bit on the big side but the hen was a nice hen and a good size, they do complement each other so a good selection choice by Bill. I dare bet there will be a few more in the young bird team off them next year. The week before when the heavens opened as the pigeons were due to arrive Rob was sat in his van outside his house for above 10minutes because it was raining so hard. When he eventually got out went around the back he saw this blue cock sitting there like a drowned rat as the saying goes, as he said he must have been there all the time because nothing could have stayed in the air with all that rain.
Well done to all the winners for the year in which there have been some bad races with heavy losses especially in the Nationals. As always pigeon men get on with it and start looking to the breeding and another year’s racing, it soon comes around and the older you get the sooner it appears to happen.
Westlands
