Sheffield & District 5 Bird Championship

CHRIS GIBSON

Sheffield & District 5 Bird Championship

Well the old bird season has been and gone and as I type this article the first race of the young bird calendar should now be under way but instead it has been cancelled due to a poor weather forecast for the whole weekend. At our loft that is now our season over for another year as due to us both working 50+ hours per week and family commitments. It’s always been extremely difficult for us to have our young birds on a system that would enable us to compete on a weekly basis, let alone compete at this level. Despite this they have been exercising exceptionally well often ranging for over an hour before returning to the loft, they’ve also been performing well from the few training tosses they have had so far. Hopefully we will have some good young cocks that come through from these to replace some of the exceptionally good cocks that we have unfortunately lost this year. Despite winning 1st Open Barnsley Federation from 5,700 birds and winning several prizes in the Championship including 2x2nd we have had a difficult old bird season compared to recent years. Difficult may be the wrong word really, perhaps the word I’m looking for is challenging as we have chosen to test ourselves and our birds against the very best competition in the area and doing so whilst being in a hugely disadvantaged position both in this club and in our new club Darnall HS. Losing three cocks that have won us more prizes than the rest of the cocks in our team put together really hit us hard, again maybe lose is the wrong word, as you simply don’t lose pigeons of such quality. The best cock in the loft was our “Lt Cheq W/F” (pictured) closely followed by a cock we called Loe, between them these two had notched up no less than 18 prizes in the Championship Club alone in just the last two seasons including 2x1st and 3x2nd not to mention a host of other prizes at club and fed level including 1st Feds. Both these cocks were from the very best of Adrian Duggins’s fantastic Janssen based pigeons with the “Lt Cheq W/F” being from the lines of the brilliant racer and breeder the “12x1st cock” Wal Zoontjen on the sire’s side and the old “De Klak” cock on the dam’s side. The cock we called “Leo” was from the old Van Tuil lines on the sire’s side and his dam was for me, one of the best breeding hens I have handled having bred several big winners to my knowledge and that was prior to 2009, so I’m sure she will have bred even more since then. She was of cause a Leo Van Rijn/Meeder hence the name “Leo” he was a super pigeon and was the sire to Mr&Mrs D Biltons “£700 cock” mentioned below. The other good cock we lost was one we called Red Blue’un from our old Van Reet lines he had won 2x2nd in the Championship but was mainly kept at club level and had won 4x1st plus lots of other prizes all with good fed positions 2,500+birds, he was half brother to our double fed winner No97. Between them the three had won no less than 36 prizes in the last few seasons and plenty of federation positions including 1st Feds, not to mention a fare few quid in the process. What makes it harder to take is that two out of the three were going to be retired to stock at the end of the year as they had also bred winners including the Woodhouse Breeder Buyer in 2009 winning £700 this young cock scored in six out of the seven races he was entered in at Thurnscoe HS and had some good fed positions in the Barnsley Federation from 6,000+ birds and has continued to score well as an old bird. Incidentally, the cocks that had also bred winners and were going into the stock loft were the two Duggins cocks. To lose three birds of such quality was hard to take, particularly when you only have a small hand full of birds in your team to start with. Thank fully we still have their bloodlines in the loft. As I said above lets hope we can replace them next year with some of the young birds we are educating this year. Anyway, on to the results for the remaining races in the old bird programme.

Our Lt Chq WF - 2x1st, 2x2nd, 1x5th, 1x6th, 2x8th, 1x9th in the Championship plus many other club and fed prizes

Hullavington 4/6/11 24 members sent 120 birds liberated in a strong North East wind. 1st & 8th Carder&Thomson 1213 1166, 2nd & 3rd B&C Brelsford & son 1212 1193, 4th & 5th J&M Hobson1190 1178, 6th Mr/Mrs A Jackson 1170, 7th M&A Sherwood 1168, 9th A Burton & son 1164.

Messac 11/6/11 11 members sent 55 birds liberated in a light variable wind, 1st M&A Sherwood 1251, 2nd K&J&P Jenkinson 1248, 3rd Mr/Mrs A Jackson 1244, 4th A Plant 1236, 5th D Robinson 1217.

Blandford 18/6/11 22 members sent 110 birds liberated in a strong South West. 1st Mr&Mrs A Jackson 1649, 2nd B&C Brelsford & son 1632, 3rd 5th & 7th  M&A Sherwood 1630.9 1629 1623, 4th J&M Hobson 1630.7,  6th & 9th Carder&Thomson 1626 1612, 8th A Burton & son 1619.

Wincanton 26/6/11 23 members sent 112 birds liberated in a light South East. 1st J&M Hobson 1792, 2nd & 9th D&C Gibson 1726 1708, 3rd & 8th B&C Brelsford & son 1725 1716, 4th & 7th Boden&Hollingworth 1723 1718.2, 5th Atkinson&Grayson 1722, 6th Carder&Thomson 1718.3.

Hullavington 2/7/11 96 birds liberated in no wind. 1st J&M Hobson 1491.2, 2nd & 7th M&A Sherwood 1491.1 1470.73, 3rd 5th & 9th Carder&Thomson 1484.7 1471 & 1469, 4th Boden&Hollingworth 1484.2, 6th B&C Brelsford & son 1470.77, 8th A Burton & son 1470.3.

Saintes 9/7/11 The final race in the cannel section and of cause the old bird season altogether was from Saintes on 9/7/11, 28 birds were entered liberated in a South West wind. 1st & 2nd M&A Sheerwood 1302 1292, 3rd Mr/Mrs A Jackson 1237, 4th Mr W Lax & son 1214, 5th D Weston 1168.

In the above few races the members were flying for a total of £1,350 in pool money alone, which is brilliant money to be racing for. Very well done to all the lofts that have been in the prizes during the old bird season, as everyone one knows, it’s very hard to do in the club.