CAN YOU DETERMINE YOUR FIRST BIRD HOME?

[Diamond Dave]

Used to have an ol fella in my club used to look in my basket on a Friday night and he would say - "that will be your first bird home boy" and he was almost always right.
- Anyone know what was he looking at?

[king]

Used to have an ol fella in my club used to look in my basket on a Friday night and he would say - "that will be your first bird home boy" and he was almost always right.
- Anyone know what was he looking at?

If he only handles one of your birds and he is right he got lucky picking it. If it was the bird you also expected first than it's coincidence. A good fancier should be able to pick his first bird home or have it in his first few back. obversely the fewer birds you send the easier it should be. A good fancier in my old club used to say he wanted a bird before the bird he fancied.
I recall a fancier marking one of my birds once saying this won't win, it's got a greasy wattle. It was my fancied bird pooled right though and the greasy mark had appeared just hours before marking. I still sent it. He was right in the fact that it didn't win. I was right also in the fact it was still my first bird home being 2nd club and winning most of the pools.
Dave if you handle lots of birds at marking you soon learn the feel of well conditioned birds. You also learn more quickly those that are not so good.

[king]

From a widowhood cock perspective I was drawn to birds who were doing something different on a consistent basis

It may be a cock trying to take another box, a quiet cock getting rowdy, a rowdy cock becoming more determined to stay in his box, a cock that would un-naturally break off from the others to do his own thing etc...

If i recall my top 6 cocks of all time they all had their different ways of telling me they were coming into "super-form"

I recall the my old sec Geoff Farmery who had a good widowhood cock back in the 80s he actually phoned a friend in panic because this cock did something totally different from normal before a race. Whatever it did it didn't matter as the bird still won the race.

[Anthony webster]

I'm good at picking other lads first bird ,not my own tho if one arrives iv failed my self.

[Diamond Dave]

I am crap at that
I always think your doing something different or claiming a temporary perch so your in form and it always goes flat for me
Hens at the slot is another one I make a mental note of what hens trying to look in the most and that never happens for me

Still with this celibacy least I won’t get excited only to full. flat on my face for a change

Neil, "what is hens at the slot"?

[Anthony webster]

Like a peep hole with a perch the hens side so they can look in the cocks but the cocks don’t know there looking in

It works don't it Neil, but when I raced 14 celibacy hens 2 yrs bk they didn't see a cock bird once the once that wanted to cuddle raced brilliant lol.

[Champbourke08]

One of the best sprinters in the Midlands in recent years was the "Holey Moley"

He got his name because his little "trick" in preparation before the race was to go and sit on the nearby church roof

Who owns that one mike

[Champbourke08]

Thanks mike I did my homework on it and it was owned by Morris and Ellis

[Champbourke08]

That's good news