UkPigeonRacing

Murray wrote: ↑Sun Sep 25, 2022 11:13 am I saw the strangest thing I have ever seen in many years of sharing my home with pigeons.
In my small stock shed I have a couple of red Jos Thone' cocks. One of them hatched babies last week.
In the next box is my good old race pigeon, The Diver. Diver is getting old, but looks like a two year old. Sadly, Mrs Diver is not.
The old hen did not lay for ages, then laid one egg only. I know, she should not still be there.
Anyway, this afternoon I was doing the housework and saw the old Diver in the red pigeon's nest box, sitting on the babies.
"No, mate" I said, and put him back in his box.
Next time I looked, he was back in there pumping feed into the babies. And he was not going to give it up, either. I tried to move him, but Diver is half human, he considers himself my equal, and started coming at me with his shoulder.
"Oh 'eck", I thought. Next thing the red cock will be back in and there will be a blood bath. In a moment of inspiration, or desperation I threw the egg away from under Mrs Diver, and put one of the babies under her........
She took a look at it, I took a long breath, and she started pumping feed into it.
Then I had a new problem. Mrs Diver was on the baby, and Diver was a bit overwrought about the whole thing. So I took him out and plonked him in the garden with the others having a bath.
By end of play,
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Murray wrote: ↑Sun Sep 25, 2022 11:40 am While this was going on, my wife informed me that Banjo had decided to visit the newly weaned babies and gone in through the sputnik. He doesn't mean to hurt them, but they were a bit upset, they aren't used to a large kitten in the loft.

Catherine found him looking a bit uncertain about what to do next.

The trauma was obviously fairly minor, on day two of their new lives in the 'big shed', when I called all the pigeons in, 9 out of 10 were in with the rest.

Murray wrote: ↑Wed Sep 28, 2022 1:27 am I had a phone call yesterday, reporting one of mine missing since Saturday.
Turned out it was 3000, one of the pigeons I collected from up the river a couple of weeks before. He was in nice order and had paired up, so I thought he would go alright.
Instead, he's turned left and gone back to Moama! I called the bloke last night and we decided he had better keep the pigeon.
It's the last of the short races this weekend. I am getting short of pigeons, but I handled a few this morning, and they feel good.
We shall see how we go. Easterly wind should help.

Murray wrote: ↑Wed Sep 28, 2022 1:27 am I had a phone call yesterday, reporting one of mine missing since Saturday.
Turned out it was 3000, one of the pigeons I collected from up the river a couple of weeks before. He was in nice order and had paired up, so I thought he would go alright.
Instead, he's turned left and gone back to Moama! I called the bloke last night and we decided he had better keep the pigeon.
It's the last of the short races this weekend. I am getting short of pigeons, but I handled a few this morning, and they feel good.
We shall see how we go. Easterly wind should help.