What to do?

[Andy]

It seems like I’ve got an awful lot to think about already before next year. I have been racing with Glastonbury fc who race in the WOESRC. The club is a nice club with some very good fanciers at both club and national level. It has been quite enjoyable with a good sociable club. The club is one of the 2 largest clubs in the combine. I have lost a lot of birds this season. Although admittedly a lot were ones that had previously been unraced. What has been disappointing is that I have lost a few that had seemed to have been coming along nicely. The biggest problem for me is that the longest combine race is only 168 miles to me, flying East to West. I am much more interested in the distance races. There does seem to be a lot of different views on what’s going to happen. I was hoping that the CSCFC were going to have a good North road program. But after a disappointing send on the first race and even lower on a revised next race they cancelled the last one. The nationals that have gone South have also seen poor birdages and very costly racing with the additional costs for vets to be present at marking stations. It sounds that with the new EU regulations that are coming into effect next year regarding convoyers and lorries it is going to be even worse.
The combine have seen very poor sends over the last couple of weeks at just over 500 birds. It is being said that the combine is finished. I can’t see this happening really as it would mean that many fanciers would have nowhere to race their pigeons. I can see though that it may well have to turn North, which I would be happy with.
From my own point of view what ever the decision is I need to change my methods and change the loft. At present I let all the birds out together first thing in the morning. Old and young together. After having some breakfast and cleaning out the birds are all fed in. The youngsters are shut in and the old birds are left on open loft. The youngsters are let out again late afternoon to join the old birds. The lofts are: The youngbird loft is split into 2 sections with box perches. In the main loft I have 1 section with 16 nest boxes and 1 with 8 nest boxes. All raced on natural.
My plan is to race some on widowhood next year. So the young bird loft I’m planning on have 8 nest boxes in 1 section with 8 nest boxes for naturals. The other section will be left with the box perches in for widowhood hens. In the old bird loft the 16 nest boxes will be replaced with 16 new boxes for widowhood and the other section for young birds.

[Murray]

It's food for thought alright Andy.

It's 7.45 and getting light so I had better go and feed mine.
I will reply later.

[Murray]

I think you might be on to something there, Andy.

To be more competitive you probably need to get the birds a bit more motivated. I know you don't like training them, and of course the widowhood pigeons only need a few tosses to get their heads around the game and away they go.
If you are racing total widowhood, racing both the cocks and the hens, then they must all go every week, as much as possible. Give a widowhood hen two weeks off and she will go off the boil. So it's a bit more effort for the few weeks of racing, but I guess you get the results from the work you put in.

[Trev]

It is a shame that it has become so difficult and expensive to get any distance racing in and to get across the channel, I'm not sure it will get any easier any time soon it's good that you've found a club that you enjoy being part of, hopefully that will keep going ok and tha fed will too
I've said to you before bro that you need to try widowhood again, I think youd enjoy it. I also think you'd be as well to widen your horizons, introduce some sprint birds and start trying to target some of these shorter races too, you had plenty of success with your widowhood team in the past and I'm sure you would again.

[Andy]

It is a shame that it has become so difficult and expensive to get any distance racing in and to get across the channel, I'm not sure it will get any easier any time soon it's good that you've found a club that you enjoy being part of, hopefully that will keep going ok and tha fed will too
I've said to you before bro that you need to try widowhood again, I think youd enjoy it. I also think you'd be as well to widen your horizons, introduce some sprint birds and start trying to target some of these shorter races too, you had plenty of success with your widowhood team in the past and I'm sure you would again.

The ones I had back then were mainly the Van Hees. They won at all distances from 90 miles up to 650 miles.
There are a lot of people giving their own ideas of how things are going to change. Their opinions seem to depend on what they want. I was speaking to someone tonight and they suggested that club racing will be finished within the next 5 years and the only racing would be with the NFC & the BICC flying over the channel. Others say that channel racing is finished and the only way to keep racing pigeons is to turn North. The ones wanting to race South are saying that channel racing is still strong and that’s the only racing that will be available. Whilst others are saying the opposite. Bird numbers and accounts will be the thing that decides it in the end. The BICC have the Pau international this weekend. It costs £9.50 per bird to send.

[Trev]

There is still fairly strong support for channel racing down here although the birdage on the South Road has certainly dropped this season, but there is also a big swing towards North Road with the Solent North Road, Southampton North Road and Sussex North Road along with the Dorset North Road and Wiltshire North Road all whom have some good (albeit some weeks a bit sticky) racing this season.
I think if more Federations can get together to form Combine races (As they did in the 70s/80s) then Club and Fed racing will continue.

[killer]

Hard work never killed anyone ,