Club AGM

[Trev]

That looks like a good old bird program, although, as you say a 500 mille would be good.
The young bird program looks a bit soft to me. 170 miles is nothing for a fit, healthy youngster. They could do well with a 200 miler and a longer one to finish. Maybe 230 / 250 miles.
In New Zealand the YB national was 300 miles and returns were usually great.
I think a couple of longer races are good for the distance bred youngsters who are not competitive against the speed youngsters.
Of course down here they send young birds 500, 600, 700 miles, and get them too! Not a fan of that myself.......

To be honest mate we are lucky to have one as far as 170mls for our youngsters and anything over 200mls for the old birds, fanciers down here just aren't interested in the longer races, they would happily fly 100miles every week, those who do want to go further belong to the Classic clubs which carry much more prestige than simply competing at Club and Fed level. That was fine until the French threw a spanner in the works and made it more complicated to get our birds over the water so sadly that is now only becoming accessible to the elite money men.

[Devo1956]

That looks like a good old bird program, although, as you say a 500 mille would be good.
The young bird program looks a bit soft to me. 170 miles is nothing for a fit, healthy youngster. They could do well with a 200 miler and a longer one to finish. Maybe 230 / 250 miles.
In New Zealand the YB national was 300 miles and returns were usually great.
I think a couple of longer races are good for the distance bred youngsters who are not competitive against the speed youngsters.
Of course down here they send young birds 500, 600, 700 miles, and get them too! Not a fan of that myself.......

To be honest mate we are lucky to have one as far as 170mls for our youngsters and anything over 200mls for the old birds, fanciers down here just aren't interested in the longer races, they would happily fly 100miles every week, those who do want to go further belong to the Classic clubs which carry much more prestige than simply competing at Club and Fed level. That was fine until the French threw a spanner in the works and made it more complicated to get our birds over the water so sadly that is now only becoming accessible to the elite money men.

i agree Trev,, up to 170 miles would be my kind of racing. you can still do things while waiting for birds to come home. i just think it would be much better racing.

[Andy]

My longest race for both old and young birds is only 102 miles. Should be interesting with the widowhood’s. Real sprint racing.

[Trev]

That looks like a good old bird program, although, as you say a 500 mille would be good.
The young bird program looks a bit soft to me. 170 miles is nothing for a fit, healthy youngster. They could do well with a 200 miler and a longer one to finish. Maybe 230 / 250 miles.
In New Zealand the YB national was 300 miles and returns were usually great.
I think a couple of longer races are good for the distance bred youngsters who are not competitive against the speed youngsters.
Of course down here they send young birds 500, 600, 700 miles, and get them too! Not a fan of that myself.......

To be honest mate we are lucky to have one as far as 170mls for our youngsters and anything over 200mls for the old birds, fanciers down here just aren't interested in the longer races, they would happily fly 100miles every week, those who do want to go further belong to the Classic clubs which carry much more prestige than simply competing at Club and Fed level. That was fine until the French threw a spanner in the works and made it more complicated to get our birds over the water so sadly that is now only becoming accessible to the elite money men.

i agree Trev,, up to 170 miles would be my kind of racing. you can still do things while waiting for birds to come home. i just think it would be much better racing.

I have to say that although I have always preferred distance racing I have often questioned when does a race stop being a race to become just homing !! As much as I admire the birds and fanciers who compete and make it home from these marathon races you have think that once you are late into day 2 and certainly into day 3 that the birds are no longer racing !!! I think if it is full on racing you want then you probably are looking at races of 250mls or less, unless the wind is on their tails and they can fly 500+mls on the day.

[Murray]

That is dead right, Trev. When does it just become a 'homing'?
I am a sprint race enthusiast, there's nothing better than sprinters going 100 to 150 miles, week after week, in my view, but I would send the old cocks 250 or 300 miles when they got a year too old and a yard too slow.
Same with the young birds. The ones that had all the short racing and were just not quite keeping up with the faster ones, I would send them to the longer couple of races at the end, and most years send one or two to the National, 300 miles. Some of them turned in good results, and it didn't harm them.

It's different here in Australia. It takes a tough pigeon to go two seasons here. The predators and the terrain are terribly hard on them. After one season most of them are too scared to race genuinely. They see a falcon and dive for cover, except in places there is no cover........

[Trev]

That is dead right, Trev. When does it just become a 'homing'?
I am a sprint race enthusiast, there's nothing better than sprinters going 100 to 150 miles, week after week, in my view, but I would send the old cocks 250 or 300 miles when they got a year too old and a yard too slow.
Same with the young birds. The ones that had all the short racing and were just not quite keeping up with the faster ones, I would send them to the longer couple of races at the end, and most years send one or two to the National, 300 miles. Some of them turned in good results, and it didn't harm them.

It's different here in Australia. It takes a tough pigeon to go two seasons here. The predators and the terrain are terribly hard on them. After one season most of them are too scared to race genuinely. They see a falcon and dive for cover, except in places there is no cover........

You certainly do need the longer races to sort the birds out otherwise you would have to make some very tough choices or keep building bigger lofts lol

I do feel for your poor birds over there, it is getting more like that here these days
Although I've had issues since starting back up with hawks it's only affected those birds unlucky enough to actually be hit, until the last hit that is. I don't know what bird it was as I was in the loft cleaning out at the time, all I heard was a panic of wings as the birds scattered everywhere, some taking to skies and others crashing into the loft like petrified children. I didn't actually lose any birds in this attack but over the next few days I noticed one or two birds that had gone off their wings and were unable to get up to the perches, some went light and the whole loft felt jumpy and on edge. I didn't even try letting them out for several days but when I did they were very reluctant to come out and many didn't. They have now been shut up since the end of October, a couple still haven't completely recovered, it will be interesting to see what happens when I do finally let them out again.

[Buster121]

Did the ones that went light survive Trev and did it happen before you started seeing ropey birds, sure you said some had died or just looked very rough

[Trev]

Did the ones that went light survive Trev and did it happen before you started seeing ropey birds, sure you said some had died or just looked very rough

I did lose a few mate, including one of my Perth birds and a youngster that flew every youngbird race I've still got a couple that haven't fully recovered yet and are still light !!
Of course I can't be certain that it was the hawk attack that caused these problems as the birds could have picked something up in the fields, but it is quite a coincidence and I know from years working with livestock that shock can do some horrible things to animals.

[Buster121]

Did the ones that went light survive Trev and did it happen before you started seeing ropey birds, sure you said some had died or just looked very rough

I did lose a few mate, including one of my Perth birds and a youngster that flew every youngbird race I've still got a couple that haven't fully recovered yet and are still light !!
Of course I can't be certain that it was the hawk attack that caused these problems as the birds could have picked something up in the fields, but it is quite a coincidence and I know from years working with livestock that shock can do some horrible things to animals.

Could well have been the reason for your losses mate, as you say shock does do horrible things, it could of caused stress which in turn went to cocci or something else

[Trev]

Did the ones that went light survive Trev and did it happen before you started seeing ropey birds, sure you said some had died or just looked very rough

I did lose a few mate, including one of my Perth birds and a youngster that flew every youngbird race I've still got a couple that haven't fully recovered yet and are still light !!
Of course I can't be certain that it was the hawk attack that caused these problems as the birds could have picked something up in the fields, but it is quite a coincidence and I know from years working with livestock that shock can do some horrible things to animals.

Could well have been the reason for your losses mate, as you say shock does do horrible things, it could of caused stress which in turn went to cocci or something else

Sadly yes mate.