Had ybs out today hens flew for 1 hr and 30 mins,i had the widowhood cocks out and the flew for 40mins out of site and then played about around house. Celibates i kept in. I then took them training hens had some new youngster with them so they were taken to harlow all homed in good time. Cocks celibate and widowhood both taken to bishop stortford and also homed in good time. Tomorrow hens will be going on Stevie Whites lorry and believe his going Duxford.

Xerex bilco's young bird sickness treatment have to say is a product that is irreplaceable, and i will defiantly be buying some in next year just in case next years young birds get the sickness. I cannot get over the rapid improvement of the birds, birds that looked terrible to birds that look like super stars. Xerex is also cheap as chips i know one thing its under 48 hours and I'm really impressed and 3 sachets for a tenner don't think you can go wrong, especially as its a sachet to a gallon. One things for sure my cupboard will not be without it again.

In 8 hours of using bilcos powder, the birds looked alot better less lerthagic, only few with a few ruffled feathers, droppings soliding up, which is all good stuff. Had a new fancier round today Nico and he took some nice photos which thought id share,

Huntingdon race in Newham invitation was 2nd and 6th club White Lightning scored the 6th prize. In Custom house was 8th club. Hens went training sunday Harlows, however no racing this week all hens returned but vomiting and wet droppings were noted in the hens section, sent of to bilco for some young bird sickness treatment and should be arriving tomorrow morning. Supposed to be free from the illness in 48 hours.

Again

cocks went newmarket again all came home together. Increased the maize contents and gave birds as much as they wanted. They will receive seed tomorrow about mid-day, with the drinker removed, and refilled an hour before basketting, to make sure they get a drink in the basket. Another winner arrived this morning pretty strange.

Newmarket & the Winner

Winner magazine arrived this afternoon, looks like the standards are set high once again although was a long wait will be looking forward to reading this tonight. Cocks were trained i believe at newmarket today which by road is 58.5 miles but wouldn't know how far it is by the way the bird fly's. They all came together so was really happy, its going to be a difficult task in picking the 2 bird nomination this week.Not sure whether to train cocks again tomorrow or i might rest them incase there is a cock up! chequer cock is fine now will let him out of box saturday morning, because didn't want to let out this morning as he may have adverse affect on the cocks as they have got used to him being out of the loft.

another toss from bishop stortford birds came well altogether apart from 2, 1 was the Mosaic bird who had his first stortford yesterday.Happy the way they came, tomorrow supposed to be training further supposedly newmarket.

Bishop Stortford

had a lovely toss, birds came well, chucked in 2 new ones and one made it home still waiting on one, the ones who had been educated well were all here in a matter of minutes, all the cocks went. The cock i had trouble with droppings have started to solidify and was giving a half feed if digested he will receive another feed. All birds fed at 1.30pm today

Training Toss

sunday aload of palova has been going on, a cheq cock was found vomited food in his nest box, and wet watery droppings been put in isocolation and hasnt been feed for 48 hours but will recieve half feed in the morning. Cocks were took back to wanstead flats for training toss,tossed up in groups of 3's, 5 mins imbetween each other, birds took around 5 mins each to do 6 miles.

Update

been a while since i last updated,Thursday training was canceled,Friday hens had there first toss on the lorry and had 100% returns was really happy, this morning birds were put on a cocci treatment of baycox and will be a two day course. Hoping to get another training toss on Sunday, the cocks will then go on a training up until Wednesday. First race is next Saturday.

Thicker and faster

Birds were at bishop stortford again this morning, had 11 birds out of the 22 cocks come together, and the rest apart from one in very quick concession. i don't know if i should send cocks or hens tomorrow, due to the K index factor that is brewing up over the next 48 hours. When this K index factor has been about there has been some very dodgy racing with many losses, I will make final choice tonight, and we will find out whether i am a gambling man or not. Put alot of cardboard boxes in the hens section, and made a little town basically in the loft and hens are claiming boxes with old cocks as we speak. Hoping to get the hens down on eggs soon, they have been paired up for a while and have noticed a few looking eggy hence the reason for putting the cardboard boxes in. I am finally off college now so like always alot more time and effort will be put into the young birds as i am home all day.

First lorry toss, at bishop stortford which is 30 miles, birds where picked up at 9am and was told to expect them around midday,12.05 the first batch came, all the birds came particularly well, one late commer, but he will not be so far behind tommorow, i like birds who take a while they seem to learn hell of a lot more and hardly seem to make the same mistake from the same training point again. The birds will be going training again tommorow, by the way i have only trained the cocks on the lorry, i will be rotating the cocks and hens alternatively, the hens will get first toss on lorry on thursday. All cocks apart from the late commer were home by 12.45. At 1pm, all birds including hens were fed 1/4 of ounce. This will have to be there routinely feeding time from now on. At 4.15pm the hens were allowed freedom of the loft, was disappointed with how they flew only gave me half an hour, could it be because there on canker treatment or they are all paired up to the Old Cock birds? Who knows. at 5.15pm the hens were fed at there routinely time as much as my yb mix as they can eat till start to leave barley, then an hour after the cocks were fed at there usual time and in the same manner.

The sun is shining and what a beautiful day. The blue cock who was missing from yesterdays training toss arrived at 7.15 this morning, done slight bit of weight and has looked nakered all day god knows where he went, was kept in and rested considering also his hen laid out last night while he was away. All birds fed at 7.00 this morning a dessert spoon, which works out a quatre of an ounce. The hens went out at midday and they flew about an hour an half. Then the celibate cocks were let out at 1.30 and didnt return till 3.45, so they ranged well, and trapped even better, all were in, after a few blos of the whistle. Then the widowhood cocks were let out most apart from 3 i have paired up now so 8 in total are paired to old hens, and 3 out of the 8 hens have laid. These flew for about 30 mins, the younger cocks like the mosiac and the big blue pied are the culprits of making them drop, they didn't even range, was in sight the whole time, to top of they didnt trap very well either, so they went without food when they went in. Last night i also put them on flagyl powder in the drinkers so they will be on a 3 day course of canker that is all the young birds. The hens and celibate pigeons got fed as much as they wanted till started to leave barley after there fly, and widowhoods wasnt fed due to bad trapping. A touch of luck is that they will be lorry trained nearly every day now as i phoned round a few people and will be able to get my birds picked up tommorow morning at 9am. Im slightly on edge as its bishop stortford and the birds have only had 1 twenty one mile training toss. The days will be in rotation i will send cocks one day hens the next. Bishop Stortford is exactly 30 miles to my loft.

Harlow

Another training toss this time about 21 mile stage, had 4 birds come in half hour and the others all came within the hour, one short in the evening a widowhood cock!

5th Training toss

the fifth training toss was from loughton again 12 miles, both sets of birds done the training spin in 16 minutes, they will be taken to 20 miles on sunday, only a short blog this evening as its early hours of the morning.

Update

Was unable to get a training toss in today as mum was too tired, which was hell of a bummer, the birds need to be getting up the road, really would have liked to have had another 2 loughtons, going to have to have a rethink. Definatly going to get a training toss tommorow. Had all young birds out today, I changed my mind and decided to try and get them in using the whistle, was suprised there was no mucking about from some of the usual culprits. Then all in then fed again blowing of the whistle, think they were used to my own whistling so don't think the whistle bothered them to be honest. The birds are really looking good speck of health, lovely clean wattles, bright eyes and silky feathering, pleased how they are looking, just need to get more training under there belt. Once they get to the 30 miles stage I will relax more and not be so stressed about first race being in 3 saturdays time, huntingdon!

Whistle While You Work

Whistle While You Work, was a nice little song during the war, but I've finally purchased two whistles, going to use them then the common phrase of 'Come On', as anyone that knows me knows i got over excited when a bird is in view, I've been whistling so far this year by using my mouth, but now I've got a cold found out its been hard to pucker up so to speak! So will be getting the birds used to the new whistle by every time feeding blowing the whistle continuously, then will introduce it to get them in gradually, this will also help as then literally anyone can get my birds in as all they will have to do is blow the whistle! The birds wasn't trained yesterday, hoping to get another loughton in today but have to rely on my mother to get in from work.

4th Toss

Took the birds to loughton today a distance to my loft 12 miles. There was alot of bother, we arrived there at 3.30pm, released the cock birds and they cleared instantly, then after clearing a batch of i would say 100 pigeons came over and, my cocks came back into sight and joined the bunch. However luckily the bunch looked as if they were heading in the direction of home. I had a phone call to say one had arrived in 20 mins, and another 2 had arrived after 30, and i got home in time to see the rest arrive home in about 50 minutes. I let the hens go at 3.50, it took them a total of 2 hours to come home, and they were litterally soaking, they had a clean hour of no rain, so if they had made it in good time they would have been dry.

Not Taking A Liking

It looks as if white lightning hasn't taken to the hen i put him with last night, still no sign of his original hen, so its pretty strange why she had gone missing! The younger widowhood cocks i think will be ready to pair up maybe after the first race, these younger cocks i haven't trained yet as there much younger then my earlier rounds. I'm hoping to get a 10 mile training toss in today with widowhood cocks, celibate cocks, and hens, but will have to play it by eye with the weather!

3rd Training Spin

Third training toss today from wanstead flats, both batches took 14 mins to reach home today, all home which is good, but it looked as if they went over and came back on themselves from the direction they came from if that makes sense. A few of the celibate cocks are really getting to grips with things with a few coming and trapping onto landing board from the air. Which is a good and something i like to see in my pigeons when they trap well, being sprint minded all the time on the air and house roofs is valuable seconds. On a sadder note, white lightnings hen went missing on her loft fly, this is a bird who returned from the LNRC stonehaven race like a rake, im submissing hit by a wire or a hawk attack. I've put another hen in with him hopefully he takes to her well, i'll soon find out, if his in his bowl tommorow calling there will be a big thumbs up within a new blog. The birds will go around about 10 miles tommorow if weather is fine. Will let you know how things pans out. But one thing i know is for definate the young birds are occupying alot of my time i have been in and out of the lofts you could litterally say all day and at 8.46pm, finally been able to rest and type my thoughts!

Success

Had a small touch of success this morning, last night was so stressed out that the young cocks who were defiantly rank, were not "pulling" so to speak. So i placed 6 out of the 12 into boxes with hens. Now i know what your going to say why only 6, as a few of the other 6 are slightly younger and missed the darkness period, so i am playing a waiting game till they mature a little bit, although they appear very up for it, i will play it by ear before introducing a hen to them. However the other 6 that i did put in widowhood boxes with hens last night, all this morning were in the nest bowls calling with the hens so im very happy, anyways i better shoot off got driving lesson and college, will update later tonight if i can get birds training!

2nd Toss

Well impressed today, I let out my young cocks today, as i believe in the old saying you have to get the flight out of the pigeons before you train them. I let them out at 2.15pm the birds didnt return to 5.00pmso if thyat didnt get the flight out of them nothing could, they kept returning over the loft and house during this time with other pigeons but they didnt drop, and for most of this period they were out of sight. Unfortuantly because of this i was unable to let out my celibate cocks, or my young hens. When the young widowers retuned, i let out my old hens with them and got all the birds in the widowhood shed and let them choose a mate.So i put some stripped down hens in with my celibate cocks for 10 mins, as i done the previous day and basketed them, in the same basket as widowhood cocks.Then i basketed my hens in a different basket. Again back to wanstead flats, The cocks were liberated at 6.00pm, and i got the phone call at 6.10pm that all the widowhood and celibate cocks were home. The celibate cocks supposably trapped like rockets, as i think there gathering the idea that hens are going to be in there shed on return, now these 11 cocks have not seen a hen since weaning so they do get really excited. Widowers took a while to get in as they are not used to going in the widowhood shed yet, but all that will soon change. Once i got the call to say all were home, I waited a further 10 minutes, i then let my team of hens go, I then got a call, while playing over the flats with my dog that they had done it slower then the cocks and they took 16 minutes! I felt rather impressed and happy they way the schooling has gone so far! They will go to wanstead flats again tommorow then they will be on to 10 miles. Happy the way things are progressing so far.