UkPigeonRacing

All sounds good Murray. We are the opposite here of course. Days are getting longer and I must start getting them out soon as we only have 5 weeks before the first race and they haven’t been out for 3 months. Looks like it could be wet for the next 2 weeks though.

Dread that time of year, but love the after look

Murray wrote: ↑Sat Mar 11, 2023 9:40 pm I went out to clean and feed the champions this morning, opened the loft door, and there were feathers everywhere!
Mainly down feathers off their bodies. And covert feathers off the outside of the wings.
Not sure why, but I did give them another toss on Friday. So they are getting pretty fit. Then yesterday they had their chopped vegetables as usual and garlic and cider vinegar in the water. Also the days are drawing in rapidly.
Anyway I did a quick clean out and fed them. I will go out with the brush and try to gather up the rest of the feathers shortly.

It does get messy during the moult lol, makes scraping out interesting
How many times a week do you give them the apple cider vinegar mate ??

Andy wrote: ↑Sat Mar 11, 2023 10:38 pm All sounds good Murray. We are the opposite here of course. Days are getting longer and I must start getting them out soon as we only have 5 weeks before the first race and they haven’t been out for 3 months. Looks like it could be wet for the next 2 weeks though.

Get them out Andy the rain will help wash the cobwebs away lol

Old Gordon and Mrs Gordon raised another pair of babies for my mate David.
By the father of my Billion Dollar Baby, he’s mostly Heremans.
The mother is a Jansen. And the babies, both hens, have the beautiful soft, satiny plumage that you get from the Jansen.
When he came to collect them he insisted I keep one so I picked the finer one and he took the bigger one.
Next day she was out on the stock shed with her father.
She is gorgeous . What’s better than a Billion?
A trillion. That’s her name. Trillian. Like the Hitch hikers guide to the galaxy

What a stunner Murray

Cracking youngster Murray.

Yes she is.

Smart wee one too. Was flying up and down from the Gordon box to the air conditioner, to the stock shed, to the roof, and back down again. Then she had a poke around with the others, then put herself back in her box. She's only 33 days old.

It's 7.30am on Sunday morning, 17c and partly cloudy. Because it was still hot last night we left the doors open, just locked the screen doors. I can see the birds starting to to wander out into the sputnik, stretch their wings and go back in again.

I will go and feed them in a minute, but while it gets lighter I will recall the last couple of days.

On Friday it was warm and sunny, but not too hot, so I took 24 youngsters about 10 miles. Let them go, drove home and was half surprised that they weren't back. Half an hour later about 12 of them arrived. Some time later I let them all out and waited for the others. And waited....
I was just about to call them in when the others arrived. They had flown for 2 hours and 20 minutes. They were dragging their wings. A quick count showed 2 were missing.

Yesterday morning I went out and found them on the loft.

It was forecast to be hot yesterday, and it was. Got over 37c with a hot dry wind. I made the decision to not let them out at all. I cleaned them out, fed them, scrubbed and bleached the drinkers and made a batch of veggies for them. By last night they were all hungry and bouncing around.

It's cooler today, going to 28, so they can have a fly and a bath this afternoon.

Glad the missing ones turned up, do you think something went into them