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JOHN LUDLAM Of NELSON 1st & 6th WELSH SR NATIONAL TARBES 2011 1st WELSH SR NATIONAL TOURS 2010 by Gareth Watkins At 8am on Saturday morning 2nd July, John Ludlam a former submariner, realised one of his life’s ambitions when he clocked his two year old dark chequer hen to win the Welsh South Road National FC’s race from Tarbes at 602 miles. The convoy of Welsh pigeons had been liberated at Tarbes at 6.15 am the previous day along with the pigeons of the NFC. Only a handful of English pigeons were clocked on the day at distances of 527 – 568 miles so there was very little prospect of day birds into Wales at close on 600 miles.
John holding the Tarbes National winner This latest National win follows on from John’s success in winning the 2010 Tours National along with a sheaf of other top 20 finishes in National races including regular success in cross border competition with the BICC;BBC and NFC, so a loft visit was long overdue. John first started with pigeons as a 4 year old in 1948 and was greatly assisted by his grandfather Will Morgan, the great Stan Curtis and other top class Welsh fanciers such as Will George and George Cecil all of whom were Welsh National winners in their own right. John has flown to a number of locations in the Nelson area but finally settled at his present address in 1988.The loft set up comprises four lofts :- a 10ft x 8 ft stock loft with aviary; a 18 ft x 8ft young bird loft; a 10 ft x 8ft natural loft which houses 6 pairs and a 24ft x 6ft widowhood loft. All lofts are fitted with floor grills to reduce the need for daily cleaning. The young bird loft has three sections. One is fitted with nest boxes while the other two sections are fitted out with pipo boxes. The natural loft, to which the Tarbes National winner raced, could also be used as a round about loft as one section has 12 nest boxes whilst the other section is fitted out with lift off perches. Bricon ETS is used in all lofts.
Tarbes National winner John races a team of 30 widowhood cocks along with 30 widowhood hens on total widowhood. In addition to this team he has 6 pairs of natural racers which are aimed at the long distance classic races. The stock team amounts to 15 pairs of birds of mainly long distance origin from Steve Wright at the House of Aarden, Patrick Brothers and Mr & Mrs Woolliss. The race results of the offspring from all three sources have proved exceptional and I know that John would want me to thank Steve and Lesley Wright of the House of Aarden; Steve and Philip Patrick and Paul and Wendy Woolliss for providing him with some terrific base pigeons on which he has built his successful team of middle and long distance racers. A team of 100 young birds is bred from these and 80 are raced on the darkness with a later round of around 20 babies raced naturally. If fit and in good health the darkness young birds are raced weekly throughout the program. On the other hand the natural youngsters are brought on more steadily depending on the state of the moult. The stock birds are usually mated in late November/early December followed by the widowhood team in January and the natural pigeons on or around 14th February. Once their domestic duties are over the widowhood team are exercised at home for 1 hour at dawn and then again at around 3 pm. They get three training spins from the Severn Bridge approximately 25 miles and are then kept at it with weekly racing at Fed level. The natural team enjoy an open loft in between the times that the widowhood team are at exercise and also get a number of 50 mile training tosses to bring them into condition for the channel races. The Tarbes birds and other birds destined for the long distance classics usually get three short channel races in preparation topped up with three 50 mile trainers in the build up to their target race. All birds are fed by hand with the addition of extra food fed in the nest boxes for those birds going to the longer channel races. John uses the Gem mixtures developed by Brian Wall as well as Mariman and Beyers mixes as and when he feels the need. He swears by Norban products especially the BIOMATE probiotic powder which he uses with the young birds on a regular basis with the aim of warding off the dreaded YBS. So we come to the main reason for my visit – the Tarbes National winner. She proved to be a lovely compact and well balanced medium sized dark chequer hen. Her third flight was ½ up when I handled her a week after her return. She was in superb condition and could have flown the race again that day if needs be. She is a mixture of bloodlines via House of Aarden and Patrick Brothers on the sire’s side and Patrick Brothers and Paul Woolliss on the dam’s side and therefore contains Jan Aarden, Van Wanroy and Van de Wegen genes through De Barcelona, Lady Wegen and Invincible Spirit. The second bird in the clock from Tarbes winning 2nd sect 6th Open was another hen raced on the natural system and is pure Woolliss. This hen was slightly bigger than the National winner with a bit more depth to the keel and a lovely bold head with outstanding eye sign.
Natural loft We couldn’t have left without handling the winner of 1st National Tours for John in 2010. This lovely dark chequer pied hen is once again a combination of Patrick Brothers and Woolliss bloodlines and came into the hand like a dream. Before leaving we also handled a number of the stock birds which had been separated for the winter. These were an impressive bunch especially the Woolliss pigeons which were tough looking street fighters – and that was just the hens! Although the visit was brief I must say that I was very impressed with the set up and the quality of birds housed at the Ludlam loft. John is a deep thinker and with his vast experience and knowledge of the sport applied to a top class team of long distance thoroughbreds, I can only predict further successes for the Ludlam team.
The aviary which houses stock birds in winter
YB natural loft
YB darkness loft
John outside the widowhood loft
View inside widowhood loft
The widowhood section
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