The start

I spent the last years of my school days in Crewe and have kept a link ever since with the pigeons, therefore I do know a few of them; I even worked with several while at Rolls Royce Motor Cars. Whether coincidence or not I have no idea but this weeks subject Richard Boffey moved into Crewe over 30 years ago as I was leaving. However they were different circumstances because Richards move was after his father Frank Boffey of Nantwich passed away, I moved when I got married. Richard moved the loft and birds to his new home in Queen Street where he broke the birds out and joined the local Crewe Club where I started to race them. In those days the Crewe clubs were as good as any in the Country and the town would see in excess of 1,000 birds most weeks going to the two local races. Taking into account the number of birds entered each week it was not going to be easy to reach the top but that did not stop Richard because the birds started to win straight away.

The birds

A good fancier does not stop there because Richard was always looking for better pigeons and at that time there were none better than the Martin Krauth pigeons that were winning well into the Cheshire area. One of the best known Krauth fanciers of the day was Aubry Adamson one of the best fanciers with this family in the UK, this fancier supplied a lot of good breeders and winners. It was the excellent success that led Richard into the Martin Krauth birds that won up to Nantes 406 Miles. We all make changes along the way and Richards's big change was in April 1990 when he married Anne and they moved to their present address in Hillside Drive. This was a good move because there is a very large garden and yes with a bigger garden came a bigger loft measuring 36ft and with the new address came a new name for the lofts, which are now known as "Hillside Lofts". There was also a change of direction with the birds and they bought in some from the Janssen lines to cross into their original stock. Other additions came when Richard's friend of many years Ken Lamb from Winsford rang and asked if he would go to Corky Mellor's to pick out a good Dordin Hen, Richard chose wisely. He chose a lovely blue w/f Le Producer Dordin, GB75C17822 whose sire was "Champion Corky" with the dam being "Pambryn Blue Princess" both being top class pigeons and were sure to follow on through the generations, this hen cost the grand sum of £25. in the next few years both Ken and Richard bred off her and her lines are still winning today nearly 30yrs later. Always looking for an improvement Richard & Anne have tried several new pigeons and crossed to test them with the result being that the present day team is made up of Dordin, Dordin Janssen, Robert O Jones Jan Arden and Stichelbaut + Dordin. The new introductions and crosses have worked well because they are winning up to Saintes 516miles.

The system

The system used by Richard's father has always been widowhood and Richard followed suit however since they moved to their present address and have more room they race both cocks and hens on widowhood and have had a great deal of success with them. The system obviously works right through as they have had 5 Niort (476 miles) winners in the loft at one time 4 of them bred by them and the "Arial" cock bred by Derek Curly, a gift bird to Ann off Dereks old family of George Gants. The aerial cocks wins are Niort 1 st club 2 nd Mid Cheshire Fed, 2 nd Niort, 4 th Mid Cheshire Fed. Herstal NFC 10 th section L 586 bird's 269 th open, 6,223 birds. Nantes NFC 11 th section L 690 birds 533 open, 8,664 birds. They make the widowhood system as simple as possible and the cock's stay in their section with the hens next door, this is their own system and not the roundabout system that is used by so many.

Breeding

The stock birds and racers are paired up for the Blackpool weekend with the racers sitting the eggs for about 8days and then the hens are taken away this leaves the cocks sitting the eggs for 2 to 3 days, they then clean the lofts out and put the blocks back in. They then pair up again 40 days before the first race let them sit for 5days before taking the hens away and letting the cocks sit the eggs for 2 to 3 days, from then on they are both on widowhood. As you can see from the info so far the racing team do not rear any young birds at all, not even late breeds. Normally the stock birds are the breeders the ones who breed the winners they include a Stichelbaut cock which has bred winners with 7 different hens this was a gift bird from their good friend Derek Lawton of Crewe.

Feeding and Maintenance

After the moult, the birds are put on Buckton's winter mix, and a hopper of beans. When the birds are paired up for breeding of the stock birds they are then changed over to Buckton's breeding mix with a hopper of beans. The racing team are put onto a good mix of Buckton's Ultimate VIP and champion young bird mixed together A week before the first race we add Buckton's seed and diet 2000. While training up to the first race they have one and a half ounces per day, then one ounce a day when racing. On Thursday and Friday prior to going to the race they have a very light feed of seed and diet 2000, this is easy for them to digest. On the return from the race they have the same, with gentien in the water till Sunday, on one day they have cider vinegar, honey and garlic and 2 day's of Aviform Ultimate. When we get to Wincanton 140 miles popcorn maize is added with 3 or 4 peanuts. This is a build up for the Channel racing. We never feed corn with beans in for any the racing. Races to day are mainly one day races even up to Saintes 516 miles, they don't need to be fed on heavy corn. On deciding all the Antibiotics etc were not good for the birds they changed their methods and now only use Endo Ecto one spot on the neck for lice and worms. On the other side they use Aviform Ultimate all the year round.

Training

Trough the winter the birds have exercised so well, we only have to train the yearlings that had not raced. We trained early, on good days up to 35 miles by road. The next time we took the main widowhood cocks with them. The first chuck they beat me back by 15 mins. If they can fly 400 to 500 miles they don't need all the short chucks. The next was Bridge North 56 miles on the clock they took 65 mins and we have done the same with the hens. In Crewe there is a training system and Richard uses it to the best possible way, they train them up to the first race and they are only trained after that initial spell if they think that the pigeons need it. Exercise at home is done two to three times each day.

Racing

For racing the pigeons are split up into three teams so that they know where they are sending especially the specialist races such as the NFC Saintes 516 miles, NFC Nantes 406 miles. Club Nantes and Niort 476 miles The Yearlings fly up to Nantes, some going twice to the NFC and club. During the inland racing they normally race cocks one week and hens the next, which gives the partnership an alternative.

The new generation

Pigeon racing is all about decisions and to get to the top we need to make the right decisions, Richard and Anne made a decision on 2003 not to race young birds but they did breed 25 youngsters off their stock birds. This small select team were given a few training tosses up to 40 miles, the result being that only one went down. I had to smile to myself when Richard said "We think that if fanciers see an egg in the nest and it hatches they must put a ring on it, the best way is to decide which are the best breeders and single rear if possible" As soon as the young birds in the nest are well feathered under the wings they are moved into the section they will race from. This section is all open with a wire front and also has clear plastic sheets on both the roof and sides facing south which allows the birds to be in the sunlight from morning till night. Each and every one of us have our own ideas and one that I have seen about for years is keeping the young bird up until they have cast their first flight or changed their eye, they also have a body moult. When they feel the conditions are right they open the doors, sometimes the whole lot will fly out and disappear out of sight and the birds are coming back all week. They have been known to lose 4 or 5 birds out of 60 but after that they don't lose them off the loft, they have stuck to this system successfully for the past 13 years.

Eye sign

Over the last 30 years Richard has studied the eye sign of the birds and finds that it runs through families, there are some families, if you were going on eye sign alone, you would dispose of them, as they have no circle of correlation and the Iris is very pale. These pigeons would probably win up to 300 miles for you on an easy race day and breed winners. On a hard race day they would be way off the pace or you would loose them. Most birds that win over 300 miles have a good rich Iris with lines and squirrels.

For The Stock Loft

On the stock loft Richard had the following to say. "If you are like me, over the last few years just breeding off stock birds, you can breed off multiple prize-winners but if they don't have a good racer breeder eye they won't breed you winners. If you know your birds and study their eyes they should have a good rich Iris full of lines and squirrels a full circle of correlation plus as they say the fifth circle on the outer edge of the Iris. In 1985 Ken Lamb of Winsford gave me a Blue W/F Hen off the 1975 old Dordin Hen. I kept this bird for stock because of its eye sign, it was Dam G/Dam and G/G/Dam of winners. I breed 2 young birds off the 1985 hen when she was 12 years old, a Blue W/F Cock and a Blue W/F Hen. With my young bird system of not letting my birds out till the eye changes I was able to put these 2 birds straight into the stock loft as there eye sign was so outstanding. They are now both breeding winners, the 1975 Le Producer Dordin hen is responsible for at least 40 winners for Ken Lamb and many winners for us, plus this weeks Cheltenham winner".

Went missing

A short story from Richard, "In 2001 the first time out one of our birds ended up at Leicester, I told him to keep it as brothers and Sisters to it were winners. 2 months later I had a phone call from Billy Whisker who lives approx 2 miles from us saying he had one of our young birds. As we had not lost any recently I went down to Billy's to my surprise it was the young bird that had gone to Leicester straight out of the loft. I think the theory of birds following the motorway goes out of the window with this one. The system we use works well for us the 2001 birds being the best we have ever bred."

Future

What the future holds is another matter because we cannot predict what we are going to do, there are many different things to do and pigeons do take up quite a lot of time. The partnership has been very successful over the years and they may start to take a few holidays and not compete in the entire programme. Richard is having a few problems with his knees and at times does struggle to get down to the bottom boxes, however Richard has had pigeons for a long and who knows what the future holds. Both Richard and Anne are looking forward to racing this season and the birds received quite a bit of work early on, whether they will perform this season is another matter we would all like to think that we are going to win.