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Dave Kenny of Balbriggan

 

 

 

DAVE KENNY

of Balbriggan

 

1st Open Bude 2014 East Coast Federation (Ireland)

by Greg Mc

Dave Kenny

I had the great pleasure of meeting up with Dave Kenny during the start of the young bird season to get some pics and background on his latest ECF Open winner from Bude. Dave is no stranger to winning an ECF Open having won from Sennen Cove in 2004 by over half an hour. His Sennen Cove Open winner was a super racer having been 6th South Section & 29th Open INFC Yearling National two weeks earlier. This bird’s results that year earned Dave the ECF Old Bird Gold Medal for the best OB in the Fed 2004, a fantastic achievement for both fancier and pigeon.

For several years following this success Dave won the averages in the very strong Balbriggan Club with very consistent results year on year. In 2006 Dave was 1st & 2nd Balbriggan club in the INFC King’s Cup, being 4th & 112th Open King’s Cup. A super loft performance by any standards. Dave has a son of his 4th King’s Cup bird in the stock loft, a red cock who is breeding some very god birds for him. The red cock when paired to a hen of Gregory Bros (Rathnew) Hercules lines has already bred a 2nd Club 13th ECF Open Portland 2103 for Dave.

Red cock - son of 4th Open King's Cup

These earlier birds of Dave’s were mostly a Janssen based line from Farrel & Nolan of Dublin, who are no longer racing. These performed superbly from the word go.

Dave’s not a big team flyer by today’s standards, racing about 24 old birds and around 40 young birds. Birds would normally be paired around the third week in March. Old birds would get three or four land races and then be set up on their nesting positions for their chosen races.

Feeding for old birds while racing would be Beatie’s Diet mix for the first half of the week, adding Beatie’s Champion Supreme from Wednesday onwards. Young birds are fed on a 50/50 mix of Diet & Champion. Generally the only treatments given would be for canker. Last year he tried out the darkness with the young birds, and has done the same this year again. Dave will winter the birds on mainly a mix of maple peas and barley.

On to Dave’s latest big winner, a blue late bred hen still carrying eight nest flights going to Bude, winning the Open and recording the best velocity on the entire lib that day. (No half measures with Dave and Open winners.) Having been left tight on youngbird numbers in 2013 he bred about ten latebreds to make up numbers for 2014. He sent four to the Bude Open, clocking the blue hen to win it, and got her nestmate a dark chequer hen back the next morning injured.

 

Close-up of two inmates

The dam of the two hens was bred by Dave’ good friend Steven Fitzgerald of the Oldcastle Club in Cavan. Her beeding contains some of Dave’s old Janssen lines when paired to a Louis Cooreman hen. A few years ago Dave & Stephen ordered six Louis Cooreman ybs from Bob Fenwick. They have been swapping the ybs bred from these originals between themselves ever since. Due to some delay in the arrival of the six ybs from Bob, when they did eventually arrive, Bob had sent them over seven. In true pigeon story style the extra one turned out to be a blue cock, sire of Dave’s Open winner.

Dave remarked that this “Bonus Lad” seems to be the one producing the goods. Another aunt of the Open winner has chalked up 3rd Club 14th Open Penzance, 5th club Pilmore, 3rd club Pilmore and a 5th club 16th Open so the Cooremans have certainly hit the ground running for both lads, as Dave told me they are flying very well for Steven up in Oldcastle too.

Sire of the Open winner

Dam of the Open winner

An even stranger twist on the story is that about two weeks prior to Bude, on entering the loft one morning Dave was met with the sight of the blue cock hanging upside down by one leg, having got his ring leg caught in a gap in the loft. With having lost a lot of blood and the leg badly damaged Dave was left with no choice but to remove the leg from the knee joint down. Dressing it up as best he could, Dave left him alone in a nest box with deep shavings to heal. Thankfully the cock recovered fully and got used to having only one leg and has since filled his eggs and reared a round of ybs.

Dave's small set-up

Inside the stock loft

Thanks to Dave for his hospitality on the day we visited him and many thanks to Jackie McMahon of Balbriggan, my tour guide for the day. The future’s looking very bright for Dave Kenny and his new bloodlines.

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Elimar - September 2014