STAFFORDSHIRE MOORLANDS & DISTRICT FEDERATION

MR & MRS ANDREW HARGREAVES

by Thomas Garvie

Well, winter is fast approaching us here as it is bitterly cold this morning so I have decided to stay in the warmth a bit and write another loft report on another of the fed's prominent fliers. This time it is the partnership of Mr & Mrs Andrew Hargreaves and it is a name that crops up quite often when I am writing about the fed race results and some club ones.

Mr & Mrs Andrew Hargreaves

I asked Andrew how it came about that he got into pigeon racing to start with and he answered that he first caught the bug about 50 years ago [when he was 10] when he used to watch his father racing. Nowadays, his wife Linda also helps out by feeding the birds during the cold winter months [you have it sussed out great Andrew by sending your wife out when it is cold] and Linda also helps with the exercising of the birds during racing season.

Their biggest achievement to date was probably when they were 2nd North Staffordshire Fed 7,000 birds and 1st, 2nd and 3rd Staffordshire Moorlands Fed 3,000 pigeons on the same day. Andrew's lofts are made of 1 inch tongue and groove and the racing lofts are 3 old bird sections totalling 20 feet and two young bird sections each 6 feet long with a six foot aviary attached. The stock loft is 9 feet by 6 with an aviary running the full length. All the lofts have tiled roofs, which is what they prefer and there is no heating of any kind in any of the lofts. The ventilation is simply with the air entering 6 foot eaves at the front and the rear of the loft and within the lofts there are sliding shutters in the roof which they use to control the air temperature.

The present family of birds housed here are mainly Vandenabeeles but with a mixture of Maurice Mattheuws and Marc De Cocks from top Midlands flyer A Tonks and P Van De Merwe via D Pedley. Any new introductions here have to come from a top, up to date winning loft and any sprint pigeons introduced are given two years maximum to make an impression and any middle to long distance birds are allowed three years. I asked Andrew which of the sexes he preferred when racing and he had no preference as he races roundabout and in the last two years both sexes have done equally as well. Andrew also stated that he does not look for anything special when pairing up as he says winning birds come in all shapes and sizes.

When pairing up time comes around they usually pair up the stock birds and the first section of racers at the end of January when the eggs from the stock are placed under the racers to rear then the stock are re-paired, which allows two quick rounds from them. The second section of racers are paired around the end of February but these are not allowed to rear any.

Andrew and his wife only keep 10 pairs of birds for stock, which certainly provide them with plenty of winning birds. Andrew's training regime makes the old birds have some tosses up to 20 miles before racing starts and then they will only have a toss of about 40 miles if there happens to be a blank week in the racing schedule but he likes his young birds to have at least 15 tosses up to about 20 miles before the first race and roughly two tosses each week during racing. Yearlings go to a channel race up to about 350 miles on the proviso they have raced to the coast as youngsters. They never usually pick out certain birds for certain races.

Over the years Andrew has raced about 20 widowhood cocks on average but in the last two years he has raced roundabout which therefore doubles the number required [double the number for his wife to look after in winter]. The lofts have always been scraped out [again more cold winter work for his lovely wife Linda].

The old birds' feeding consists of them having 1/2 oz in the morning and 1oz at night but the stock birds are hopper fed. The youngsters have approximately 1/3oz of a light mix in the morning and just enough of a heavier mix to always allow them to leave a little in the trough at night.

He treats all his birds with Parastop at the start of January to prevent paratyphoid. Stock birds and old birds have a treatment for canker while they are sitting their first round of eggs and during racing the birds are treated for canker and respiratory every other week for two days.

Asking Andrew if he ever gets young bird sickness, he says he is threatened with it every year but he tries to spot the symptoms as early as possible then he treats them all with Nifuramycin for five days, which seems to do the trick, but he always makes sure they are exercising well at home before any training or racing is resumed [and I wish all fanciers would do this Andrew but I know that is not always the case]. If the young birds are raced on darkness [which they usually are] then they are all raced to the coast and some, mainly hens, are sent across the channel but if they for some reason do not go on darkness then they are only well trained with only having a couple of races; the norm is to breed between 35-40 young birds.

Asking Andrew about anybody that has influenced him in his racing career, I was told that Derek Pedley from Thornton Cleveleys has always helped with some good advice and many helpful tips over the years as well as providing them with many top class birds. When asked if he had made any mistakes which he had later learned from [and we all have made plenty] his reply to that was that he had made too many to mention but one was keeping birds in the stock loft for too long when they are breeding nothing of note but they have been kept simply because of a long pedigree.

One bit of advice Andrew would offer to new starters would be to obtain birds from fanciers who are winning top prizes now and then put them to stock and then do not be frightened of sending their progeny down the road.

Andrew states that at the moment he is not happy about the unequal timing systems that exist, ie ETS compared to other more conventional clocks, and he himself will be installing ETS for next season because it is in his opinion the fastest way and least stressful way of racing and timing birds in. He thinks that the sooner everybody is on the ETS system then the better because it will allow every bird to obtain its true race position. I can understand what he means about true race positions because when you are restricted to the amount of birds you are allowed to time in your club you could have maybe a third position when the person in front of you could have had ten birds in before your third position but because of restrictions he can only time in his first two

Finally Andrew would like to congratulate fellow club member Ken Pettitt on the fantastic season he had [actually Ken is next on the list for a loft report Andrew].

So that is it on another exceptional partnership and I would like to thank Andrew for taking the time to help me with this report. I have added a photograph of this racing couple in front of one of their lofts. If any club secretary out there thinks there is someone in the club that they feel would like to have a loft report done then you can contact me as usual at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or give me a call on 01663 733317. All loft reports and race articles can be found on www.moorlandsfedpigeons.co.uk and also on www.elimarpigeons.com. Bye for now from TG.