Les J Parkinson - What’s on my mind this week.
Young birds
The rings are going on the youngsters at quite a rate, and I might have a few more youngsters hatching out than I have rings for. I cut the number of rings down this year now that we have a good team of yearlings and 2yo’s in the race loft. With Ebony’s we have room for about 50 young birds comfortably in two sections and in this round, we will have our quota. The oldest are in the stock section and they have started to lay again, will have to get the pot eggs out of storage. After having such a bad start with the stock birds being disturbed, I was always wondering what would happen with the second round. I am now sure the squirrel was getting into the loft through the vent at the back of the loft, which as I have said before is now wired off. The pigeons are much more settled and are strongly guarding their nests when I go in to clean them out. I said the rings are going on fast, the young, especially in the race loft are at the age when they need to be watched daily, or you can struggle to get the odd ones on. The race birds were paired up the best part of two weeks after the stock birds, but when they are moved, they soon catch up. I do have them on Vior which I get delivered from a company abroad, it is a quick service and cheap enough to use. I think the last ones I ordered were here in three days, quicker than our postal service who were up to 5 days and sometimes even longer.
Vet.
The vet’s annual visit is now sorted thanks to Nigel Shaw who organised the loft visits. I am not up too much now with Elizabeth still being in hospital and without Nigel Shaw mine would probably have not been done this year, mind you, others have offered to help if I am not at the loft. It goes to show, when you need help within the pigeon world there is always someone ready to help, which is great. I hear there are still a lot not having the vet’s visit because they don’t intend to race from across the channel. Personally, I want the channel racing so it looks like the Nationals are where I will be aiming for while Ebony will be sticking to the land races with the Mid Cheshire Fed.
DEFRA
There have been many views put forward about what we can and cannot do with racing pigeons.
The following is off the DEFRA website on Friday 7th March.
Can fly racing pigeons, doves or other Columbiformes from their home loft for up to one hour, once a day as a single loft.
You must try to prevent your birds having any contact with wild birds.
Must not leave lofts open for birds to come and go
Must not fly birds together from more than one loft (bird gatherings are not allowed in disease control zones)
In an avian influenza prevention zone (AIPZ) where there are housing measures in place, you:
You should avoid flying your birds in areas where there are lots of poultry.
Must cleanse and disinfect any baskets, boxes and vehicles you use to transport your birds with a Defra-approved disinfectant
May transport racing pigeons, doves or other Columbiformes from the same loft to a point away from their home loft (a location that is not in a disease control zone) to release them for training or an event, but they must fly back to their home loft or be gathered and transported back to their home loft as soon as possible
What does this tell us apart from there being tough times ahead when it comes to racing pigeons. I don’t know what others do but I do know that the team down at Middlewich do a good job in following the guidelines. The problem we have is bird gatherings are not allowed in disease control zones. I wonder how many will ignore that and send their birds regardless.
After the vet has been I shall be having mine out on a daily basis with cocks in the morning and hens in the afternoon.
Whether that is right or wrong is open to interpretation, and as we know interpretation can cover a wide area.
Les J Parkinson. 11 Rushton Drive, Middlewich, Cheshire, CW10 0NJ.
Tel: +44 (0)1606 836036. Mob: +44 (0)7871 701585.
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Web site: http://www.elimarpigeons.com