Super birds.

Good read Hal..id read about Ben before a true champion

fieldwalker wrote:

Good read Hal..id read about Ben before a true champion

True Ad's a master etc when taking one back in time I suggest FW with his stories. Now all you grit men out there save yourself some money & try the Husken Van Riel trick as such . Mortar mix from the local building site good enough for them in their heyday with there pigeons so good enough for Mr average pigeon flyer I suggest even today .

It was old mortar not new and old crumbling red clay bricks...
Dont think theres many old building in oz...with its 200 year history
Did the abos build with bricks

fieldwalker wrote:

It was old mortar not new and old crumbling red clay bricks...
Dont think theres many old building in oz...with its 200 year history
Did the abos build with bricks

No, No No but the black fella types here etc FW painted every rock they could find going back 50,000 odd years.

Many years ago Mr, Kellaway the loft manager of Fuller Issacson sent me a hand written book on how to treat pigeons to obtain good health and how to win, one of the things mentioned was broken red brick and lime mortar, which he had crushed at the bottom of the garden and which he said they were never away from at certain times.

I took this up in a different manner by using builders lime as a deep litter with sand and my pigeons never ailed anything.

His other tips also came in very useful.

On the matter of the best pigeons, it is impossible to compare any two pigeons racing in different countries and under different circumstances, no one knows the actual strength of the competition etc;

What you can do is admire the performances of pigeons that have performed far beyond the normal and think you lucky perishes for owning and racing them.

Regards

yes, I`d say the old imperial soft bricks are a very good source of "grit" , definitely not the modern metric bricks, they are too brittle.....I remember reading somewhere on the forum about one of our members digging up clay from his garden, drying it out, and giving it to his pigeons.........cheaper and probably better than the pigeon shop clay blocks.

For birds locked in Winter time I dig up a turf and put in in the loft. Clay also. Wet or not. It dries out eventually.

Think it was alf baker with the clay or old hand maybe when it was bilco
Not sure now...

MISTY wrote:

Many years ago Mr, Kellaway the loft manager of Fuller Issacson sent me a hand written book on how to treat pigeons to obtain good health and how to win, one of the things mentioned was broken red brick and lime mortar, which he had crushed at the bottom of the garden and which he said they were never away from at certain times.

I took this up in a different manner by using builders lime as a deep litter with sand and my pigeons never ailed anything.

His other tips also came in very useful.

On the matter of the best pigeons, it is impossible to compare any two pigeons racing in different countries and under different circumstances, no one knows the actual strength of the competition etc;

What you can do is  admire the performances of pigeons that have performed far beyond the normal and think you lucky perishes for owning and  racing them.

Regards  

Interesting thoughts again Misty Mention builders lime etc & it's shock horror I'm with many modern day flyers these days in the sport I suggest on average. Stood the test of time thou as we both know & like you I always use it here in my lofts. Now, thanks to AD's wisdom/knowledge, I just wonder how many knew that when Janssen Bros were racing their 019 pigeon, there actually was a pigeon racing against him that beat him every time they met in a race. Spin & bling by the Janssen's, turned 019 into a house hold champion in pigeon terms & a money making machine, but the owner of the better bird back then, just wasn't interested in playing the spin & bling game it appears.

Name of the game if you want to sell. But who can blame them? Happens nowadays.

halcanada wrote:

Name of the game if you want to sell. But who can blame them? Happens nowadays.

True but not many 019 types around these days Hal or the one that was his opposition there at the time as I mentioned etc. Read the speel of a champ up your way just recently, that made me blush some what . World beaters 60/100/160/200 miles type of thing . Each to their own type of thing but definitely not my cup of tea as they say I'm .