birds with 3rd bar

I have a book here called the memoirs of piet de weerd and he rather likes pigeons for distance racing to have a short keel bone and long tail along with other criteria and he by no means was a poor judge of a good pigeon although I cant comment on my own experience but I do have a dutch yearling bred down from his" browning" in the loft and he has short keel bone and long tail so maybe I will be in a better position to tell come the end of next season   

Rudderfett wrote:

I have never heared of any one talk about long or short tails before, so I cant comment on them really. However I like a tail covered with feathers so far down that only a thumbs thickness of tail is showing and it looks like 1 tail feather as they are all covered.
The only thing I do believe is true is that pigeons with strong backs will race better than weak backs or tails which cock up instead of down, and the only reason for this has nothing to do with flying ability just the fact that weak backed pigeons will be lost to the falcon they cant change direction as smooth or quickly as a strong backed pigeon and are caught more easily.

    Fair few years back Prof Vanderschelden wrote his famous"wing" theory and very intresting too,in it he advocates short tail for most distances,even to extent of trimming by hand  ..wing,eye,feet,throat theories,intresting to read ,best to keep opinions to myself  as not to upset the natives ,but your thoughts ,with yourself living in falcon infested territory could well help ourselves..we have easily overcome the female sparrowhawk problem years ago,unfortunately,percy,that jetblack dart,who hits when and where he likes,is still our major heartache and your thoughts,or ideas to combat this adversarywould be most welcome..pm if you cannot place on open forum
     Best regards

only thing I can say on this subject on long tails is.
2 years ago we bred a dark cock it was a cross with our long distance birds
we thought it looked a stunning bird and it had a long tail.
we started racing our birds a one of our members had a handle of it.
he was a long distance flying. one of the things he said was don't like its tail to long.
needless to say we lost the bird that year.
  

I wish avoiding percy was a learnt art sadly it isn't, We have just about tried everything to get past the peregrines whilst training because so far every training toss almost without exception is a mini disaster.

It makes me cry when I watch vids and dvds when you see people training and they all drop together in a flock, at best last season I had about 12 drop in together maybe once, but mostly its 1 at a time all day.

I liberated 66 of my ybs last year 8 miles away 10 am, they had been fully schooled first, they were let go by me with all our club birds about 450 all together, I got home after dropping every ones baskets back at about 12pm.
My first pigeon was 6 hours, no explanation really but they were split by the peregrine at the lib point so must have paniced and gone all over the county, however I only lost 2, they worked in all night and I had about 28 the next day, and that was how training went last year every toss the same.
Birds taking many hours after lib even from 10/ 20 miles and coming back all day long it was almost impossible to train 2 days running because they were still coming home.

But the one thing which gives the best results and believe me I have tried everything, is letting the birds go in small amounts like 2s, but me with 66 you can imagine how long and stressful a simple toss becomes, I usually travelled a few miles let a few go then back in the car 2 miles another 2 and so on then after 20 miles turn around and repeat on the way back, eventually I was letting them go in 4s or 5s cause you get fed up but it works a bit better.

I would like to just shoot them all but that's almost impossible as we know so this is the only way I found to limit the damage maybe the peregrines prefer to hit a big flock or they are easier to see but single tosses are best.

yes it must be a hell for you marytn.
noing ever time you take the birds for a trainer you be lucky if you get them all back.
we can count ourself lucky marytn its the odd one we loss when training.

oldstrain wrote:

some pigeons are long cast so surely that would portray a longish tail ...be good to get some feedback from other members here especialy the long distance boys as to whether they have had success with long tailed pigeons   

there is a big differance between a long cast bird and a bird with extra long tail, to my mind the extra long tail will cause drag, and that would not do for me, my opinion is its best in the bin, but if you are a pigeon keeper and not a pigeon racer , then don!t suppose it matters , i fly nothing but distance ,can you just imagine a bird flying 500 miles draging a paper bag behind it ?  

who said extra long tail not me all I said was have a bird who's tail may be a bit long george

rainbow wrote:

who said extra long tail not me all I said was have a bird who's tail may be a bit long george

and i don!t have a blue with a 3rd bar ?.

edgie wrote:

oldstrain wrote:

some pigeons are long cast so surely that would portray a longish tail ...be good to get some feedback from other members here especialy the long distance boys as to whether they have had success with long tailed pigeons   

there is a big differance between a long cast bird and a bird with extra long tail, to my mind the extra long tail will cause drag, and that would not do for me, my opinion is its best in the bin, but if you are a pigeon keeper and not a pigeon racer , then don!t suppose it matters , i fly nothing but distance ,can you just imagine a bird flying 500 miles draging a paper bag behind it ?  

Could be handy Edgie        "That paper bag" if they have to pull up quick,with a strong wind up there A**e type of thing at 500 miles. Thou !!!     small neat & compact, is the way I like to go when assessing a distance pigeon, with a little bit of paper pedigree       in the background.   
*****

edgie wrote:

oldstrain wrote:

some pigeons are long cast so surely that would portray a longish tail ...be good to get some feedback from other members here especialy the long distance boys as to whether they have had success with long tailed pigeons   

there is a big differance between a long cast bird and a bird with extra long tail, to my mind the extra long tail will cause drag, and that would not do for me, my opinion is its best in the bin, but if you are a pigeon keeper and not a pigeon racer , then don!t suppose it matters , i fly nothing but distance ,can you just imagine a bird flying 500 miles draging a paper bag behind it ?  

sorry m8 but I never mentioned a extra long tail but I think I will try my luck with this specific bird who has a longish tail given on what I have read from piet and henk de weerd ....they like small to medium sized birds with short keel bone and longish tail and piet had some top class results distance racing in his day ...as for being a pigeon keeper or racer then I think that only shows in peoples results   

wing theory, throat theory, eyesign theory, short tail ,long tail ,weak back ,strong back,

none are of any use to a pigeon with no brains fact

and they are only theories.

a brain isnt a theory ,without a brain it has no chance

birdy2011 wrote:

wing theory, throat theory, eyesign theory, short tail ,long tail ,weak back ,strong back,

none are of any use to a pigeon with no brains fact

and they are only theories

a brain isnt without a brain it has no chance

The theory i believe in is the 1st bird back and over the pad theory    

I have to admit you lads make me laugh...lots
But the brain theory is one I really believe in.

I will tell you another thing too laid back pigeons come home, I have lots of peregrine attacks around the loft and in training, some birds fly off from the bunch never looking back and are lost, some stay together and hope for the best, other crash into trees in blind panic and anything else in the way, and are injured and take hours or days to come back..

But some and I have a few couldn't care less and are as cool as a cucumber, last year a good racing cock of mine whos been everywhere and hasn't been killed training or racing .. YET., came back from training and as he was dropping into the loft was nearly caught by the falcon in front of me, it came from nowwhere and chaised him about a bit. He then landed on the trap and went into the loft, when I followed him in he was spinning around on the floor as if nothing had happened very cool bird, other times I have seen birds chaised and go into trees and not come out for hours, they are the frightened ones and eventually will go.

is this not what a forum is for, to air our views on likes and dislikes were not here to fall out but to give one another help,some may like what is said, some may not,but we can only tell others our experiance ?. 

I think you will find it is what the forums about matey, what are you on about.  

Rudderfett wrote:

I think you will find it is what the forums about matey, what are you on about.  

same thing as you i hope ?

fight fight      

stormqueen wrote:

fight fight      

trust a scotsman     

trying to defuse the situation.
if not FIGHT FIGHT                     
England x wales
Scotland holes there jackets.    

 defuse what ...as edgie says its all about opinions and its good to talk through differing ones as we just might learn something   

birdy2011 wrote:

wing theory, throat theory, eyesign theory, short tail ,long tail ,weak back ,strong back,

none are of any use to a pigeon with no brains fact

and they are only theories.

a brain isnt a theory ,without a brain it has no chance

    What a load of crap,plenty of brainless birds win sprint races,send the same birds 5 miles in the opposite direction and you would be lucky to see them on the day Sir

you talk more shit mate say something usefull

my late brother in lay George Ritchie was a great long distance flyer.
used to say a bird can have every thing you can see and handle great in your hand.
but its what we cant see that counts . its brain box.

birdy2011 wrote:

you talk more shit mate say something usefull

 Theres more topclass imformation on that small post than mentally challenged individuals like yourself could decipher Sir... 

what ever your boring me