rpra olr to-day

we often hear of bop strikes and losses, but no amount of attacks can vouch for the losses these one loft races have, or in fact what the back garden fancier has........so all along the line there are poorly bred ybs being bred, off worthless parents....coupled with poor management and not having the pigeons best interests at heart. yes the weather also plays a part along with bop attacks but it doesnt account for the amount of losses there are in pigeon racing.

anyone who sends to the one loft race is doing so for one or all of a few reasons, firstly to test their pigeons against others, secondly for the recognition that would come with a win and thirdly for the money, most (not all) dont care if they ever see the bird again, unless of course it turns out to be a winner........

rainbow wrote:

there may now be another problem for the rpra and that is the courier cost if a large number of the 640 birds are reported also the owner may well not want it to return to the loft and again who pays the cost george

Hi George, usually in the small print of the entry form the OLR agrees to pick up any birds reported within 25 or so miles of the loft. Any birds reported further away than that are the responsibility of the fancier that entered the birds to repatriate them to the loft and then either take them out of the race or chance them jibbing again next time the going gets tough.

yes david but the rpra have a responsible to collect all reported birds george

did not know that george

rainbow wrote:

did not know that  george

Yes usually I said but in this case I think you are correct because it says that any bird reported as a stray Will be repatriated to the Loft but it neglects to say that it will be at the owners expense , this most likely means it will come out of any prize fund as expenses incurred.

David wrote:

we often hear of bop strikes and losses, but no amount of attacks can vouch for the losses these one loft races have, or in fact what the back garden fancier has........so all along the line there are poorly bred ybs being bred, off worthless parents....coupled with poor management and not having the pigeons best interests at heart.  yes the weather also plays a part along with bop attacks but it doesnt account for the amount of losses there are in pigeon racing.

anyone who sends to the one loft race is doing so for one or all of a few reasons, firstly to test their pigeons against others, secondly for the recognition that would come with a win and thirdly for the money, most  (not all) dont care if they ever see the bird again, unless of course it turns out to be a winner........

Money is usually not a driving force as it costs most of us more money than we can win to enter the race in the 1st place, there are many many BOP strikes that split the birds up but they ought to be able to make it back under their own steam albeit later in such an event and many birds do.
The one loft races have no more losses overall than the birds in a federation over their season, in fact many times they have far less as the birds are usually in much better condition and trained and conditioned far better. They also get to race every week instead of just being looked at and uhmmed and arred about whether to send or not, after all that is why most of us have pigeons (to actually race them)
The one loft race only races the birds given to it by the fanciers who as you say in many cases are trying out new stock so many of the parents are rubbish but no more rubbish than the same fancier racing the offspring themselves and losing them.

maybe you do not send for the money spenserline, but im sure many do........and by what ive read/heard about most one loft races the prize fund far outweighs the entry fee........plus the recognition a fancier would recieve can be equivalent to financial gain anyway as the selling power of pigeons from their reputation will be grately enhanced.

also i dont think comparing federations with one loft races is very accurate, its a tatally different thing where as pigeons within a federation are all heading for different areas and different lofts/homes, whilst one loft birds are all heading to the same loft., so totally irelevant to compare them.......as for them being trained or cared for better, i remember a topic here on this forum last season where members who checked the ring lists detected lost pigeons which came back days or even weeks late, were virtually put straight back into training only to be lost again, never to be seen.

over the last few years all i ever read on the subject of one loft races is massive losses, so bearing in mind they are all homing to the same loft is pretty poor in my view, and birds in one lofts getting raced every week is easy when they are disposable and they are liberated in all weathers regardless

i enter because i can't fly birds out looking at the results now it is clear the bird for OLR is different from club racing the lady who won this race only do's OLR racing somerset , south west and rpra she is allways at the top winning the final somerset one year george

just been posted rpra will pay for all reported birds george

David wrote:

maybe you do not send for the money spenserline, but im sure many do........and by what ive read/heard about most one loft races the prize fund far outweighs the entry fee........plus the recognition a fancier would recieve can be equivalent to financial gain anyway as the selling power of pigeons from their reputation will be grately enhanced.

also i dont think comparing federations with one loft races is very accurate, its a tatally different thing where as pigeons within a federation are all heading for different areas and different lofts/homes, whilst one loft birds are all heading to the same loft., so totally irelevant to compare them.......as for them being trained or cared for better, i remember a topic here on this forum last season where members who checked the ring lists detected lost pigeons which came back days or even weeks late, were virtually put straight back into training only to be lost again, never to be seen.

over the last few years all i ever read on the subject of one loft races is massive losses, so bearing in mind they are all homing to the same loft is pretty poor in my view, and birds in one lofts getting raced every week is easy when they are disposable and they are liberated in all weathers regardless

Only one person can win the big prize, for example last year at Somerset with 9 birds we made the top 10 in every hotspot except the final and were 2nd and 7th in the semi final. The prize money and the sale in auction of 3 of our 4 returning birds from the final meant that our entry this year almost paid for itself.

We want the birds that raced great for us to breed loads of winners for the Guy that bought them in auction, their brothers and sisters are topping federations all over the place so there is a great chance they will breed something good.

Our yearling racer that no body wanted to purchase after it yb season finished 29th in the Yearling final and 12th acebird and is now back in Blackpool trying out in the stock loft next year. He is the father to one of our birds bred while he was racing as a yearling with another teams hen from Somerset. Layby Eyesign 101 his name.
One loft racing can be compared to fed racing as the distances between many lofts on race day is only a few miles and we can all find our way home drunk from the pub over those distances, lol.
The main difference with the One loft birds is that they are or have to be generally hardier and in better shape than regular racers due to the fact they are raced constantly and do not sit around at home posing.
Although any bird can be unlucky,One loft races generally find out weaker birds who cannot keep it up and quickly identify the better breeders that carry stronger immune systems and pass them on to their offspring.
One loft races are a good thing and in my opinion a great way to test stock. Also  Many people do not have the time to train birds to race and take them to the club every weekend but can enjoy the sport through One loft racing keeping a few breeders and entering their offspring and many One loft races go up with Federation birds and have shown them up in the past in the open results after having a far harder run up to that particular race.
More birds are lost in a federation racing season overall than in the OLR and the few miles between different lofts in many Feds does not get birds lost.
Whether some fanciers like OLR or not they are here to stay and will be even more popular once the birds can be tracked live with ultra lite GPS as they race home.
They are the future of pigeon racing and should be celebrated in the sport not knocked for no relevant reason. Those that do not want to enter do not have to but 99.5% of folk that enter the OLR are not driven to do so by the chance of winning money as it costs them money. They do it to test their stock properly in a hard but fair environment against the already proven very best and possible best of new stock brought in from all over the world at great expense by individuals. And that has to be a very good thing.

307 birds now home

rainbow wrote:

307 birds now home

out of how many sent george ?

896 david

they started with 1350 birds this was there 2nd race 93 mls

that's not normal losses I don't know how a loft with all them birds cud loose them like that ive had a team ov yb trained to 70 miles and droppin altogether no 1 can tell this is normal to be loosin so many at 93 miles  

stewhit wrote:

that's not normal losses I don't know how a loft with all them birds cud loose them like that ive had a team ov yb trained to 70 miles and droppin altogether no 1 can tell this is normal to be loosin so many at 93 miles  

No I agree that obviously its not normal losses so therefore something abnormal has happened as this is the RPRA and they have a top man in charge of the birds and top vets testing them for illness they must have been trained correctly so something strange happened. You would think that the birds would still be able to home albeit later on but for whatever reason they havent yet.
It also happens in Fed races from time to time when whole liberations go missing in freak conditions and this looks like one of those events.
One of the biggest concerns besides the fact the birds havent homed as they should is the lack of info on the RPRA website about what is going on and how many have been reported and where they are being reported from. This may or may not shed light on what may have occurred.
Updates are too slow or non existant and the site still shows 254 birds back and hardly any info on anything else. George is getting his correct updates and info from some other source but it ought to be on the RPRA website. Hopefully some more will work back

george, you say, they started with 1350 ybs in the test loft, how many did they send to the first race ?

rainbow wrote:

the reason Knackered for starting off at 1 ml  then 2,3 is OL birds do not range  they also don't like flying round the loft george

What you say may be true Rainbow. The RPRA race mentioned here I know nothing about etc I'm afraid, thou the Canadian race on there blog, tell you the birds were burning the sky    around the loft for an hour & half a day, day in day out type of thing. "More spin maybe". Because !!!!!!! if what they say is true ??????    I would have taking them straight to 25 miles    & let them use that what god gave them. It's called a brain. One thing is quite obvious thou re the race in question, if they had done what I would have prefered etc. The final result for them could not have been any worse than the way they went about things.  
*****

905 birds to the 1st race

Knackered wrote:

rainbow wrote:

the reason Knackered for starting off at 1 ml  then 2,3 is OL birds do not range  they also don't like flying round the loft george

What you say may be true Rainbow. The RPRA race mentioned here I know nothing about etc I'm afraid, thou the Canadian race on there blog, tell you the birds were burning the sky    around the loft for an hour & half a day, day in day out type of thing. "More spin maybe". Because !!!!!!! if what they say is true ??????    I would have taking them straight to 25 miles    & let them use that what god gave them. It's called a brain. One thing is quite obvious thou re the race in question, if they had done what I would have prefered etc. The final result for them could not have been any worse than the way they went about things.  
*****

Hi Knackered the only problem with running a OLR is you can never please all the people all the time. Individual fanciers are allowed to lose most of their  pigeons and complain about it all over different boards on the internet but one loft races must not lose any, lol

At least if you train them from short distances and gradually build up the distance then NOBODY can say you did it wrong and lost them as you trained too far too soon.
They all start off at small distances to get the birds used to spending the night in the transporters and having a drink and feeling comfortable in there.
Could you imagine the Knockers coming out in their droves if the birds went to 25 miles first chuck and a bunch of hawks went into them and they were being reported from every point on the compass.
As regards ranging around the lofts that can be different from year to year, this year for some unknown reason it seems that many OLR are struggling with the birds and finding it difficult to get them to come in a single huge group in training from as short as just 50 miles.
Big Groups of birds atrract Hawks attention every single time they are released nowadays due to the over saturation of Hawks or birds of prey in general around nowadays. More now than there has ever been in history.
If all of those birds are going back to the same loft then that one loft takes the full hit on its own, rather than have the chaos split over different lofts in a federation. (It magnifies the disaster in one area)

I can only think more Hawks are causing more Mayhem more often, I know the hawks do not kill all the missing birds but they do Terrify the birds and cause them distress and make them scatter or go to ground. This obviously stops them arriving in groups.

you are spot on Kev the birds right from the start did not stay as one group each toss they would split up into groups with one going of the line george

rainbow wrote:

905 birds to the 1st race

so they lost nearly 400 pigeons before the first race just in training..... thats approx 30% of the birds isnt it ?

i wonder how long they started training before the first race...?

after a few short toss's by the 9/7 they were at 12mls by the 31/7 they were at 35mls and had 21 tosses in total then a 49ml race

only 4 birds back to-day still none of mine on the + side I am in a syndicate who were 2nd in the race and have 8 out of there 14birds home

rainbow wrote:

after a few short toss's  by the 9/7 they were at 12mls by the 31/7 they were at 35mls and had 21 tosses in total then a 49ml race  

So they were well prepared then with 21 tosses  (better prepared than the average fanciers birds) and it is clear they have just been unlucky and something strange has happened out of the organisers control. It could have happeed to any large liberation on that day in that area as health and fitness was clearly not an issue.

You have an interest in the race still George with your syndicate and hopefully some more birds will make it back yet under their own steam.