Flying High--April 2002

Jack Prescott
Feathered World April 2002

My way with pigeons is to keep them for my own pleasure and my pleasure is to fly them--twice on every possible day.

A couple of hours after sunrise, I turn out my entire flock. At the time of writing this, September, I have 25 cocks and 18 hens, all of which are kit pigeons, well established at my loft. I have no stock pairs and nothing that cannot fly with confidence. Then, in the afternoon, I have another fly with the entire flock again.

At breeding time, late March, I select three or four pairs and in a couple of months, I produce a few young ones for replacements. All of them fail eventually and, as soon as they start to fail, I kill them. They last for three to 12 years.

The main fault is when they fly wide of the kit. If they continue with this fault, irrespective of age, I kill them. But as long as they continue to work with the kit I keep them, irrespective of age. Sometimes, very old ones work well but, with age, fail to moult properly or in other ways start to look unsightly. Some of them seem to become rather large, not excessively heavy, but rather loose in feather. This makes them appear to be, superficially, big and in all cases I will not keep unsightly pigeons. However, as I've said, they often last three to 12 years in really sleek condition.

Sometimes, though not often, a young one, or one that is not that old, will fail to respond or conform to my system. In spite of the fact that such as these may be extremely attractive and well marked. I ill them. All must conform and respond. Of course, any pigeon, or any man, may have an off day' -- when physically or mentally everything is too much bother. Did you ever has one of those days when everything is wrong and everyone's hand seems to be turned against you?

When I asked a 90 year-old pigeon friend that question, he answered, "Yes, Jack--every b. day!", and of course we both laughed -- what else could we do?

Well, with this in mind, I am prepared to allow tolerance and usually after a few days' detention, the mood or whatever, disappears. It had just better, otherwise it will not be tolerated.

In this way I maintain a very efficient kit that I can fly every day as long as the weather is not so ridiculously bad of course. however, there are not many days when I can't fly. I stick to a rigid time schedule. It suits me and it suits my birds. My ideal fly is one hour's good flying with mass performance. I cannot sit and watch them closely for more than an hour and after that time, I want to get them inside, ready for the next session. I can get on with other things. I have other things to do.

Now, one would think that this routine, combined with a standard feed of wheat at the total ration of 1oz per day per bird, would produce uniformity of flying on these daily exercises. I am here to tell you it does not. I see a vast range of flying styles, altitudes, ranges, etc. This means that the weather, rather than the feed, is responsible for these variations. Some days they fly too high for sensible observation, other days they are reluctant to fly. Some days they fly extremely well but very seldom perform. Some days they perform mass acrobatics to a most spectacular degree, but do not fly far more than half an hour.

As my good friend Bill O' Callaghan said, "Sure, it's a lottery with the weather." He should know 0-- for he is one of the most respected roller men. He also makes a splendid cup of tea and sandwich -- I will swear to that!

But, I fly for pleasure and I haven't a competitive bone in my body. I simply do not care about trophies, cards and praise. I have a hobby here not a business enterprise.

Usual behaviour? Well, this is my specialty. Not that isolated observations of unusual behaviour have any real constructive use. My old red book is full of unusual behaviour details -- all of which signify very little and are of no use to the man who wants to win contests. Take today for example. my routine 8am fly ended with a downpour of rain. Normally my kit would have been eager to enter the lot after exercise, for their feed. However, as expected, I was in for (what I call) a fandango (a farce).

The entire kit, on the loft top after a good fly, were not interested in food and wouldn't enter the loft. They were in a kind of stupor, enjoying the rain and getting soaked. No use cursing them, so I went home for a couple of hours and left them to it. On my return, they were ready to enter the loft and the liberty had done them no harm anyway. The afternoon fly was pathetic due to the outing, but the next day was really good.

So -- you all see how it is?

Life with pigeons is up and down -- rather like a fiddler's elbow!

[Internet Published May 2002 at http://www.tipplers.com/jack/]