We have one!!

On arriving home from work I found a bird waiting on the trap to get in! It was the W/F Blue off my No.1 pair that had missed the Lillers race. He has lost a lot of weight and has done very well to come home. There have only been 5 birds recorded in the club that I am aware so chances this gallent little bird will score 6th club is a welcome bonus! I have also had another reported in Stockport. I am very grateful to the gentleman to reported it and hopefully this bird will be back in the loft within the next few days. What was he doing so far North though? There was no North in the wind yesterday? I am guessing they have tracked the coastline North and crossed into the Uk further North than anyone had guessed. I have also heard they may have clashed with a Danish federation? Who knows but I am glad I will at least have 2 pigeons to race next year who have experienced Brussels. Hopefully the remaining 3 will arrive in the next few days so fingers crossed!

Nightmare of a race!

Today has turned out to be a disaster of a race for us and also the other members of the club! The birds were liberated at 7.55am in Brussels (351 miles) and I was fully expecting them to arrive around 4.30-5.30pm. However, by 7.45pm not one bird had been recorded in the club! We have had none of our 5 return and the top flyer in the club has had 0 from 16! Some of his birds having flown 450+ miles numerous times and himself topping the federation and combine in different races within the last 2 seasons. 1 bird was recorded around 7.45pm in the club but at this moment (21.10) this is the only bird to have been clocked in! We will keep our fingers crossed and hopefully some more birds will arrive in the morning!

Brussels race!

The basketing was brought forward to Saturday night with the birds racing today from Brussels. I have sent all 5 of my race birds and hoping they perform well. They exercised very well this week around the loft putting in upto 2 hours a time. The birds were liberated at 7.55am so I am expecting them around 4-5pm! I will update once/if they return! Fingers crossed!

Preparing for the big one!

Here at Rasbull Lofts we are now 100% focused now on our biggest race of the season. On Sunday the birds will be basketed for the race from Brussels (350 miles) on Tuesday. The 5 race birds are now being worked on to get them in to top condition and form ready for the task ahead. They raced 131 miles on Sunday but were back to work on Monday and tonight. They have been flying extremely well around the loft putting in 1h 20 minutes yesterday and 1hr 25 minutes this evening. That is very pleasing and they are really putting in good work around the loft for the first time this season. They are working very hard for the full time they are in the air and putting in 80-85 minutes on the wing is very good. They will work again tomorrow evening before Thursday forecasts a bad day so they will have a rest on that day. Friday they will be back to work which will continue on Saturday. Sunday will be a day of rest before they basket in the evening. I can't wait for Tuesday and I hope I manage to time at least one in at a competitive time!
The youngsters are now exercising very well around the loft and they are flying for over an hour a time when they are let out. I have 37 in total that are flying out with another 8 in the nest. I plan to take a further round from my 5 pairs of stock birds. I plan to start training the youngsters in the next couple of weeks with the first race we are going to compete in being Swindon on the 4th August.

Mission accomplished!

After the birds have been confined to the loft for the past week I took the gamble to send them to Guildford (131 miles). I am pleased to say all 5 of the birds have made it home and now I will work on them in preparation for the Brussels race which baskets on Sunday. I sent the 4 birds that returned from Lillers (272 miles) and also put in the W/F Blue cock who was rested after returning from Folkestone late. Brussels is probably going to be our last race of the season and any birds that arrive back from there will be kept for next seasons old bird racing. We were behind in todays race but I am not concerned about that as I have a few things in mind to put them on the right path for Brussels. Next week will be the one we want to do well in! I can't wait and hopefully the birds won't let me down.

Confirmed - 2nd & 5th Club - 14th Federation!

I am over the moon to report we finished 2nd & 5th Club and 14th Federation from Lillers (272 miles) with 1,060 birds competing in last weeks race. Along with the 1st Federation we had last season, this is our best result since restarting back in 2008! I could not be more pleased and I have now named the pigeon who won 2nd Club, 14th Federation in only her 5th race of her career as 'Rasbull Leanne De Cabe'! I am hoping she now goes on to better things in future races. She is bred from 2 of our stock birds 'Rasbull 774' and 'Rasbull Malta'. She is a small hen and is a Vandenabeele x Daniel Pires. The sire 'Rasbull 774' was 4th, 25th and 36th Hotspots at the Europa Classic in 2010. The dam 'Rasbull Malta' was 17th Hotspot also in 2010! The Federation result has been put on to this site and I will be uploading a picture of 'Rasbull Leanne De Cabe' in the very near future!

The birds have not been out of the loft since the Lillers race last Saturday. This weeks race has been put back to Sunday and I am still undecided as to whether to send or not. The wind suits our loft location and I am sure the rest will have done them well. I have 5 birds in total that will be sent. This weeks race will be from Guildford (131 miles) with the big one the following week from Brussels (351 miles)!

Best result of the season so far!!

We had 6 birds liberated in Lillers (272 miles) on Saturday. They were liberated at 9.15am and our first arrival dived over the house at 16.24 doing 1115ypm. We had four from six on the day. On reading the clocks it was clear the birds had experienced a difficult race with many fanciers missing lots of birds at knock off. I am pleased to announce we finished 2nd club (beaten by 3 minutes after flying for 7hrs and 9 minutes!!) We also clocked another who finished 5th club. We won the pools and nom in the club so all very pleasing. Looking at the early times in the federation it is not out of the question whether we will make the fed sheet this week which would be our biggest achievement to date since restarting in 2008. We did top the federation last year but racing from 272 miles is different to 97 miles! We will find out later in the week regarding this but fingers are firmly crossed! The only disappointment was that our other 2 birds have failed to arrive. Hopefully we may get them later this week. This was our best race of the season to date and I can not wait for the next big one from Brussels in 2 weeks time. We have a race this week from Guildford which at present I am not sure whether to send or not as yet. The birds were extremely tired on return from Lillers. They have rested Sunday and today. I think I will let them out Wednesday and see how they are looking before deciding what to do. I am in two minds whether to rest them this week and send them the following week to Brussels. I have 1 bird who didnt go to Lillers as he was late back from Folkestone so was allowed to rest. I think this one will go to Guildford but whether the other 4 do we will make a decision later in the week.

Lillers this week!

The birds have recovered well from the Folkestone race last week. They have exercised around the loft this week ok. We basketed the birds for Lillers last night (Thursday). I decided to leave behind the W/F Blue cock that had returned on Monday from Folkestone due to weight loss and tiredness. So I have sent 6 in total to Saturdays race from Lillers 271 miles. The wind is West South Westerley and very strong as well. It will be very tough for all the birds with a head wind the whole way! I am hoping they return well again from this race. I have no thoughts on how they will do in the club but I remain hopeful! I will update after they have returned from the race on Saturday. Good luck to everyone who is racing this weekend.

100% returns for 2nd week running!

My final bird missing from Saturdays race from Folkestone (200 miles) has arrived safely back this afternoon. He is very thin and totally flown out. I am over the moon as it turned out to be a very tricky race with many fanciers missing 2-6 birds each! It is now the 2nd week in a row that they have all returned and I am very pleased with that. It was only their 4th race so for it to be so tough proves they are made of strong stuff!!
I have had the race birds back out exercising around the loft this afternoon and they have put in a hours work which is another reason to be pleased. I will rest the late bird today and tomorrow morning and see how he is tomorrow evening. With this weeks race from Lilliers (272 miles) basketing a day early I only have Tuesday and Wednesday to prepare the birds to how I want them. I will look to get more work into them to sharpen them up rather than rest them though that is for sure! At this moment I am not sure how many I will send but hopefully by Wednesday morning will have a better idea of how the 7 race birds have recovered from the Folkestone race.

Folkestone 2/6/12

The 7 race birds had not exercised well all week around the loft after their return from Maidstone last week. I did manage to get one training toss into them from 26 miles midweek. I sent 7 to Folkestone (200 miles) in what turned out to be a very tricky race with lots of birds missing in the club and federation last night. I am very pleased with my own returns as I had 5 on the night and 1 this morning. I am just missing one but the weather is that poor I am surprised I even had the one return today. It is raining and very low cloud so the bird has done very well to work back in these conditions. The club had very poor returns with last weeks winner who infact took 1st, 2nd and 3rd in the club having just 2 from 10. So to have 6 from 7 when they were only having their 4th race of their careers was very pleasing. My first bird home today was the bird that was last, last week and arrived Sunday evening totally flown out and very thin! Amazing how well she has recovered. I think the constant night outs due to hawk strikes and training in all conditons has really put them on the right road for days like yesterday when the weather is very dodgy! Hopefully they will exercise around the loft better this week and come Thursday - basketing for the first channel race of the season from Lillers they they will buzzing!