Youngsters

The breeding season is finally coming to a close in the loft with just 1 youngster left to be weaned off. We have 47 in total and of these 45 are out flying. We have a group of 10-14 that are only venturing up to the house roof, however these will soon start to find their wings. I can't wait for all to be kitting and putting in an hours exercise. Soon after this they will be basket trained. I can't wait for this batch of youngsters to be trained and raced but the the racing will have to wait until next year! Looking through them, for once, I seem to have far more cocks than hens. I think the past 3 seasons I have been very short on cocks and had far too many hens but this year seems to be very positive for numbers regarding cocks. I will be flying widowhood next year so this bodes very well!
I have updated the website's various sections and I plan to take some photos of the race birds and upload those to the website including 'Rasbull Leanne DeCabe'. I will update if anything happens but otherwise will update when the training process starts in the near future!

Long time since last update!

It has been quite some time since I updated this blog! We have some great news to report and that is we have 'Rasbull Leanne DeCabe' back in the loft. Yes, she was our pigeon that was 2nd Club, 14th Federation from 1060 birds when racing from Lillers (272 miles). She was lost the following week from Brussels (378 miles). Nearly 8 weeks have passed since that race then on Thursday she was sitting on the trap waiting to get back into the loft! Amazing - where has this little hen been all this time? Chuffed to bits to get her back and hopefully this experience will set up her up lovely for next year!
Breeding is coming to an end in our loft with just 7 youngsters waiting to be weaned off now. We have not raced at all this year in the young bird races and as yet the youngsters have not had any road training. We will wait for the remaining 7 to get out flying and then they will be trained up on the nice days throughout the autumn and will be raced next year as yearlings. I did the same thing last year and managed to get 4 from Brussels (378 miles) so hoping to achieve the same sort of results with this crop of birds. We have 52 in total and hopefully over the next few months can get them out on the road and get them some experience of the basket. Until next time......

And another!!

4 days after the Brussels race we have another arrive back home! A white grizzle hen was waiting on the loft Saturday morning. She has lost a lot of weight but it made my day seeing her! That is now 3 from 5 back in the loft albeit one was returned via courier. To my knowledge there are still only 10 birds back in the entire club from the Brussels race. I am still keeping my fingers crossed that we might see the other 2!

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!

All home!

I am pleased to say the final bird arrived the day after the race and was very thin indeed on arrival. The heat and the distance she had flown has obviously taken its toll! A few days rest and good food will soon put her right though. So I am very pleased with the returns this week. The 7 yearlings don't forget were unraced as youngsters and have now had their 3rd race of their careers and so far they have had 2 x 97 miles and now 1 at 176 miles. Next week we are at Folkestone 200 miles and I am sure they will come well again. They will be worked around the loft this week with hopefully one or two training tosses from around 25 miles thrown into the mix as well!

Just 1 missing!

We had one bird arrive back this morning so we are just missing 1 from yesterdays Maidstone race. The birds have only flown 2 races in their lives prior to this and they were both from 97 miles. So they had been jumped to 176 miles and I am more than happy with how they come. I hope they continue to improve in the same way they have shown so far this season! Hopefully the last one will arrive some today to give us 100% returns but as it is now 11am I am not to optimistic. I can't wait for next weeks race from Folkestone.

Maidstone 26/5/2012

Our 7 birds were liberated at Maidstone (176 miles) at 7am this morning. A very strong East wind ensured a very fast race. We clocked at 9.50am doing 1826ypm. Our first bird 3 birds were all brother and sisters! We bred 3 last year in a round of 50 birds. We have 7 birds left and all 3 of these remain! Something in the family I think!! We are currently missing 3 but I am a lot happier how they came today. Not sure of many times in the club today but the winner last week was clocking at 9.35am. So we are 15 minutes behind and he has to give us 7 miles overfly so going to be about 8-9 minutes behind him. (The standard time difference if we have no South) I am very happy with that as we live 20 miles North of this and with no South in the wind I am very pleased. The leading times in the Fed were around 23/24 minutes past so the Merthyr boys (further North) clocking 10 minutes after this and I am clocking 10 minutes after the Merthyr boys! Location plays a huge part in pigeon racing from races under 300 miles and thats just a fact I have to accept! Added to this all our birds are unraced yearlings and only having their 3rd race in their lives I am very pleased that we now have something to work with in the longer races to come this season! Roll on next week and Folkestone and hopefully some nice strong South winds after that for the longer races across the channel!

This weeks race!

After lasts weeks race was cancelled due to the weather the birds find themselves pushed further across the country for this weeks race which will be from Maidstone. (178 miles). The 7 birds we have in the loft are all unraced yearlings having their first season. So far they have flown Newbury (97 miles) twice. So it will be a big jump for the birds and should test them a bit! I was going to send them to the South Road National from Carentan this week providing they come well from Guildford last week which would have been 131 miles. But to jump them 100 miles + put them across the channel (due to race being cancelled) was asking too much of them in my opinion. So Maidstone is the race they will go to and all being well we will send all 7.
So they have had 2 weeks since their last race and they have worked for at least 1 hour every day with some days putting in 2 hours around the loft and basket training. In the past 2 weeks they have had around 4 x 26 mile training tosses and I hope they come well now on Saturday as we look to progress to the longer races when the fitness and stamina will start to count!

Happy days regarding my youngsters!

This weeks race from Guildford has been cancelled due to the weather. I have never known a start to the season like this with all this stop, start, stop, change program, start, stop! It is a nightmare and I wish the weather would pull its socks up!
The problem I have now is that I was planning on sending to the Welsh South Road National next week from Carentan. As long as the birds came well from this weekends race from Guildford I was going to skip the Combine race from Maidstone on the South East and put them South over the water. This has somewhat ruined my plans now as my entire race team have only had 2 races from 97 miles so far in their careers and to jump them 100 miles and expect them to fly the channel is a big, big ask. I was going to take the chance had they completed tthe 131 mile race scheduled for tomorrow. I will have to wait and see what the Rhondda Valley Fed plan to do now and maybe they will look to have a midweek race and if that is the case then my plans will still be on track!
I took advantage yesterday to get out my 40 youngsters for only the 2nd time! This included 5 birds I bought last week that were having their first time out. On getting them in I must have been 2 down as these were on the loft this morning waiting to get in. One of these was one of the new ones having his first time out. So very pleased all back. On counting up the birds I couldn't understand why I had 42 in the loft. They were all definitely mine! I had been missing 2 youngsters having their first time out last week. '08' and '21'. I checked through the birds and to my delight both these were now in the loft as well. What a bonus! So I had 44 youngsters to start with and dropped 2 when I tried to break 15 in for the first time. Since then I have broken in 27 and not lost anything off the loft. Considering these were all 4/5 month old youngsters which had never been out until last week I am over the moon! So 42 youngsters in the loft and all have now been broken into the loft - happy days!!! The next quest is to now get them kitting together and I should imagine that will happen very quickly as they are all so strong. I can't wait to get them out in a batch and watch them raking the home skies!

Birds stepping up a gear!

The birds have stepped up a gear this week in training and around the loft. They have put in 2hrs every day. They have just been loft flown today. 1 hour this morning and 1 hour this evening. I am hoping to get them out in the morning for another 1 hour fly and all being well will basket train them tomorrow evening from Raglan (26 miles). This I believe will stand them in good form for the race from Guildford on Saturday!

Trying to put things right!

I have been disappointed with the birds in the first two races of this season. I am finding as they were not raced as youngsters they are following the group and not breaking where I need them to. This has resulted in them flying another 20-25 miles further than they need to. I have therefore been keen to give them some additional training this week in readiness for this weeks race from Guildford (131 miles). They went to Raglan last night and took an age to get their line and strike for home. When they did eventually set off they were hit by a hawk on route and all arrived on their own. By nightfall I was missing 1 and my brother missing 4. His 4 were on the loft by 8am this morning but the one I was missing has failed to arrive.
Tonight my 7 birds were again basketed and taken back to the same place and released with my brothers 6 birds. They cleared far quicker tonight and that was very pleasing. They were flying into a strong head wind but all arrived in good time. I am a lot happier tonight and if the weather permits they will go again before the next race to sharpen them up and make them realise what is expected of them.