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Strange Hobbies


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2 hours ago, nimrod said:

I've kept pigeons on and off since I was about 11, got my brothers when he moved out and that started the love of these birds.
It's difficult these day's, neighbours complain about bird shit on the roof and the cooing, but over the last 20yrs or so we lived in a big old Queenslander, pretty secluded so was able keep my loft breeding most of the time.
Things started to get tough though latterly due to the conservation of predatory  hawk's, my best birds were being taken regularly.
We've now living in a modern housing suburb, so keeping pigeons is out of the question, . . . I miss them.

 

The hawks are a menace, no denying it. We seem to have good and bad years with losses to them. 

 

Last year was particularly bad, we'd lose 1 a week when training them. But that wouldn't include the injuries, pigeons getting back ripped open and needing to be stitched back together, it's terrible to see, and even worse is they never fully recover from it, yeah they race, but they're never the same. 

 

It's a cool little hobby, expensive mind you, but I race with my father and its great to still do something together even now in kicking 40 and he's in his mid 60's 

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2 hours ago, Bruce Spanner said:


This question comes from somebody without any knowledge or inclination, but what do you do with them and what’s the reason they’re kept?

 

I’m genuinely ignorant to this.

We race ours, 

 

So although you'd see street pigeons flying about, our pigeons would obviously look similar, but in reality it's comparing a gypsy's pony to RedRum, they're different beasts all together. 

 

Ours race for 21 weeks of the year, every Saturday. They're basically taken off in big specially designed trucks and released with thousands of other pigeons hundreds of miles from where they live. They then race home. 

 

Without wind they'll average 50mph for anything up to 8 hours of flying, on a good day with a little wind assistance they'll average close to 70mph. 

 

So if you have a good day, they can complete a 140 mile race in 2 hours relatively easily. And nowadays, the race only becomes difficult for them from about 200 miles up, anything less than 200 miles is a walk in the park for them. 

 

They really are remarkable little creatures, muscles bound beyond belief, as agile as anything, and extremely intelligent. 

 

 

 

 

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19 minutes ago, chrisbonnie said:

We race ours, 

 

So although you'd see street pigeons flying about, our pigeons would obviously look similar, but in reality it's comparing a gypsy's pony to RedRum, they're different beasts all together. 

 

Ours race for 21 weeks of the year, every Saturday. They're basically taken off in big specially designed trucks and released with thousands of other pigeons hundreds of miles from where they live. They then race home. 

 

Without wind they'll average 50mph for anything up to 8 hours of flying, on a good day with a little wind assistance they'll average close to 70mph. 

 

So if you have a good day, they can complete a 140 mile race in 2 hours relatively easily. And nowadays, the race only becomes difficult for them from about 200 miles up, anything less than 200 miles is a walk in the park for them. 

 

They really are remarkable little creatures, muscles bound beyond belief, as agile as anything, and extremely intelligent. 

 

 

 

 


Cheers for the overview, not for me, but sounds like you get a lot out of it, so fair play.

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12 minutes ago, Bruce Spanner said:


Cheers for the overview, not for me, but sounds like you get a lot out of it so fair play.

That's it, each to their own. Besides the obvious racing part, I love looking through results from the UK, Holland and Belgium and then trying to contact the guys to buy pigeons from them. 

 

I'd like to think I'm like Michael Edwards, I try to find good pigeons at cheaper prices away from prying eyes. 

 

Plus it gets me out of the house on a Saturday, and with two 2 kids under 5, id probably shovel shit to get a day away 

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40 minutes ago, chrisbonnie said:

We race ours, 

 

So although you'd see street pigeons flying about, our pigeons would obviously look similar, but in reality it's comparing a gypsy's pony to RedRum, they're different beasts all together. 

 

Ours race for 21 weeks of the year, every Saturday. They're basically taken off in big specially designed trucks and released with thousands of other pigeons hundreds of miles from where they live. They then race home. 

 

Without wind they'll average 50mph for anything up to 8 hours of flying, on a good day with a little wind assistance they'll average close to 70mph. 

 

So if you have a good day, they can complete a 140 mile race in 2 hours relatively easily. And nowadays, the race only becomes difficult for them from about 200 miles up, anything less than 200 miles is a walk in the park for them. 

 

They really are remarkable little creatures, muscles bound beyond belief, as agile as anything, and extremely intelligent. 

 

 

 

 

Do you race them against your own other pigeons or against other pigeon keepers? 

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4 minutes ago, Paulie Dangerously said:

Do you race them against your own other pigeons or against other pigeon keepers? 

Against others. 

 

On average most guys would send between 20-50 pigeons every week. My club has about 43 members, but some are really old and don't send often these days, but this still get 30 guys racing. So just my club alone would have 600-1000 pigeons racing every week. Our club is affiliated a federation, think of it like my club is Liverpool, and the federation is the league. So my clubs pigeons go on a big pigeon transporter with every other pigeon club from Dublin. 

 

We bring the pigeons down to the club in Friday nights, each pigeon is checked and verified that the number on its leg corresponds with the clock. We then bring our clubs pigeons to the transporters. That would be 3 specially kitted out 40ft trailers with drinkers and feeders on them. The trucks drive to the set race point and they get released on Saturday morning, weather depending

 

Saturday comes and we wait for them to come home. They get clocked and we all bring our clocks to the club to calculate the result. 

 

So you have a club result, then all the clubs have a federation result, that's the big one, being the fastest pigeon from the whole liberation (anything up 14000 pigeons) 

 

We also have gambling in our club. Pools we call it. But you can only bet on your own pigeons. Small bets, 20c, 30c,50c, 1 euro. So 4 betting boxes per pigeon, up to you whether you to bet if course. So just say pigeon number 1, you X all the boxes for him. 20c, 30c, 50c and 1 euro. If he wins, you get everybodies 20, 30, 50 and 1. And remember, if there's 600 pigeons, that's alot of 20 cents. Usually the pools in my club is about 300-500 euro every week. 

 

But obviously if you're racing against 600 pigeons winning isn't easy, and picking which of your pigeons to bet on isn't easy either. Of course if you want you can bet on all your pigeons to boost your odds, but that's expensive. But believe you me, some guys do bet alot. 

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3 hours ago, Paulie Dangerously said:

I'm into Lego. 

Lego is ace. My lad got the Harry Potter train station from his granny last Christmas. Being that he's from the iPad generation and has fuck all patience for anything that doesn't offer instant gratification, I ended up putting it together. 

 

And a very rewarding and relaxing several hours it was.

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1 hour ago, General Dryness said:

Lego is ace. My lad got the Harry Potter train station from his granny last Christmas. Being that he's from the iPad generation and has fuck all patience for anything that doesn't offer instant gratification, I ended up putting it together. 

 

And a very rewarding and relaxing several hours it was.

Get onto the MOC creations available from a few websites I can dm you. It saves hundreds on the big sets if you're going to get into it. I got loads of then over lockdown. All of these are not official Lego brand. 

 

IMG_20200811_145247_396.jpg

IMG_20200725_175554_041.jpg

IMG_20200610_213701_020.jpg

IMG_20200330_012300_979.jpg

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1 hour ago, chrisbonnie said:

Against others. 

 

On average most guys would send between 20-50 pigeons every week. My club has about 43 members, but some are really old and don't send often these days, but this still get 30 guys racing. So just my club alone would have 600-1000 pigeons racing every week. Our club is affiliated a federation, think of it like my club is Liverpool, and the federation is the league. So my clubs pigeons go on a big pigeon transporter with every other pigeon club from Dublin. 

 

We bring the pigeons down to the club in Friday nights, each pigeon is checked and verified that the number on its leg corresponds with the clock. We then bring our clubs pigeons to the transporters. That would be 3 specially kitted out 40ft trailers with drinkers and feeders on them. The trucks drive to the set race point and they get released on Saturday morning, weather depending

 

Saturday comes and we wait for them to come home. They get clocked and we all bring our clocks to the club to calculate the result. 

 

So you have a club result, then all the clubs have a federation result, that's the big one, being the fastest pigeon from the whole liberation (anything up 14000 pigeons) 

 

We also have gambling in our club. Pools we call it. But you can only bet on your own pigeons. Small bets, 20c, 30c,50c, 1 euro. So 4 betting boxes per pigeon, up to you whether you to bet if course. So just say pigeon number 1, you X all the boxes for him. 20c, 30c, 50c and 1 euro. If he wins, you get everybodies 20, 30, 50 and 1. And remember, if there's 600 pigeons, that's alot of 20 cents. Usually the pools in my club is about 300-500 euro every week. 

 

But obviously if you're racing against 600 pigeons winning isn't easy, and picking which of your pigeons to bet on isn't easy either. Of course if you want you can bet on all your pigeons to boost your odds, but that's expensive. But believe you me, some guys do bet alot. 

Cheers for that. I had no idea of the particulars of the hobby! 

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22 minutes ago, Paulie Dangerously said:

Get onto the MOC creations available from a few websites I can dm you. It saves hundreds on the big sets if you're going to get into it. I got loads of then over lockdown. All of these are not official Lego brand. 

 

IMG_20200811_145247_396.jpg

IMG_20200725_175554_041.jpg

IMG_20200610_213701_020.jpg

IMG_20200330_012300_979.jpg

My little lad is mad into lego, what are these websites you speak of? 

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5 hours ago, Bruce Spanner said:


This question comes from somebody without any knowledge or inclination, but what do you do with them and what’s the reason they’re kept?

 

I’m genuinely ignorant to this.

In my case, they are pets sort of. I fantazised about racing, but really I just liked them and the kids loved them. it was a lot of fun just being around them.

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On 19/12/2020 at 19:28, chrisbonnie said:

The game in general is dying out. But the hotbed in England would mainly be the north east of England, I think I read somewhere out became massively big there because the miners had decent money and where able to bring the best birds up there. I'm in Dublin myself, but the scene here is still pretty big. My club would send anything from 500-1000 pigeons every week to a race, and in Dublin we'd send anything from 6000-14000 pigeons weekly racing. You'd be amazed what's happening in thrash skies every weekend, batches if little pigeons flying home from 150 miles away at speed up to 65mph. 

 

Regarding the pigeon sold to china, its just silly money isn't it. But that pigeon will be put to stud, just like a race horse. But unlike racehorses that pigeon can lay a round of eggs every few weeks, whoever owns it now will simply take the eggs off her and place them under foster parents, so theoretically in a year that hen could give you two babies every 3-4 weeks, and god knows what the owner would charge for one of those babies, maybe 10k each? 

Anyone remember watching Geordie Racer ?

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8 hours ago, Bjornebye said:

Anyone remember watching Geordie Racer ?

Before my time, but in general, it's still huge around that part of the UK. 

 

I have a good friend from a little town in Cleveland, an old colliery called loftus. A fucking shit hole if im being completely honest. I could tell you stories about the "hotels" I've stayed in there, but writing about it wouldn't do the story justice. I'm saying one thing, the hotel was so bad that the border wallpaper on the wall, was stuck on with blue tack!! 

 

But when I do visit my friend, he brings me to other really good pigeon men around hartlepool, Middlesborough, Durham, etc. Mainly old colliery towns to be honest. 

 

There is one town I've been to, it was actually on the list of the "worst towns in Britain". Its called Skinningrove. My god what a dilapidated kip. 

 

Actually, I've found a picture of the bathroom from that hotel I mentioned. As you can see we had to use a plastic jug to wash our hair. If i could insert 50 laughing emojis, I would. It was hilarious

 

FB_IMG_1608619521478.jpg

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1 hour ago, chrisbonnie said:

Before my time, but in general, it's still huge around that part of the UK. 

 

I have a good friend from a little town in Cleveland, an old colliery called loftus. A fucking shit hole if im being completely honest. I could tell you stories about the "hotels" I've stayed in there, but writing about it wouldn't do the story justice. I'm saying one thing, the hotel was so bad that the border wallpaper on the wall, was stuck on with blue tack!! 

 

But when I do visit my friend, he brings me to other really good pigeon men around hartlepool, Middlesborough, Durham, etc. Mainly old colliery towns to be honest. 

 

There is one town I've been to, it was actually on the list of the "worst towns in Britain". Its called Skinningrove. My god what a dilapidated kip. 

 

Actually, I've found a picture of the bathroom from that hotel I mentioned. As you can see we had to use a plastic jug to wash our hair. If i could insert 50 laughing emojis, I would. It was hilarious

 

FB_IMG_1608619521478.jpg

I see you stayed in the posh part of Loftus. 

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2 hours ago, chrisbonnie said:

Before my time, but in general, it's still huge around that part of the UK. 

 

I have a good friend from a little town in Cleveland, an old colliery called loftus. A fucking shit hole if im being completely honest. I could tell you stories about the "hotels" I've stayed in there, but writing about it wouldn't do the story justice. I'm saying one thing, the hotel was so bad that the border wallpaper on the wall, was stuck on with blue tack!! 

 

But when I do visit my friend, he brings me to other really good pigeon men around hartlepool, Middlesborough, Durham, etc. Mainly old colliery towns to be honest. 

 

There is one town I've been to, it was actually on the list of the "worst towns in Britain". Its called Skinningrove. My god what a dilapidated kip. 

 

Actually, I've found a picture of the bathroom from that hotel I mentioned. As you can see we had to use a plastic jug to wash our hair. If i could insert 50 laughing emojis, I would. It was hilarious

 

FB_IMG_1608619521478.jpg

Good sense of humour there though, giving you those posh slippers with a bathroom like that.

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