Articles


Gas Prices Make New Challenges for Pigeon Racers

Gas prices puts a  new spin into  the sport of pigeon racing. If it was not bad enough with the HST tax , which now puts up the price of entry fees for one loft races.The gas prices go to a all time high.(I heard in Longlac,gas  prices are at 139.00 a gallon). So transporting the birds also for club races are going to put a hole in your pocket book.How many fanciers are  hanging on  a shoe string budget, trying to hold on to their jobs and support all their family needs.

This is a out rage.The jump in gas prices. This really burns my crop.Everything in the world is affected by this greed,our food,clothing,bank rates,vacations .oh ya vacations,I guess this will be one of the things most people will cut,who can afford the gas to travel.

Canadians and Americans and in all the other parts of the world are being affected.Its just like the domino affect.If you ever noticed , when there is a recession or bad events like wars, the gas prices will  sky rocket.

Now when our economy was just seeing the light on the other side,unemployment  was looking up, they slap us with the HST tax.How many jobs do you think this affects?

And now the high price of gas,i don’t think we can handle both of these at the same time.

Here is the question,where do you think our great pigeon sport is going? In my opinion , not good. the gas prices will affect every aspect of this great sport.

In conclusion with the gas prices make new challenges for pigeon racers ,we will have to make changes

Helpful tips

  1. Cut back on Birds, only the best stay
  2. Use your race team as foster parents for your breeders.Breeders are breeders
  3. Fly widowhood- less road time and saves gas
  4. Over crowding causes diseases ,less meds,go natural.
  5. Sell a few good birds each year to help in the cost of your other birds,keep records
  6. Cut back on your race team, young and old birds. you will probably find better results anyway.
  7. Run your loft as a business, and claim everything you can, gas included
  8. Train with club mates , save money and time.
  9. Stop buying every bird that comes along,you most likely have great birds already , use them to make a family

 

I hope this helps with the greed of high prices,on just about anything that is sold in our economy ,fuel  seems to control the out come of everything.

The outcome of pigeon racers may seem to be dark, but this article may help.

The price of gas is by no means ever going to stop going up.we as the people and consumers  are going to have to look for  alternative ways to save and cut back on our way of thinking and doing things.So don’t  let the price of gas hinder a great sport, racing pigeons. reevaluate and try birds that need less road training or new methods.

Gas prices are here to stay.

Fly with Me

Don

 

===================================================================================

Surfing Pigeon Auctions Can Be Beneficial

In 2010 , l bought my first pigeon on a online  pigeon auction.Since then ,l have bought 5 more on auction (I Pigeon,World Wings,and Choice Pigeon Auction).Since the purchase of these birds,l have been surfing on Auction sites , just to check out the quality and pedigrees of birds.

Very often the owners of the birds have web sites that you can check out,for me this is a great resource to learn more on each breeder,their bloodline and who are winning in the one loft races and club races.

Each bird on auction tells a story , to who breeds these great pigeons, where they come from and also their race results.

So if a fancier writes a sales page on the  parents  and who are the winners ,with this strain of pigeons , there will be a paper trail to  follow, the more wins the bigger the paper trail.

Some times the paper trail leads to a one time hit or maybe a generations of winners.

Quite interesting.

Surfing auctions on line has helped me keep up on the top producing lofts and birds in the world.

The South Africa  one loft race is  one of  the biggest money races in the world.Any one that has racing pigeons and fly in money races, would die to be the champion of this race.This million dollar race attracts  the best.This is another fantastic resource or learning tool for seeking out top lines of pigeons.

 

 

 

 

 

I hope this article has helped in purchasing your next champion.

 

 

 

 

Fly With Me

Don

 

=================================================================================================

New bylaws for Cat Owners

A great percentage of cats lovers let their pets run free,with unsupervised  cats running free , they get into a routine of stocking birds at local bird feeders . But its just a killing spree for these unsupervised  cats.

It is estimated that millions of small birds ,doves,and pigeons are killed on a daily bases.

Maggie

We have a part- fenced yard and we have a lilac Siamese cat . 12 years old that we trained to stay  on our patio and not to go off our property, and not to attack the birds in and around our bird feeders.She will walk around the stone patio but never goes on the grass.She will sit on a chair and just watch the birds with us.

We also have a friend that has a old white cat which never ever touches the racing pigeons even when the birds are on the ground.

Here is the bird feeder in our backyard sitting idle because our neighbor have killer cats, so he just quit feeding the birds ,

why serve the birds up to the cats ?

Here is a article about cat Bylaws  in the Star today

 

Cats now housebound in Oakville — or owners face fine

Published On Mon Jan 17 2011
Critics say cats are responsible for killing a million songbirds a day in North America. Some municipalities want pet owners to keep the felines on a tight leash.
Critics say cats are responsible for killing a million songbirds a day in North America. Some municipalities want pet owners to keep the felines on a tight leash.

© Russell Young/JAI/Corbis

Mary Ormsby and Jim Wilkes Staff Reporters

Sylvester and Tweety almost got it right.

In their cartoon world, the brainy yellow bird always outsmarts the puddy tat. In the real world, the cat kills the canary — and as many as one million birds daily in North America. This is causing a growing, sometimes violent, rift between animal lovers.

The crucial question: Should cats, which are natural hunters, be allowed to freely to roam the streets?

As of Jan. 1, the answer in Oakville is no.

“If it’s your pet, you should have it under control,’’ said Johanne Golder, executive director of the Oakville and Milton Humane Society, which is contracted by Oakville to provide animal control services.

Oakville has joined neighbours Milton, Burlington and Hamilton in prohibiting cats from roaming free. The town has already banned dogs from running loose, but added cats to the list when it consolidated all animal bylaws last month.

Owners whose loose cats repeatedly end up at the Oakville shelter can be fined $105, plus a $30 town surcharge, a return fee of $25 and $15 for each day the cat stays at the shelter.

Golder said the mentality that cats are “disposable” pets (unwanted kittens are often abandoned or dumped at shelters) is to blame for the huge feline populations in urban centres.

The more cats, the fewer birds, said McGill University avian expert David Bird.

He said house pets are just as bloodthirsty as untamed ferals — homeless offspring of stray or abandoned cats raised without human contact.

Bird (his surname and passion are coincidental, he chirped) estimated well-fed pets alone destroy upwards of a billion birds annually around the world. The American Bird Conservancy estimates hundreds of millions are killed in the United States by cats each year but says an exact figure is unclear.

Bird, the author of The Bird Almanac and Birds of Canada, said the cat-on-bird carnage is as common in quiet residential cul-de-sacs as it is in the countryside.

“I’d created a killing field in my own backyard,” recalled the wildlife biology professor, who once spotted four neighbourhood cats stalking finches, woodpeckers, nuthatches, juncos, jays and cardinals nibbling at feeders around his west Montreal home.

“I didn’t think it was right for other people’s hobby interest, i.e., owning a pet cat, to impinge upon my interests on my own property.”

Bird advocates like him are up against a multi-million-dollar cat-care industry in an animal rights fight that has been tested in U.S. courts, written about in a best-selling novel and spawned an outdoor furniture business to erect enclosed “catios” to give kitty a breath of fresh air.

It’s an issue that’s gaining momentum in the GTA.

Last week, the city of Toronto announced plans expand a volunteer-driven program to capture, sterilize and return ferals to their colonies around the city. There are between 100,000 and 300,000 ferals around the GTA, according to cat rescue experts.

Maureen Palmer is the producer of documentary Cat Crazed, which examines cat overpopulation and its fallout. Even though cats are shown in her film savaging fledglings in their nests, she said humans are the real villains.

“The enemy is the irresponsible pet owner,’’ said Palmer.

“We have to lose the notion that cats are born to be wild if we live in largely urban communities (and) have a bunch of well-meaning owners who let their cats out.”

Palmer said one of the most “heartbreaking” scenes during filming was at a volunteer spay-neuter clinic in Los Angeles that sterilized 80 ferals a day. She said most of the cats had infections that never healed, as well as broken bones, large abscesses around their teeth and mange.

“It’s not a good life for those cats,’’ she said.

Sarah May, a volunteer at Toronto Cat Rescue, notes her organization believes the trap-neuter-release program is the best way to reduce colony populations.

“Our goal is to find a real solution to getting cats off the streets,’’ said the 20-year-old York University environmental studies student.

“It’s not like we want cats out there, whether it be for the cats’ sake, the birds’ sake or public health’s sake.”

Cats actually never roamed freely in North America until they were introduced by humans. The animals — rodent hunters in the wild — were first domesticated 7,000 years ago in the Middle East and Africa, according to researchers at the University of Nebraska. Those ancient cats evolved into a separate species called the domestic or house cat.

Since cats are not native predators in this part of the world, nesting North American birds have no natural defences against the agile tree climbers. Birds are already under stresses from habitat destruction, pollution, climate change and other animals, such as squirrels, who eat unattended eggs.

The tension between cat people and bird people reaches a critical point in author Jonathan Franzen’s latest novel, Freedom:

“There are many ways for a house cat to die outdoors, including dismemberment by coyote and flattening by a car but when the Hoffbauer family’s beloved pet Bobby failed to come home one early-June evening, and no amount of calling Bobby’s name or searching the perimeter of Canterbridge Estates or walking up and down the county road or stapling Bobby’s Xeroxed image to local trees turned up any trace of him, it was widely assumed on Canterbridge Court that Bobby had been killed by Walter Berglund.”

In Texas five years ago, Jim Stevenson killed a cat. The Galveston ornithologist fatally shot a feral with a .22-calibre rifle, claiming the creature was killing piping plovers, an endangered shorebird species.

Stevenson was charged with animal cruelty but walked free in 2007 when jurors failed to come to a decision and a mistrial was declared.

Fly with Me

Don

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

==================================================================================

 

Pigeon Auctions can be Fun, BUT

Online Pigeon Auctions can be fun and now you can acquire pigeons from all over the world,online auctions make it a better opportunity for pigeon fanciers to obtain quality stock from anywhere in the world.

Before ,most people could only obtain birds in there own main stream area unless you had the means of travel and money to obtain the best of the best , but that has all changed, thanks to the great invention of the Internet.

But you should take caution in online auctions. we have bought and sold on eBay for many years and have learned quite a bit on the ins and outs on this subject. Just like anything else there are scams and dishonest people.

Beware

_________________________________________________

Few Pointers

________________________________________________________________

Some pigeon sellers are like puppy mills, they are just out to mass produce birds for profit. Stay away from these guys.Only buy from people who fly  and have good standing records ,that breed from single pen cages. You want pigeons from proven stock.

Don’t get in a hurry, research

There are a lot of top quality pigeons out there now , that are on good online auction websites.

I have bought from i Pigeon,Choice Pigeons and my partner has bought from World Wings Auction all honest  Pigeon auction sites, so make sure you do your homework, read and  goggle everything. you would be amazed how much information you can get, if you dig hard enough.

Happy Bidding and remember have fun.

 

Fly with me

Don

 

 

___________________________________________________________________________

Want to Build Your First Pigeon Website

Google FREE Websites


Google FREE Websites are absolutely  the way to go,you will benefit from having a Pigeon Blog or Website.

Benefits


 

 

Why am I Promoting FREE Google Sites?


To increase the awareness on how great the pigeon sport is.The more websites and blogs there are ,the better chance of informing and educating the new and old alike.What better way ,then through a blog or website ,which is free.We need more helpful sources,yes more and what is a better opportunely than

Free Google Websites.

Fly With Me

Don

__________________________________________________________________

Write a comment

Copyright © 2011 Griffin's Choice Pigeons

Credits: Matteo Turchetto | Andreas Viklund