Thought I’d share a few photos of my birds on a fine spring afternoon as they made scores of trips to the yard to gather nesting material.
Homing Pigeons flying – Images by David Stephenson
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Home is where the nest is
Homing Pigeons flying – Images by David Stephenson
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A thrilling finish in the Gulfcoast Homing Club
Jimmy Combs, who handles our birds in the Gulf Coast Homing club for the Classic race, has scored a big win in old birds with 2012 AU Kastle 11. He finished 2nd place, 150 miles, 1084 birds with a blistering speed of 2094 ypm. Congratulations also to Jim, as the first place bird was also his, but flown by another loft.
Kastle 11 is by Waddy, our son of Kannibaal’s Gold, and out of Widow’s 20, a double grand-daughter of Black Widow. Kastle 11 was our best finisher in last December’s Classic race, finishing in the money and the top 10%. Clicking the image below will take you to the complete results.
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Another science fair, another win!
Congratulations to Tory for another outstanding science fair – her second of two award-winning projects involving our racers. This year, she won first place at her school and just yesterday she won 7th grade district champion. We are very proud of her and wish her the best at regional competition.
This year, her project was comparing diets high in fats and carbs to see if they affected the flight speeds of our birds. She tested them at pretty short distances, but the results were still very interesting. Below is an excerpt from her abstract.
What is the effect of a diet high in fats or carbohydrates on the flight time of a homing pigeon? My purpose is to help pigeon racers like me decide what types of food make the pigeons perform better. My hypothesis is that the pigeons that ate the high carbs diet are going to be quicker because carbs give you energy quicker, whereas fats are a more long-term energy source and don’t burn off fast. From the results of my experiment, I learned that a diet of high fats makes the pigeons fly 0.45 miles per hour faster on average than on a high carb filled diet.
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2012 wrap-up
We added a son of Eisenhower x Joint Venture, pictured above, to our breeding program in 2012 and expect he will have an immediate impact in 2013.
We’ve wrapped up 2012 here at Kastle Loft. We were happy to add a total of six first place wins in club racing during the young bird season.
Our biggest win of the young bird season, however, came in the Gulf Coast Classic. Our handler, Jim Combs, did a great job with our birds. AU 2012 Kastle 11 finished the Classic race in 204th place. Out of 2052 birds and 101 lofts, that finish was good enough to get us in the top 10% and in the money in some of the toughest competition in the country. We plan to send more birds to Jim in 2013.
Kastle 11 is a daughter of Waddy (a direct son of Kannibaal’s Gold) and Widow’s 20 (a double grand-daughter of Black Widow and Aviator).
We also enjoyed finishing up Tory’s 7th grade science fair project where she compared flight speeds of our birds on various carb & fat diets. We wish her the best in upcoming competition.
Here’s looking back to a fun, although sometimes frustrating 2012, and to hopeful success in 2013.
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Central Ohio Combine release from Lexington
The Pigeon Talk Classic, hosted in 2012 by Mr. Walt Conditionfreak, had 16 birds in this release in Lexington, Ky., on Sept. 16 at the Wal-Mart parking lot (results here). Our Kastle bird is still in the mix and finished 8th out of the 16 today.
Going along for the ride with his 16 birds were another thousand or so from lofts across southern and central Ohio. It was quite a rush to see such a flock released. Beautiful sight.
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The Dizzy Pigeon
I saw this scene on a barn roof at Churchill Downs while working on a video for a client. If we could all have the guts to be a little different, we might just have a little more fun along the way.
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Results from our first young bird race of 2012
We had a good drop in our first race this year. Short, but sweet. It’s been tough beating those veteran flyers who live about 40 miles to the west. We’re striving of course for more similar performances this season.
WinSpeed-1 Bluegrass RPC 08/19/12-18:30
Weekly Race Report Page 1
Open and Junior Category
Name: ONEIDA Young Bird Race Flown: 08/19/2012
Release(A): 07:45 Birds: 178 Lofts: 12 Station: ONEIDA TN
Weather (Rel) Overcast, 0 N, 64 degrees (Arr) sunny, NE 2-6 mph, 77 degrees
POS NAME BAND NUMBER CLR X ARRIVAL MILES TOWIN YPM PT
1 Tory Stephe/9 74 AU 12 KAST GR H 10:17:29 104.240 00.00 1203.160 100
2 David Step/31 3 AU 12 KAST BBAR C 10:17:30 104.240 00.00 1203.029 99
3 David Stephen 1 AU 12 KAST BBAR C 10:17:31 2/ 31 00.01 1202.898 98
4 David Stephen 9 AU 12 KAST BBAR C 10:17:32 3/ 31 00.02 1202.766 97
5 David Stephen 10 AU 12 KAST BCH C 10:17:32 4/ 31 00.02 1202.766 96
6 David Stephen 39 AU 12 KAST BBAR C 10:17:34 5/ 31 00.04 1202.504 95
7 David Stephen 33 AU 12 KAST BLK C 10:17:36 6/ 31 00.06 1202.241 94
8 David Stephen 41 AU 12 KAST BBAR C 10:17:38 7/ 31 00.08 1201.978 93
9 David Stephen 29 AU 12 KAST BBAR C 10:17:39 8/ 31 00.09 1201.847 92
10 David Stephen 24 AU 12 KAST BBAR C 10:19:10 9/ 31 01.40 1190.024 91
11 Tory Stephens 54 AU 12 KAST GR C 10:21:21 2/ 9 03.51 1173.405 90
12 David Stephen 44 AU 12 KAST BBAR C 10:21:25 10/ 31 03.55 1172.905 89
13 Tory Stephens 12 AU 12 KAST BC C 10:23:39 3/ 9 06.09 1156.394 88
14 David Stephen 1 AU 12 BLG BKWP C 10:23:41 11/ 31 06.11 1156.151 87
15 Tory Stephens 77 AU 12 KAST GR H 10:24:42 4/ 9 07.12 1148.791 86
16 David Stephen 48 AU 12 KAST DC C 10:25:50 12/ 31 08.20 1140.696 85
17 David Stephen 34 AU 12 KAST BBAR C 10:25:57 13/ 31 08.27 1139.869 84
18 David Stephen 46 AU 12 KAST BBAR C 10:26:06 14/ 31 08.36 1138.808 83
19 David Stephen 35 AU 12 KAST BBAR C 10:26:07 15/ 31 08.37 1138.690 82
20 David Stephen 45 AU 12 KAST BCH C 10:28:22 16/ 31 10.52 1123.007 81
21 David Stephen 28 AU 12 KAST BBAR C 10:30:26 17/ 31 12.56 1108.978 80
22 Simeon Par/31 79 AU 12 BLG BBAR C 10:50:43 115.178 17.13 1091.517 79
23 Ken Driske/10 438 AU 12 BLG BBAR C 11:12:17 128.459 19.22 1090.718 78
24 Tory Stephens 42 AU 12 KAST DC C 10:34:17 5/ 9 16.48 1083.757 77
25 Simeon Parker 91 AU 12 BLG DC H 10:52:38 2/ 31 19.08 1080.368 76
26 David Stephen 14 AU 12 KAST RC C 10:36:51 18/ 31 19.21 1067.570 75
27 Ken Driskell 432 AU 12 BLG W C 11:16:57 2/ 10 24.02 1066.703 74
28 Ken Driskell 431 AU 12 BLG W H 11:17:13 3/ 10 24.18 1065.363 73
29 Ken Driskell 410 AU 12 BLG RC C 11:17:48 4/ 10 24.53 1062.442 72
30 Simeon Parker 97 AU 12 BLG BCH H 11:00:33 3/ 31 27.03 1036.630 71
31 Jonathan Du/3 53 AU 12 LKY BC C 10:45:53 106.338 25.19 1034.750 70
32 Fred Dunawa/3 52 AU 12 LKY BC C 10:46:32 106.338 25.58 1031.045 69
33 Jonathan Duna 109 AU 12 LKY BC C 10:47:02 2/ 3 26.27 1028.213 68
34 Fred Dunaway 18 AU 12 LKY BC C 10:47:19 2/ 3 26.44 1026.616 67
35 Jonathan Duna 45 AU 12 LKY BC C 10:47:54 3/ 3 27.19 1023.342 66
36 Joe Penn/26 356 AU 12 BLG BCH C 11:35:11 132.968 35.40 1016.685 65
37 David Stephen 36 AU 12 KAST BBAR C 10:48:50 19/ 31 31.20 997.980 64
38 David Stephen 61 AU 12 KAST DC C 10:49:08 20/ 31 31.38 996.354 63
39 John James/32 123 IF 12 LKY RC C 10:52:15 105.292 33.13 989.665 62
40 Jonathan Ja/5 121 IF 12 LKY GR 10:52:16 105.292 33.14 989.577 61
41 Elliott/9 136 IF 12 LKY GR H 10:52:26 105.292 33.24 988.697 59
42 John James 136 AU 12 LKY GR C 10:52:26 2/ 32 33.24 988.697 60
43 John James 112 IF 12 LKY BCH C 10:52:32 3/ 32 33.30 988.170 58
44 John James 197 IF 12 LKY BKP C 10:52:38 4/ 32 33.36 987.643 57
45 Tory Stephens 13 AU 12 KAST BB C 10:51:17 6/ 9 33.48 984.854 56
46 David Stephen 38 AU 12 KAST BBAR C 10:51:18 21/ 31 33.48 984.766 55
47 Tory Stephens 51 AU 12 KAST GR H 10:51:19 7/ 9 33.49 984.678 54
48 Elliott 143 IF 12 LKY WH H 10:55:31 2/ 9 36.29 972.696 53
49 John James 184 AU 12 LKY GR C 10:55:37 5/ 32 36.35 972.186 52
50 Elliott 133 IF 12 LKY WH H 10:56:34 3/ 9 37.32 967.364 51
51 Tory Stephens 53 AU 12 KAST RC H 10:56:12 8/ 9 38.42 959.529 50
52 Ken Driskell 411 AU 12 BLG H 11:41:37 5/ 10 48.42 955.502 49
53 Brina/2 422 AU 12 BLG BCP 11:42:19 128.459 49.24 952.684 48
54 Elliott 176 IF 12 LKY RCP C 10:59:37 4/ 9 40.35 952.204 46
55 John James 176 AU 12 LKY RCP C 10:59:37 6/ 32 40.35 952.204 47
56 Tony Horn/17 505 IF 12 LKY BLS C 11:22:16 116.284 47.09 941.977 45
57 Joe Penn 353 AU 12 BLG W H 11:53:32 2/ 26 54.01 941.620 44
58 Joe Penn 341 AU 12 BLG BLS H 11:53:40 3/ 26 54.09 941.115 43
59 Simeon Parker 71 AU 12 BLG BBAR C 11:20:34 4/ 31 47.04 940.373 42
60 Simeon Parker 65 AU 12 BLG BBAR C 11:20:38 5/ 31 47.08 940.082 41
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2012 Out of Area Races
Kastle Loft’s birds will be competing in more races than ever this year. We look forward to seeing how our birds fare in other lofts around the country.
This fall/winter, we will have birds flying in:
Gulf Coast Classic – handler Jim Combs
Dixie Southern Convention – handler Bob Tavares and Fred Wagner
Pigeon Talk Classic OLR
John James OLR
Hopefully we will get some great information about our birds that will help us assess which birds and where to send birds in 2013.
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Pigeon Breeding Cycle and Calendar
Here is a little pdf that may help you plan out your pairings by the calendar. You could select a pairing date and it would show you approximately when the pair would lay, have 28 day babies, lay again, etc. etc. It is extremely helpful when using it in reverse. If, say, you wanted to send a baby off to a one loft race or futurity on March 1, you could instantly see when to pair your birds in order to have 28 day babies on March 1.
Special nod to Flapdoodle of the Pigeon Talk forum who created the first one of these I used last year.
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Yet another trophy
Tory apparently never gets tired of winning trophies. Especially when her daddy doesn’t have any. Last night at the Bluegrass Racing Pigeon Club meeting, she was awarded her first place diploma and her first place junior champion trophy. I think she was excited.
Her wins came from a rather large white grizzle we call “The Turkey”. Tory has won ump-teen trophies and medals all from her bird “Speckles”, who is the sire of “The Turkey”. Speckles also bred Tory’s best performing bird (12th place avg. speed) in last year’s LRPC One-Loft Futurity.
Congrats young-un!
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