The End of the Breeding Season
Well it's late July as I write and by the time you read this I will have wrapped up my breeding programme for 2009.
Having said that I will be keeping an odd pair together as part of a colour project.
The breeding season is my favourite time of year in the pigeon calendar and I can't believe that another one has come and gone. I know it's the busiest time of the year and the most work but I love it all the same. For me it's all about the anticipation of what will turn up in the nest bowls. Will that extra special show bird appear this year? What colours will I get from this or that pairing? It's all great fun and 2009 was no exception.
Boxing Clever and Bowl Baking
Of course now there is the scrubbing of nest boxes and bowls to be done and this is a job some fanciers find themselves dreading.
Cleaning the actual nest boxes isn't that much of a hardship for me though because I shield the corners of them with cardboard. This is a well-known tip but really does work a treat.
If your nest boxes are bare plywood, squabs can make a hell of a mess doing their business over the side of the bowl directly onto the wood. With cardboard corners in place (that can simply be dumped at the end of each round) the walls of your nest boxes stay as good as new. I make mine from cutting up suitable sized cardboard boxes. The boxes that printer and photo copier paper comes in are ideal.
Just for the record here's a handy little tip for getting your old-fashioned clay nest bowls back in top form. I place a small stack of them in a bucket of hot water that has a spoonful of household washing soda added. I then leave them to soak all morning before I give them a quick going over with a kitchen sponge scourer. Soaking the bowls in the soda solution gets most of the muck off without touching it and loosens up all the really ground-in stuff. Next I give them a rinse before wiping the excess water off with an old towel. I always pick a nice sunny day for the job because the next part of the process is to lay them out in the sunshine to bake dry. That last bit is quite important because damp clay nest bowls put into storage will resurface next spring covered in mould. Remember 'the wise man learns from the mistakes of others' so on the 'mould front' you are welcome to be wise and learn from yet another of my mistakes.
Up On the Roof
Just at the start of spring I was severely irritated to find a small puddle of rainwater in the breeding section of the loft. It was obviously coming from the roof so I climbed up onto the corn bins behind the shed and took a closer look at the roofing felt. There were no obvious splits or tears so I decided to treat the area that appeared to be leaking with water-based sealant specially designed for felt roof repairs. This held out for a while with the next couple of heavy downpours coming and going without the reappearance of puddles.
