Mallee Classic

Newsletter No.2

2006

Hello Everyone,

Things have been quite hectic, the trip to Thailand was followed by another trip to Newcastle NSW. I have returned to the lofts to find everything going well.

Thailand

The trip to Thailand again was excellent, the hospitality was fantastic. I met my wife Sonu at the airport and spent the whole 25 twenty five days, seeing Bangkok, Rayong and also travelling to Hau Hin to visit some of her family. I had the chance again to visit lofts and talk pigeons and even this time met Keith Veall from Melbourne who was also there for a few weeks. I had the chance to play in many bands and visit many markets and temples, I am looking forward to expanding one of my businesses into Thailand and made many contacts while I was there. I have had an offer to also race birds in Bangkok and look forward to having my birds race in the strong competition and also the chance to meet new fanciers from around the world. The One Loft Event I was looking at managing near Rayong is still on hold, I am now looking at some new pigeon projects in Thailand which will be located near Bangkok, but I will talk more about this later.

Mallee Classic Lofts

The birds in the lofts are coming fine, the falcon problem has just started to become very ferocious, but the measure we take for the event is to place some very late breds into the lofts so the predators chase these birds which are basically sacrifices, but I have found this is needed, only 3 days ago 4 late breds were all injured or killed. They also are placed under stress because of this, but the other competitors have a chance of training without the falcons hassling them. Thanks to Dennis Cornish from Adelaide who found 1 of our injured late breds out on the road and returned it to the lofts, unfortunately the bird has lost an eye and will not be any further use.

The older birds have been ranging from the lofts and most birds are flying well. The feed mix has now been changed and the birds will be vaccinated shortly for Pigeon Pox. The older birds are almost through most of the moult and there is only a small number of birds still to go through the body moult. Some of the birds are flying for over 1 hour, I am not pushing the birds as we are a long way of at the moment, road training will not begin until late June early July. The Main event is on the Sunday on the 3^rd weekend in September 17^th. So start to think about organising any accommodation if you wish to attend.

We have had a good spell of warm weather, but today the heavens have opened and it has rained all day, welcome to Ballarat!

My business commitments have increased significantly with my International Consulting Company and Finance Company, so in need I will seek a full time employee to assist at the lofts. I will know more about this by the end of June. This will be required as I will need to attend to business overseas for a week or more at a time. I will maintain the event, but require the assistance with the everyday hands on work of cleaning, feeding, training etc. I thank Barry Leonard, Nigel Jarvis and Theo Damalas for their assistance while I was in Thailand.