Terry has been for a long time known as a excellent fancier and his results over the years have proven his birds and methods. I visited Terry’s with Trevor Barker and Dave Hunter, who are now practically part of my family, due to the amount of time spent travelling and discussing pigeons.

Terry is well known in the Hunter Valley Region as one the Top Fanciers. He has 15 members in his club and approx. 80 members in the NCF Federation.

The first thing I noticed was the fact in NSW, many of the fanciers don’t use stock pens as such would be used in VIC, but the birds are paired together in breeding boxes to guarantee the parentage of the birds they breed. As Terry pointed out, many times people have noted that a different cock bird had treaded a particular hen in their stock pens, so how can they really guarantee that the birds they breed are actually off the pair the fancier thinks they are from.

Terry’s birds consisted of Janssen’s, Two Pound Ten, Hansenne’s and some Grooter’s from the Late Norm Cox. One of his Janssen’s, an ABC cock bird had just won 5 races including 2 Fed races.

Terry has a large main race loft for the distance birds, the lofts were enclosed with wire floors. The sprint loft was next to the main loft, but the birds are not put together at any stage.

Terry normally has around 150 race birds each year and this is where the interesting part starts! He believes that sprint birds should be only kept for sprinting, horses for course’s, so he will also not push his youngsters hard in their first year. He will use his old birds in the first races of the year up to the 200 – 250 mile mark; this is to gain the advantage by using experienced birds when everyone else is using their inexperienced youngsters. His old birds will not hang at the release point, heading for home and enabling him to win races. You don’t win aggregates unless you win from the start of the season until the end. He gives his sprint birds two to three tosses before the first race, as the old birds already know the score, some have been racing for up to 4 –5 years. His old birds will race every week in the sprint stage, they are basically just training runs anyway. His sprint birds are kept in a separate loft to the distance birds and are not trained together at any stage. He will only toss the birds from 25 km's and when his distance birds start to race, which they are only brought into racing from 200 miles, he will give them twilight tosses to keep them sharp. Terry is also ready to try something new, he believes that to keep in front you need to move with the times or you will be left behind.

He maintains the same mix of feed from the start of the season until the end. He loads the mix with carbohydrates, the main grain being wheat, which can make up ¾ of his mix. Basically his mix is the following, 3 wheat, 1 peas, a handful of rape, linseed and safflower. He also mixes corn oil and garlic powder onto the grain before feeding to the birds. He doesn’t feed maize as he has found that it tends to be poor in quality. He also treats for worms, canker and cocci.

He in 2002 achieved 9 X 1^st places on the North track and 11 X 1^st and 5 X 2^nd’s on the North West Line.

 Loft report by Barry Trewin