Dave Wells of Bordon in Hampshire.

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1 Dave Wells of Bordon in Hampshire. Dave is married to Jackie and they have four children Shane 31, David 30, Ben 26 and Jolene 18. Dave used to be a demolition worker but had to give up due to health problems. His love of the sport began about years ago by his Dad who was a well known racer Ben Wells. Dave had a few tumblers at first, but soon got the racing bug and has gone from strength to strength. You can see what sort of racing Dave prefers by the families he keeps. Kirkpatricks and Busschaerts are the main strains Dave has plus some Dale Newcombes and Southwells. Daves preference is a medium size bird and he Keeps about 60 old birds and breeds between young birds. (Dave says he only breeds this amount to make up for losses.) There are no stock birds in Daves lofts and he never sells youngsters, but he does donate them in breeder buyer and charity auctions. ( Dave kindly donated a pair of young birds from his 3 rd Open Pau Classic to our late bred sale in 2007). He doesn t give out pedigrees, he believes his pedigree is the basket and that s the best pedigree a man could hope for and there are a lot of fanciers who would agree. The birds are housed in two Ellis lofts. One is 24ft x 6ft with four compartments and the second is 20ft x 8ft with a corridor and three compartments. Both lofts have front sliding doors and the trapping systems are supertraps and sputnik. Dave is going to use ETS in Here are some of Daves performances in th Open 5 th Section A B.B.C Palamos, 106 th Open 22 nd Section A B.B.C Palamos, 47 th Open 15 th Section A B.B.C Poitiers, 123 rd Open 33 rd Section A B.B.C Poitiers, 3 rd Open 3 rd Section C.S.C.F.C Pau, 94 th Open 58 th Section C.S.C.F.C Pau and 1 st Section 7 th Open Old Hens Guernsey C.S.C.F.C. Dave always races the natural system and likes to send his birds sitting day old eggs for races up to 350 miles. For extreme distance like Palamos or Pau and any 500 mile plus races, his birds are sent feeding about two week old youngsters. He likes to tease the hens with another hen and he puts it in the nest with her youngsters. Just before he baskets

2 he lets the hen in with her youngster for a few seconds so she feels the need to protect them and this makes her keen. The Cocks motivation is to separate him overnight and let him back into his box in the morning before being basketed later. Dave attends to all the Cleaning, exercise and training himself. The lofts are cleaned once a day during race season and once a fortnight in the winter. He trains the Old Birds two or three times a week until racing begins, first toss is 10 miles the rest between miles. He likes them to have a 40 mile trainer once a week weather permitting. Whilst racing only occasional training is given if needed. The Young Birds are trained twice a week until their season starts and then they have a mid week training toss through the season. (Dave says he is not fussy about training the young birds too hard). When it comes to racing the Old Birds Dave likes to race them every week as he feels this is the only way to get real form. The Young Birds are also raced weekly but not as hard as the Old Birds so he can nurture them till their yearling stage. When it comes to feeding and watering, the birds are given Four Seasons in the first part of the season and then beans are added in the second half as the races get longer. At 9.00am they are fed ½ a pint jug and at 6.00pm another ½ a pint jug. Water is changed twice a day. The pigeons are called in using a tin and also whistling at them. After Dave finishes breeding youngsters he gives the birds some preventatives, Panicur for worming and coxi and canker tablets. During the winter months the hens are separated the middle of October and let out twice a week. Feeding is the same as through the racing season and there are lights in both lofts that are only put on to feed and check for illnesses etc. When Dave was asked who he admired in the sport, his reply was Tony Leggatt from Havant as he is a very good friend and races very good distance pigeons also Derek Human of East Meon this years Tarbes NFC winner because Derek is also a top distance flyer. Dave has won lots of Sections in the National Flying Club, C.S.C.F.C and the British Barcelona Club and he has a Spanish Diploma from Palamos with Bordon Success. He was 1 st Open from Biarritz with the B.I.C.C 535 miles and a 20 mile an hour head wind and 2 nd Open Bergerac again with the B.I.C.C. He prefers long distance races as they are a challenge and he gets a lot of enjoyment to see his birds drop from 500 miles plus. Dave would like to see a weekly programme on television about the sport and he is sure this would encourage people to take up pigeon racing and it would be good advertising. Also trying to keep the cost down and for

3 members to stop bickering between themselves in clubs would also be another way to attract more fanciers. Here is a little story Dave would like to share with you. ( As written by Dave). I sent to the C.S.C.F.C Young Bird race a few years back and I couldn t be present at the time to clock in. It turned out to be a very hard race and I asked my wife if she could watch for the birds. She then asked my son to look out for them until she finished the washing but when she went to check on him he had fallen to sleep. So my wife looked in the shed and noticed there was a pigeon in there with double race rubbers. At the time I had a Skymaster so when she clocked the bird she put the thimble in the wrong way and jammed the clock. She had to get a nail to hook the thimble out which took about an hour and I ended up about 68 th Open. (Jackie : He moaned at me!) Dave would like to thank his wife for clocking the birds when he is not there and also Tony Leggatt for being a good mate and for all his help and support. His advice to any new fancier joining the sport would be, if you don t get there in the first season, don t give up as you will get there. Looking at Daves performances, he certainly looks a good bet for winning a distance event with the Classic in the near future. If you think you can beat the likes of Dave and many Top fanciers within the Classic why don t you join us and maybe one day it will be you featured in these write ups. Clare Norman. Website: secretary@cscfc.com Address: 133 Laundry Road, Shirley Warren, Southampton, SO16 6AR. Telephone:

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