I will start by telling you how I became involved with this beautiful breed of English birds.
I have been involved with pigeons since I was eight years old, and up until I was 45 it was with racing birds, but after the loss of my father, who was my partner, it was just not the same. By 1980 Doreen felt I needed to get back in the hobby but this time I decided it would be with fancy birds. In a short time we had accumulated far too many breeds, as most of us do, but amongst them I had one English Owl which turned out to be one of my favourite birds, but one bird of any breed is not a lot of good. This being so, Bob Snaith, a friend I had met through our interest in the Fancy, and I made a joint effort to acquire more from around the country - odd birds here, a pair there and several from Jeff Travis who had inherited his father's birds and was willing to part with them. In all we ended up with five pairs each and two odd cocks that I finished up with and between us we managed to get them going well.
The first show that Doreen and I entered was Doncaster in 1948, and our first NPA certificate was with an English Owl. Well, that was how we became involved with this beautiful breed, they are the friendliest birds I know, they never panic as you walk in the loft, in fact they are more inclined to perch on you while you are cleaning their loft, which means they are calm in the show pen, seeming to enjoy the close attention from the judge and public alike.
When I started breeding I fostered out the eggs or topped up the youngsters morning and night, but I do not foster them out any more and just occasionally I may top up a youngster in the evening if their crops do not look to be full enough. In fact last season, the best year I have had breeding them, not once did I need to top up.
My first birds were mainly blue, dun, and silver, but over the years I have produced blue chequers, blacks, black pied, white, blue grizzles, and am at present working on trying to breed a red. I have bred one this year but it lost its frill in the moult and without a frill or a rosette as the standard requires it is not a English Owl.
I have included a standard with this report and many of the colours I have managed to produce are included, but they were not about when I first started with the breed.
