Here is the profile from Billy Ashcroft and Mike Dea. The pictures are all birds from their loft which consist of a group of young Muffs, yellow adult hen, white and red Clean Legs.
Mike Dea writes:
Hi Tony, as requested a quick profile of our pigeon keeping over the years.
Billy started as a kid as his father had racing pigeons and this started his interest in birds in general as over the years he kept Bantams and various types of cage birds alongside the pigeons.
Tumbler keeping began in 1979 with the first birds being barred Muffs from George Graham. He started breeding selfs by crossing in Clean Legs from myself and Colin Jones, managing to improve the Muffs through this method. It was a time when other Muff breeders were reluctant to introduce Clean Legs as you weaken the muffs but it is the only way to improve head and beak power. This was really needed at the time as the Muffs were so far behind the Clean Legs and this method of line breeding resulted in success when the birds were shown. This was reinforced by forming a partnership with myself in 1989 as I had moved to Sedgefield to live, bringing my stud of black and white Clean Legs.
Over the next 22 years we have had a very successful show career winning numerous Best of Breeds at major shows with both the Muffs and Clean Legs. We had the first BIS by a Muff with a black self cock who had an unbeaten show career and BIS at the 2006 Doncaster show with a white self Clean Leg hen.
We now see Muffs shown which are on a par with the best Clean Legs and trying to maintain this level was the reason we let our stud of Muffs go as we were unable to obtain a suitable outcross to refresh the Muff bloodlines. We have since restarted breeding Muffs but it will take a while to get them where we want them to be, crossing in our red and yellow Clean Legs to improve the colour as most red Muffs have plummy tails and carry a lot of ash influence.
Continues in July issue along with more pictures
A red clean leg
this article continues in the July 2011 issue of Featherd World.
