Our Barker Colony

Our Barker colony are of the “Croston” Barker origins which hail from the Lancashire are of the UK, having originally come down through the Edmonson Barkers that arrived in the UK around 1900, with the principle birds coming down the line of “Strinsdale Queen”.

Tuplin, Orrett, Hogg, Roanes, Eastham, Baldwin, Blackstone and Bullen were all flyers of derivatives descended of this family and they excelled from 70 to 700 miles on the UK racing circuit. Our specific family of Barkers are descended from the Kenny Hogg lofts – he competed with that list of fanciers above and was the most winning of them all, particularly at the distance from France.

Kenny Hogg died in 1998 and there was a clearance sale which followed, mostly of his race team and some of his stock birds (most sold in excess of £400 per bid, a very high price for pigeons in those days). Many of the stock birds went to his sons, and maintained those lifts at the front of their competitions for many years afterwards. One of these was a hen known as “The Saintes Hen” – she had flown 531 miles from France five times and from France twice at 539 miles.

These birds have also done extremely well into the NW of Ireland from the French racepoints, noted for their willingness to fly into head or shoulder winds, over rough terrain and are all-weather types. Martin Healy from Derry was the lucky acquirer of some original Kenny Hogg’s which he has maintained to this day. It all started with a pair of Blue pigeons, a half-brother / half-Sister pairing which has produced a line of long distance winners from over the sea from the UK and France over the past 20 years or so. Famous sons of this pair would be “22” and O2” (nest brothers) who flew France in the prizes and also sired many birds to fly France themselves – all the while being a reasonably tightly inbred family.

Small to medium in size, great eyesign and wings, these are tough competitors who mature reasonably quickly and represent a great continuation of the strain. Like all inbred families, they had a cross inserted into them back in the 1960’s from a fancier called Mason. His family were based on Bonami / Hansenne / Bricoux pigeons and it is reckoned that the odd Red and Mealy pigeons that appear from time to time are throwbacks to these.

The Cock of this pairing flew Portland in ’05 and Lamballe in ’06, whilst the Hen of the pair flew St. Malo in ’04, Portland in ’05 and Lamballe in ’06. Her Dam flew France a massive 22 times, and was Dam to 3 separate French race winning birds in one season.

That “Old Blue Pair” are responsible for more than 15 prize-winning performances from France into the North West of Ireland over the past 20 years in addition to many tens of performances from the UK channel racepoints such as Talbenny, Bude and Penzance. Our colony of these magnificent Barkers all hail from these prize winning French pigeons, being sons or daughters of them, and also grandchildren or Great Grandchildren of “the Old Blue Pair”.