# gurnay's



## mill pigeon (Apr 2, 2008)

anyone else on here fly gurnay's


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## learning (May 19, 2006)

Hello Mill Pigeon,

It will be very interesting to see if there are any people here that claim to be flying the Gurnay family of pigeons. This is one of those old families that have sort of been lost to history for the most part. I am not thoroughly schooled on the Gurnay history, but if I am not mistaken, Mr. Gurnay died in the 1930's and his line of pigeons has been assimilated into other families for the most part.

It should be interesting to see what's out there!

Dan


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## mill pigeon (Apr 2, 2008)

yeah you don't here to much about them i have 7 pairs of breeders and i got them from a guy that raised only that strain for 62 years but i'll see what they can do this sept.


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## TheSnipes (Apr 9, 2007)

http://www.gurnays.com/


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## mill pigeon (Apr 2, 2008)

yeah dr john k has some nice birds i have some that the peds go back to some of his birds


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## SmithFamilyLoft (Nov 22, 2004)

learning said:


> Hello Mill Pigeon,
> 
> It will be very interesting to see if there are any people here that claim to be flying the Gurnay family of pigeons. This is one of those old families that have sort of been lost to history for the most part. I am not thoroughly schooled on the Gurnay history, but if I am not mistaken, Mr. Gurnay died in the 1930's and his line of pigeons has been assimilated into other families for the most part.
> 
> ...


Dan,

I remember reading this article in the American Racing Pigeon News back in 1968. Mr. Gurnay died in 1939, and he was without question, one of the all time greats. He had to more or less quit racing his birds because nobody wanted to pool their birds with him. He made a bloody fortune in prize money from his racing activities. 

I would love to see the pedigree's from the birds offered on the one web site. http://www.gurnays.com/page.aspx?cid=24639 I'm just trying to figure out how many generations one would have to go back, in order to show an unbroken line of "Pure Gurnay's" going all the way back to the 1930's ? 

My software can only show 4 generations at a time, and by the time I reach the late 1970's with some of my bird's, I'm already at 16 generations. So, if one were to go another 40 years from there, are we talking about another 20 generations ? If nothing else, I would love to see the line breeding chart which would encompass 36+ generations !!  How big of a piece of paper would that take ? And how many pigeons would need to listed on a 36 generation pedigree ?


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## A_Smith (Aug 8, 2006)

I will be flying some of Dr. K's birds this year. The photo in this post is one of his Gurnay. I did not get or ask for a ped., for this bird. I had one of his racers fly in my loft last year. I got it back to him. He told me he would raise me a pair for my time. I went to pick up a pair and brought a crate full home. All I can say sofar is, Dr. K. is a great person always willing to talk pigeon.  The Gurnay pigeons are the quietest flying birds in my loft. There is NO sound from there flight. I have had other visiters to my loft when my birds are loft flying, and have also noticed the same silent flight.


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## Happy (Dec 19, 2004)

Smith, This is very interesting the Gurnays not making any/much wing noise when flying. I've never noticed this with any Racers or heard of anyone talking of that subject,except Owls (Bird of Prey type). Gurnay based racers can be very good racers, though I have never had them but a few around So. Cal. have flown a few in recent times & did OK to good with them. Just not enough of them racing in our area to have a good account of them selfs the last 20 or more yrs.... Very interested on how you make out, so keep us informed........ Make your luck, Happy


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## hillfamilyloft (Jun 22, 2005)

Hey Mill Pigeon

I am impressed with the History Copper Beech Loft has acquired on Gurney. His birds originated from Hansenne birds. Interesting the history. Warren brought up a point that lineage can only be traced back about 16 generation. With the history acquired on these birds, It would be interesting to see how far back he can go on his Gurneys. I have traced my Vic Miller birds, thanks to Al Mills back to NL 57 400174 "Vector" from DeKlak. I am sure I could get my Janssen hen back to maybe the 40s. I did play with pedigree trying to get the lineage back to only a few birds. I would be interested to see if he could get back to the 30s with his. 

Maybe we could make a challenge, Who can get their lineage back the furthest and then how much of that blood does their current bird have. I think at 5 generation a bird has 6.3% of the blood. At 70 years and 50 generations you are looking at fractions of a percent. Probably irrelevant at that point. My mom keeps telling me that we have royalty in our lineage. I always remind her that we may be about 3% royal blood, but 97% peasant. It does look like Copper Beech has a nice strain or family of birds. One thing the page was lacking was any type of race record. 

Let us know how they race. If they do not preform, will you do what Gurnay did and cull or will you do what he was know for second and put them in a show? The are nice looking birds. 

Randy


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## re lee (Jan 4, 2003)

It is very hard to maintain a stud of birds without out cross. And finding same family out cross which in this case old gurnay blood Would be very hard. While inbreeding has good things also low viger is a big thing. Reduced fertality Being one where cocks may only hit for 3 to 4 years. Size reduction ect, Yes gurnay birds were great birds. Even in the 70s they still did well. And handled well. BUT hard to believe any line that old would still be that Plus the breeding would be on owners selection. BUT any stud of birds have to maintained OR severe back fault production appears. People still say they have wegges so anything goes. Look how old the wegge line would be. And remember how some used to say wegges were about as big as chickens. Now that was a 100 years ago though. Just breed your birds test them well keep the top 10 percent send the others to a new home and you will find you can keep the birds going.


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## mill pigeon (Apr 2, 2008)

the guy i bought my gurnays from raised them for 62 years and has kept record of every bird he raised and what they did he told me he has 2 tote boxes full of rcord books and all his birds go back to 2 pairs somewhere down the line gurnays are the only birds he raised and he even wrote a book about it and started a gurnay club and a gurnay futurity it cost 10 dollars a year to join and he sends you a free copy of the book he wrote on gurnay it covers everything about his childhood and how he got started with his birds alot of the stuff on the copper beach site came from that book 
i'm glad ya'll are enjoying this post


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## SmithFamilyLoft (Nov 22, 2004)

hillfamilyloft said:


> ......His birds originated from Hansenne birds. Interesting the history. Warren brought up a point that lineage can only be traced back about 16 generation. With the history acquired on these birds, It would be interesting to see how far back he can go on his Gurneys. ......Randy



Hello Randy,

I was referring to some of my Ludo Claessen base birds. And only because there were family trees made, which provided some guidance on how this particular family was created. In Ludo's case, you can find evidence of birds from a number of fanciers have been used since the 1960's, some of which were attributed to fanciers with names such as Horemans, Thijssen, Gaston Cruysweegs, J. Smijers, Michielsen, Van Alfen, and later fanciers like Jan Hermans and De Klak all had some outstanding birds which influenced the Ludo Colony. 

I think what is important here, is to understand that a Colony is a living, breathing and changing organism. It is growing and evolving, and changing under the breeders guidance. 

If any of these great masters who have since passed, would have by some act of God, been able to continue their breeding programs to this day, their colonies would be radically different from the colonies which were continued on some line breeding program for the last fifty plus years, by other fanciers. 

I have no way of knowing for sure, but I assume that all the great masters would have incorporated a number of crosses into their colonies, when a real Super World Class Bird became available to them. They themselves would not have inbred for sixty or a hundred plus years. 

Those who would inbreed only to keep the line "pure", instead of using a Super World Class breeding specimen when it became available, would not be following the same route, as the master himself, if he were still alive. 

I find this subject very fascinating, and illuminating. The master's seem to have focused on breeding a better pigeon then what they currently had, and if they could buy one, which was better then what they had, they did. 

Many fanciers on the other hand, breed as if the purpose is to produce pedigrees, which show "Pure Lines", and may continue a line/in breeding program for many generations past the point, where it produces the results. I don't think any of the great master's had any of these hang up's, and maybe that is why they were Masters ?

At the end of the day, I hope the new owner Mill Pigeon here, enjoys his birds, and has fun with them. This discussion of mine here, is only academic, and maybe of interest only to those who are working to develope their own family of birds, regardless of the names or titles of the pigeons they start with.


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## SmithFamilyLoft (Nov 22, 2004)

Happy said:


> Smith, This is very interesting the Gurnays not making any/much wing noise when flying. I've never noticed this with any Racers or heard of anyone talking of that subject,except Owls (Bird of Prey type). Gurnay based racers can be very good racers, though I have never had them but a few around So. Cal. have flown a few in recent times & did OK to good with them. Just not enough of them racing in our area to have a good account of them selfs the last 20 or more yrs.... Very interested on how you make out, so keep us informed........ Make your luck, Happy


Hello Happy,

Glad to see you are still here with us ! 

It would be interesting to know what trait would cause the wings not to make any noise ? I would assume it has something to do with the feather quality. I can see the benifit to an Owl, but he does not have to fly 350 miles in a day, that is a short distance to the prey he must cover.


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## hillfamilyloft (Jun 22, 2005)

I agree that you have to assess your colony and make changes and add new blood to the mix. Up until I acquired full outside blood in my Berckmoes hen, I was introducing same bloodlines crossed with outside birds. By acquiring birds from one source this was possible. The theory would be to bring in birds that were 50% something other than what I had. This gave me a piece of mind knowing that I was familiar with 50% of the bird. I brought in bloodlines that I knew were successful. This may slow the bell curve up or down in quality. May be a little insurance when bringing in crosses. 

I also brought in the Marcelis blood via Berckmoes to hit that speed nitch that I was looking for. I have won from 200 to 350 numerous times, but only once below 200. Flying mostly in clubs with races from 100 to 400, I want families of birds that can win at all distances. Not flying myself, my goal is to not only be the first bird in the clock, but the first bird in each loft that flies my birds. 

62 years with the same group of birds is amazing. It would be curious to follow his racing results for those 62 years. Many say that the Janssen brothers birds are not what they used to be. My thoughts are that they still cross well. How do I know this, because I did it and produced winners. Wonder what you would get if you crossed the Gurneys?

Randy


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## re lee (Jan 4, 2003)

SmithFamilyLoft said:


> Hello Happy,
> 
> Glad to see you are still here with us !
> 
> It would be interesting to know what trait would cause the wings not to make any noise ? I would assume it has something to do with the feather quality. I can see the benifit to an Owl, but he does not have to fly 350 miles in a day, that is a short distance to the prey he must cover.


The wing not making a noise IS a long looked for trait in race birds. When the birds take off the heavy wqinged birds make that distinct Flap moise. and the smoother winged birds seem to justtake off with little to no noise. You have the birds You here there take off flight. As a rule heavy winged birds make poorer slower race birds As they lets say have less thrust in there flight. Is it wing shape Not sure But it is something many people over the years listened for and discarded there heavy winged birds. Also some of these same birds when soloing in the sky will make that heavy flap after they have glided seems thay just need some extra lift to gewt going.


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## Brick Red (Jul 22, 2008)

Greetings..just checking some sites and saw you talking Gurnays. I have bred and flown them here in the US of A for close to 10 years now. Belong to the Gurnay Club USA. Have been getting them back from 500 miles..not real speedy but consistant. This year was a good year and only lost a couple. I live in the Pacific North West. Anybody out there close by? Bruce


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## TAWhatley (Mar 6, 2001)

Brick Red said:


> Greetings..just checking some sites and saw you talking Gurnays. I have bred and flown them here in the US of A for close to 10 years now. Belong to the Gurnay Club USA. Have been getting them back from 500 miles..not real speedy but consistant. This year was a good year and only lost a couple. I live in the Pacific North West. Anybody out there close by? Bruce


Hi Bruce and welcome to Pigeon-Talk! Glad to have you here!

Terry


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## Brick Red (Jul 22, 2008)

The Gurnay club of the USA has a futurity race on 11 October 2008 at Wooster Ohio..come by and join in. Should be fun..we have a futurity race each year with only Gurnays in it. Birds from all over the U.S. This year Hal Conn (the old guy you mentioned in previous post) is hoping to be there. Alan Dyer is our show judge from Happy Camp CA. He flys a lot of Dr. K's birds. My start came from Lou McElroy of N.C. who passed away some 4 years or so ago. My colors are primarily bronze splash and reds. I am presently working on a BB line. I have had excellent sucess with them quickly. This year my 06's came in from 300 miles without a problem. The Blues all flew from 800 to 1100 miles total in race form this year. We have a strong course of two mountain ranges and two high deserts. Anybody else flying? My goal for all the Gurnays is 500 miles by 4 years of age. I have had 500 mile DOT birds. Bruce


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## Arianna Loft (Sep 11, 2008)

*Gurnays Still Going Strong*



mill pigeon said:


> yeah you don't here to much about them i have 7 pairs of breeders and i got them from a guy that raised only that strain for 62 years but i'll see what they can do this sept.


Mill Pigeon,

The person you wrote about is Mr. Hal Conn and yes, he has raised them for over 62 years. As you stated on another post on the Gurnays, he does have complete records not only of the birds he got but also of every Gurnay ever imported into the USA along with a copy of each pedigree. A task that was done by the late George Dorer, who took a while in making sure that all the records of importain were correct.

There are several folks across the USA and other countries that have done their very best to keep the lines pure, however as some one else mentioned and I will add to this, there has never or will there ever be a 100% pure blood line of birds that will ever be raise for generations that will keep its vigor going.

Every strain of pigeon is named after the person that cross bred something else into his or her birds and created a family of winners, in other words they were masterful breeders and because of this the birds they raised were given their name. This is what happened with Gurnay, Jan Aarden, Janssen, and all the others.

As for the Gurnay breeders here in the USA, I am one of them and last year I bought out Mr. Hal Conn's entire loft of breeders and young, he did keep four pairs to play with and when he does decide to get out of birds completely, he will send me what he has left.

Now what is being done to try to keep the blood lines pure is the following, several of us in the Gurnay club, this includes Dr. John K, trade young Gurnays with each other across the country this way we are introducing new blood into our stock while still keeping the blood line pure. This allows us to keep the vigor of the family going without lossing the purety.

As for the Gurnay Club, it is going strong and to help promote more Gurnay breeder, I myself gave away 86 Gurnay young this year to members of the club both for the Gurnay Fututity in October 2008 or just to get them started or to add to their current blood line to keep the vigor going.

Luis


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## Brick Red (Jul 22, 2008)

Greetings Luis...Bruce Kuhlman here. Hope to see you at the convention in Wooster. I still have a couple of birds left in the team. Look for a great time of fellowship there. Hal is coming so that is good. I have two new guy here in my area I got started with birds. I loaned some good breeding stock and gave some good young birds out. We are slow but sure. Good to hear from you. By the way, I am bringing 4 copys of "Racing To Win" by Fred Shaw..all xerox copys professionally done. Bruce


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## mill pigeon (Apr 2, 2008)

hey mr bruce and mr luis its david hayes from la. my birds are doing good mr bruce i'm flying some birds of the pairs i got from you and so far so good i also sent 2 of them to the futurity so we'll see how that goes anyway good luck with the races david


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## hdimensions (Oct 10, 2008)

Hey Luis,
I am very interested on joining the Gurnay Club can you give me some info. I would also love to talk to you in person. please feel free to email me [email protected]
Steve


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## george simon (Feb 28, 2006)

Brick Red said:


> The Gurnay club of the USA has a futurity race on 11 October 2008 at Wooster Ohio..come by and join in. Should be fun..we have a futurity race each year with only Gurnays in it. Birds from all over the U.S. This year Hal Conn (the old guy you mentioned in previous post) is hoping to be there. Alan Dyer is our show judge from Happy Camp CA. He flys a lot of Dr. K's birds. My start came from Lou McElroy of N.C. who passed away some 4 years or so ago. My colors are primarily bronze splash and reds. I am presently working on a BB line. I have had excellent sucess with them quickly. This year my 06's came in from 300 miles without a problem. The Blues all flew from 800 to 1100 miles total in race form this year. We have a strong course of two mountain ranges and two high deserts. Anybody else flying? My goal for all the Gurnays is 500 miles by 4 years of age. I have had 500 mile DOT birds. Bruce


Hi Bruce, I would sure like to see one of your bronze splasnes hope you can post a picture or two . .GEORGE


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## nitrodog151 (Sep 13, 2008)

you know whats funny i just bought a half gurnay from the famous white racer loft lol and Mr. Hal conn gave or whatever to him and he is a different kind of bird he just feells diferent i wish i had another full full blood to breed him to he is large in the breast and muscular and when he flys you hear a russtle but not the normal sound that pigeons give i think as soon as i find a good girl for him there will be lots of love in his life


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## TipplerBeni (Sep 30, 2007)

I have a pure gurnay hen.. SHes shy shes an 04 an still cant get her to lay


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## Guest (Nov 10, 2009)

*need one of it*

guys, i'm gershon from the Philippines, i heard that the gurnay lines are very effective in racing, i also want to try that line here in our place, hope that you could help me find a pair of it, thanks you can contact me thru email, [email protected] or my personal number @ +639152905452, hope to hear from you soon, also i do have tight budget for it hope you could help me with this thank you so much...


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## siva (Dec 21, 2010)

*gurnay*



mill pigeon said:


> anyone else on here fly gurnay's


hi mill pigeon,
do you know anyone got gurnays in uk. i'm very interested to have one of those birds. thanks


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## Arianna Loft (Sep 11, 2008)

*A Little Gurnay History Not known.*

Hello to All Again,

It has been awhile since I wrote to this site, however I want to clear some misunderstandings as to why you hardly ever heard anything about the Gurnay's in the past outside of the annual Gurnay U.S.A. Race.

As I stated before, the Gurnay breeders have managed to keep the lines pure by sharing, swapping, or selling young to each other. However the reason you never heard about any of the results they had was due to the bands we used for them, as an organization the members were required to use an aluminum band made just for the Gurnay U.S.A. Club in order for the birds to be recognized as pure Gurnays.

You see the Gurnay U.S.A. bands until the start of next year were not associated to either the A.U. or I.F. and as such when we raced our birds with these bands neither organization allowed the band numbers to show. The A.U. covered the band number with a brown line and marked it as, "Handler or bird not AU affiliated; performance does not qualify for AU NDB" unless we paid for each individual band to be registered with them.

With the new I.F. Gurnay U.S.A. bands we expect to see more race result with Gurnays on them starting next year.

Luis Garcia


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## SmithFamilyLoft (Nov 22, 2004)

SmithFamilyLoft said:


> Hello Randy,
> 
> I was referring to some of my Ludo Claessen base birds. And only because there were family trees made, which provided some guidance on how this particular family was created. In Ludo's case, you can find evidence of birds from a number of fanciers have been used since the 1960's, some of which were attributed to fanciers with names such as Horemans, Thijssen, Gaston Cruysweegs, J. Smijers, Michielsen, Van Alfen, and later fanciers like Jan Hermans and De Klak all had some outstanding birds which influenced the Ludo Colony.
> 
> ...


 I am thinking that this post I made some time ago, makes as much sense as it did back then. There are a number of "strains" in which the breeders today seemed more intent on keeping a line "pure", then they are of attempting to breed a better pigeon. I know this is true as many of the requests I get for pigeons are from those well meaning folks who are only interested in my "pure" Ludo's. The actually quality of the birds being produced is not as important to many fanciers, as is the "pedigree. I still must chuckle at these breeders who still insist they have a "pure" this or that, even though the master whose name is attached to these birds, may have died fifty generations ago.  My thinking is....OK, whatever floats your boat. Or as my daughter would say.."Whatever".


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## RodSD (Oct 24, 2008)

Keeping the lines pure is probably possible if they don't introduce any crossings. That would be highly inbreed birds! I am curious as to how they perform.


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## Gnuretiree (May 29, 2009)

I was given a few birds with green Gurnay Bands. They are big birds - and I'll be training some this year. They are beautiful birds, but not sure how they fly.


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## hilltop (Mar 18, 2011)

I am over 60 yrs a fancier,,,with extra inbreeding,,,,,, the youngsters start showing :silky type feathering; as we know gurnays were heavy inbred, and could possibly account for silent flying,,the silkiness :masking the sound,or not producing any sound at all,,,I have bred a cock back to his daughters 7 times......and learned alot....just a thought..


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## Gnuretiree (May 29, 2009)

I was given a few birds with Gurnay Bands on them. Hope they produce good flyers this year.


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