Some food for thought (3-12-25)
Some food for thought
With age come the defects and no one can escape them. My mother loved life. 'I'd rather die here than die' you sometimes saw her think. The move to a service flat was abrupt and brutal. Anyone who is curious about how much privacy you will have at the end of your life should ask such a resident. There a person loses his status and his dignity.
Ma had the mind of a 20-year-old, locked in the body of a 99-year-old, because that's how old she got. Because of her healthy mind, she sometimes got angry with the staff, because she, trapped in her wheelchair, once again had to wait too long for help. Getting older? According to father, 'nothing worse than that.'
LEARNED
Growing old is not a struggle but a slaughter. The body almost fails, the engine stalls. Yet we have no choice and we must try to accept the inevitable. What I inherited from my father is a gloomy view of the future of pigeon sport, shortness of breath and poor hearing. This sometimes leads to comical situations.
That's how we got X and wife to visit. Normally we keep in touch via whatsapp.
"That X is outdated," I whispered to my wife. "Whispered?" I thought so, yes. Poor hearing makes you talk louder than you know.
To which he replied: 'Outdated? I? Then I think of you too.' He laughed, the ice was broken.
TO THE PAST
He soon made it clear what he came for. Had once bought and received some eggs here, was satisfied and wanted more, but still had so much to learn. Unfortunately for him, I know less about pigeons than he thought.
I told him: 'You'll get some, but not until April. You can train such birds quickly and you will lose them less easily. We have been talking for a while and pigeon magazine ‘de Duif’ got another subscriber. Then he asked me to read the notes he had written down. It was something like this:
ADVICE FOR BEGINNERS-
- Lofts open and not too full, so that you keep an overview. Also: Don't try to keep up with the toppers by keeping a lot of pigeons.
- Don't let them turn six months old before training them.
- Let young grow well and do not keep them hungry for the first months of life. - Pigeon sport is a selection sport. You have to select all year round. In the first place on health, then on performance, and then on model and feathers.
- Don't buy expensive pigeons online. Only invest when you have proven that you can handle and race pigeons.
- Don't waste money on excess products. Give them what they need and especially don't give what they don't need. The pigeons will teach you.
- Don't knock on the door of the vet at the slightest thing.
THE COMBINATION
I had only been to a vet once from 2004 to 2024. That was when we had to deal with paratyphoid in 2011. Baytril helped as evidenced by the performances a year later. We won 1st Championship youngsters in the Fed and also in Union. - What should be done, should be done, but what you often see, curing an entire loft every time to cure just a few pigeons leads to nothing.
If, as often happens, you 'have to' cure after a few races, you are 3 – 0 behind for the rest of the current season.
- Vets will confuse you because pigeons were never discussed in their training, with the result that they have their own opinion and confusing for many fanciers is that they can differ so much.
- For people who still have everything to learn, a routine check-up is good. But by a serious vet. What is a serious vet? Someone who dares to say 'Some trichomoniasis, or cocc, but not enough to cure'. And who then sends you home without medication.
BETTER VET
A better vet is also the man who dares to say 'your pigeons are healthy, but probably worth nothing'.
Many beginners are not happy with that. ‘Pigeons worth nothing?’ That's the last thing they want to hear. They are happy to pay for a plastic bag with hope in it. And if it turns out that he can't make racehorses from tubers either, the vet is blamed. Pigeon fanciers hardly realize how lucky they are with the specialized veterinarian. They should talk to someone who regularly goes there with a dog or cat.
So much for the conversation with X. Now I think of Y.
THE HELPER
Y was the assistant of a vet. At work he had become interested in pigeons. Especially to be prepared for the day he retired. When he went to basket the first times, those present looked at each other. It was difficult for him to hold a pigeon properly. But guess what?
Barely two years later, he was unbeatable.
How was that possible? The vet was already accused of giving him 'stuff' that others did not get. It was clear that Y was a medicine man.
Clubmates had seen all too well that cupboard bulging with stuff that you can only get at the vet.
Of course he was also called to account for that, but ‘he only had all those medicines to be prepared’.
He dominated the sport for three years. And then suddenly... done. With the same kind of pigeons and the same guidance, he couldn't win a prize.
FATAL
Being able to access medicines too easily has already been fatal for many. Y had come to think he knew it and did not realize that he was the digger of his own grave. It reminds me of what a veterinarian in Flanders (now retired) once told me. (Yes, I used to be like that too. I ‘had’ 5 vets, bearing in mind the saying 'what one doesn't think, the other may think).
I did not realize yet that 'not being able to find something didn't mean it wasn't there.'
That vet in Flanders talked several times about three customers who kept nagging for Baytril. He gave it but with great reluctance. He knew they were using it wrong. 'Wrong' is after every race. They played well, it must be said, but of the three, one was still active at the time. And very bad too.
