This is not... (16-04-25)
That is not a...
M was so content. His pigeons ‘were super’ and to show that he mailed a video of his pigeons training high above the loft. 'At least half an hour each time.'
I thought my own about it, but didn't want to spoil his mood. The pigeons would do that, I feared.
And yes, too bad for the man, because that's how it happened. The first flight was already a cold shower. 'How could that be with pigeons that trained so well?'
TRAINING
Well, that is not training as it should be. When you step into the loft, the necks of pigeons in shape become twice as long. Are 'ready to start' to storm out with (a bit exaggerated) a deafening noise.
So much so that you are afraid that they will hurt themselves. Then you don't have to chase them out of the loft, always a bad sign.
If you then turn around, you are no longer allowed to see them. They may not have made a turn but left in a straight line to distant horizons. To then return in groups.
If they stayed together, eyebrows may rise, if they then sit still on the roof you may even fear. Pigeons in form do not sit still on the roof. Old not and young not.
FULL FEEDER
You hear more and more that fanciers make feeding much simpler than they always did. They switch to 'full feeder', like some 'big ones'.
But one 'full feeder’ is not the other.
The condition is that all food is used up at the next feeding.
'Just add more' is not what the champions mean by 'full feeder'.
The crops have to be empty.
Pigeons also have taste and if you keep adding food they will eat what they like best. And that will 100% certainly not be the barley. Does the body of humans and animals say what it needs? So do you leave them the choice? Then buy a lot of chocolate if you have small children. And get ready for larger sizes for their clothes.
TRAINING
Go on the road with your birds excessively, almost daily, may have an effect on the first flight, perhaps also on the second, but that is not a good method, the price you pay will follow.
Every time a little further, as if they have to learn the way by flying from one church tower to another, is not a training as it should be.
Has thorough 'road training' for old birds little importance, for youngsters all the more. Start close by and at about ten kilometers you are at a kind of breaking point.
Then the pigeons have to be home before you, if not the next time they should be released at the same distance. So another ten km. And possibly again or maybe even again. A schedule with driving about five kilometers further each time seems logical, but it is not, as practice shows.
I used to have a lot of contact with baker Dilen from Ravels, he was from an older generation and 'super' in the sprint.
He had a very special way of selecting: After each race he wrote down how each pigeon had done financially. Pigeons that had cost money he removed.
The baker also had a special way of freeing pigeons from trichomonas’s.
'Make the front of the birds 5 cm shorter', he would say.
When he once met the then chairman of our club before the start of the season, he said defiantly: 'And... are you going to be able to stop that A S this year?'
The chairman: 'It's going to happen this year, just watch it.'
Dilen told me which I responded that the chairman, unfortunately for him, would in any case get off to a very bad start.
And indeed, it was even worse than bad. 'How could you know this', the baker asked me. 'You haven't even seen his pigeons.' True. But the chairman had revealed something. When he weaned his youngsters, not one hen had laid for the next round. And then I know enough.
My little car for training.
CLUB GAME
With whom I also maintained good contacts for many years was Leytens.
They had two pigeons from me, from one hw bred the 'world champion' Long Distance, from the other the 1st Olympiad pigeon sprint.
Cor Leytens, after a compliment on my part:
'Thanks, but that was on club level. Do you count that?'
I didn't answer, because sometimes I do count that. Because one club is not the other. Those who compete the club in Bevel know that very well. Van Eynde G once experienced that a 3rd prize in the club from 150 birds was also the 3rd prize national from 10.000 plus birds.
And then there is something else. This spring (2025) with those strongly fluctuating winds, you experienced strange situations. Like in my province.
On a sprint race from Quievrain with an easterly wind, the winner of 1.880 birds had to let about 900 pigeons go ahead of fanciers more west of him on the east side. A professional loft on the west side won 11 prizes one in 100.
In his small club not even one in the same race!
In Ouddorp, which is almost in England, the competition was over that day when there were still 8,000 prizes to be won in the province. Compare results?
That is not always fair.
AND ANOTHER THING
Insiders know, in his last years of life Gust had problems.
Raising firm youngsters was barely possible and that could be explained. Having been a poor man almost all his life, then the money came in and then you have to be careful to resist the temptation of two things:
- Keeping too many pigeons to be able to continue to meet the demand for birds.
- Breeding too much from especially old pigeons. That's not breeding, that's multiplying and you also have to pay a price for that. You should breed only from good and especially from fully equipped vital pigeons.
The first requirement is a good start. That means good health.