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Boy oh boy

In the spring he had asked if he could come: The middle man along with a foreigner
who wanted to buy pigeons, six total.

And he asked me if I could keep 10 back.
" Of course of the best."
" Of the best? Of course! "
If ten men want birds don"t they all want them from the best?
Or more precisely: ONLY from the best. The middle man also asked me not to forget his commission. That was no less than 40 percent.

MIDDLE MAN
Commission for middle men is pretty normal

Their time should be paid and they also have expenses.

But 40%? Wasnot that exaggerated?

Then he explained why 40% was reasonable in his eyes. Why I was wrong.
He wanted 20% and also the dealer abroad who had tipped the client to go to my place for good birds.

Hmmm. 40%? I had my doubts.

Actually I should have refused. Tell him to go somewhere else but did not have the guts. But I know too well you have to watch out for some of these people.

They can make you and break you.

There was this champion in Antwerp about a decade ago.

There was a great demand for his pigeons and therefore he had to sell "no" to new client.. He just had none.

But there was one dealer who could not live with this.

Others had bought birds from the Antwerp champion and he would lose face if he could not. And maybe lose clients as well because they might not take him seriously .
However, the Antwerp guy had nothing and that was the beginning of much misery. Because later on in Taiwan the rumor spread that the birds of the champion had paratyphoid. It turned out to be the dealer who could not get birds who was responsible for this gossip. He must have wanted to find a reason why he could not buy and others could.

 

FINALLY

Then came the day that "my" middleman and his customer visited me.
I had put 10 birds in a basket. They had had Sedochol for some days which had made the feathers so soft that the birds slipped out of your hands.
The customer handled the pigeons one by one and his eyes shone.  

He clearly liked the birds. If he could buy them all ten he asked.

We got a deal and the pigeons were loaded into his car. All ten.

Now only some minor things had to be done. The birds had to be paid and he needed pedigrees.
I handed him the pedigrees, he looked at them, frowned and was silent for a while. Then he asked if he could phone. It was a long call in a language I did not understand. But the conversation was serious, I saw his facial features increasingly furrow. Soon it became clear why.

He and his partner were disappointed. They had waited a long time, he had made a long journey, but these pigeons were not what they wanted. .
"And you just said that you were satisfied" I said in my best English.
He WAS satisfied. At least about the pigeons. Not about their origin.
From 3 of the 10 one of the parents was an import.
Of the others, 8 of the grandparents were imports.


Also Sissi was a crosssing.

MY REACTION

I did not understand. Those babies were really of my best, indeed, no inbreds to Ace Four or so but was that so important?

I said that the imports were real good. I said I knew very well what I was doing when importing birds, to whom I should go and what birds I should buy. The ones I still had were the remnant of heavy selection.

EspecialIy a bird of 2008 was a proven breeder that had produced super birds already.  

"But nevertheless you bought it. It is a bird from Geerinckx, so an import" he said. 
He wanted pure A S birds. Both parents and grandparents had to be bred by me.
And he asked if I would have another look in my loft.

But that would have been a waste of time. I knew most of my birds had at least one grandparent that was an import.

 

THE BEST
I said I crossed because crossings are the best.

For me and others. And I gave him examples of superbirds, known all over the world, which were, without exception, crossings.

And was one of the best breeding couples ever, the illustrious Meulemans couple, not a crossing as well?
He was not impressed and showed me a kind of brochure.

It contained photos of birds together with their pedigrees.
He had a loft with pure Koopmanbirds, a loft pure Heremans  a loft pure Vandenabeeles and now he wanted a loft of pure AS birds.

I told him the birds from Koopman, Heremans and Vandenabeele were crossings

as well, but again, he was not impressed.

If I had no birds for sale that were pure my old bloodlines he would go to "X", since he knew that " X " had only my birds.

When they took leave the middle man did not look too happy.

Was it because he missed his commission? Or did he ask himself why I was so stupid as to cross my birds? I will never know.

 

X

Anyway, to "X" they went. There they could buy birds indeed of which I had bred both parents. But now there was another problem. The birds were all hens and he wanted to keep the species pure.
How stupid a man can be.

If the birds would have been for business I would have understood a bit, but he wanted to win races with them.

I wished he would have stayed longer. So that I could have shown the middle man and his client the pedigrees of the first 10 NATIONAL Aces of the last few years. They are all crossings.


THE MORAL
Do you want to play well? Cross your pigeons! Race as many as you can and eliminate as many as possible.
Of course breeding good birds is also a matter of luck. 
Once you have mated your birds the only thing you can do is pray!  


Do you want to make money by selling? Avoid crossings and practice inbreeding.
The more the band number of the same basic bird is in the pedigree the better.

Because many buyers are so f*cking naive.

The people who know that best are the champions that sell pigeons abroad.