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How come?

The roots of International pigeonsport are in Belgium and in the Netherlands, that is a well known fact.

And because of that fanciers from all over the world want Dutch or Belgian birds.

If there were a real miracle bird in say, for arguments sake Libanon, no one would be interested.

The point is though that the Belgians and Dutch cannot prove how good their birds are in the races. Unlike other sports pigeon fanciers cannot compete with fellow sportsmen in other parts of the world.

The last few years however the sport got a new dimension: One loft races became more and more popular. 

 

ONE LOFT RACES

In those one loft races people from all over the world can enter birds.

So everybody can compete with everybody regardless where they live under the same conditions. 

One would expect that the Dutch and Belgian would claim all the prizes and money but nothing is less true.

They do not dominate, on the contrary.

Birds from all possible countries are on top in nearly all races. Especially the German birds do real well and the last few years also those from... Kuwait.

Fanciers in Holland do not understand!

How is this possible?

 

DIFFERENT

Germany is not far from me and whenever I am there I am surprised to see all those hills, mountains, valleys and enormous woods.

And then I think about pigeons and pigeon races. The birds have to overcome difficulties there, that the Dutch and Belgian birds do not face during the races.

On their way home from a race they fly over land that is almost as flat as a billiard.

Moreover we mostly race under good weather conditions. When the weather is no good the race is postponed.

As I said, how different that is in other countries. I have a friend in Dubai. This man, Omar is the name, cannot stop laughing when I say we do not race since the temperature is too hot for both humans and pigeons.

30 Degrees Celsius he finds a nice temperature. The pigeons over there are raced when it is 35 Celsius and mostly without problems.

 

SELECTION

Pigeon fanciers from Germany, Kuwait and other countries also imported their birds from Holland and Belgium.

They bred babies from the imports, also grandchildren and great grandchildren and those birds were raced and selected.

But the criteria of selection are different since the birds were raced under much harder circumstances than in Holland and Belgium.

Due to that selection they get a stronger type of birds after several generations.

Birds that can handle harder circumstances in for example South Africa.

So it is not a coincidence the birds from other countries than Holland and Belgiun dominate those one loft races. These Germany, Kuwait and birds from other countries are just better!

In Belgium they also have a one loft race. And in this race the foreigners do NOT dominate. There the Dutch and Belgian birds perform better because they race under the same circumstances as their ancestors.

You can say these birds are faster and smarter, birds from other countries are stronger!

 

JAPAN

It reminds me of a visit that I once paid to Japan. I visited a fancier who races my birds and he does real well in races from 1,000 kilometres, also in hard circumstances.

I could not understand, since I do not race long distance, I have typical Middle Distance birds.

Then I saw some birds that were the off spring of mine and I was shocked.

These Schaerlaeckensbirds were so different with long wings and strong bodies.  

Ho got those birds after selecting them again and again, generation after generation.

And this selection was based on the results on Long Distance.

Thus also this man created another type of birds.

 

Now we come again to what I think is essential in pigeon sport: Selection is the name of the game.