How stupid they are
I sold some youngsters of which I am almost sure they were bad ones.
Can you do that, sell bad birds?
In Holland there is a saying 'the client is the king'.
Moreover it would have been useless to try and sell quality birds.
As usual the clients (Chinese) wanted birds with bands that followed each other. Dutch and Belgians often wonder why consecutive bands are so important to them.
Is this because they are afraid we pick out the prettiest for ourselves?
Anyway, I had bred some babies with consecutive bands, I had put them in a basket and I had made pedigrees.
Selling birds without pedigrees? Today you can forget it!
It even happened that a foreigner was not interested in birds of a man with supers, since he did not have his own site.
USELESS
When the clients were at my place I found that it was a waste to have put the birds in a basket.
They did not even look at them, they wanted to see pedigrees.
And if they found birds that were crossings they inattentively put away the pedigrees. Such birds they did not want.
Till they saw the word 'Janssen'.
A crossing with Janssen was acceptable, as it seemed.
But they passed when I said 'Janssen' did not stand for the brothers from Arendonk but for a person by the same name.
So they left with pigeons that were in my opinion bad ones, since they were all inbreeds and off real old birds.
And with inbreeds from real old birds I have no good experiences, on the contrary.
I told them that nearly all good birds are crossings, but they hardly listened.
AND THEN
In a final attempt to convince them I mentioned the name of Van Dijck.
Now they agreed. Van Dijck was ok and one of them showed me a photo with him and Dirk, the breeder of Kannibaal.
But I meant another Van Dijck (Danny), a guy who had bred a miracle bird.
In 2009 as a yearling it won 3 firsts in 3 consecutive races in Antwerp against all the big shots against an average of 2,000 birds which is an enormous amount for Belgian standards.
With these results the bird had performed better than Kannibaal, Dokus or other historical birds in Antwerp.
And I showed them a photo of this DANNY van Dijck,
They looked at it disgustingly, as it seemed.
He was too young. At such a young age one couldn't possibly have an own family.
'Do you need an own family to perform well?' I asked them.
They shrugged.
PEDIGREE
Then I showed them the pedigree of that miracle bird (09-112).
There were some famous names in it but also the names of Vermeire, Donckers, J Cools, R Smolders which are far from famous indeed.
But does a good bird necessarily need to have famous names in its pedigree?
I often referred foreigners to super birds and inevitably they asked about the origin.
If they were not the off spring of a famous loft they lost interest.
'What bloodline is it?'
I get sick of this question.
How stupid or better na've they are.
In 2008 I had a pair that produced 3 real good birds; one was even a flying miracle that once beat the super champs in Antwerp with 3 minutes.
In 2009 I bred 3 babies off the same pair; they were 3 bad ones!
We all love brothers, sisters or youngsters of super birds. With such birds you have more chances indeed but no guarantee!
Why do most champions re-mate their breeders yearly or even more frequently?
Because they know that very few matings produce more than one good bird.
And by the way, talking about a family:
Stay away from fanciers who claim they never import birds, since they stick to their own family.
Or ask them to show results if results matter.
Then you will stay away from them automatically.
IN PRACTISE
One of my sayings is:
'The breeding pair does not make the super bird but the super bird makes the breeding pair.'
What I mean is this:
Nobody can mate birds that are a guarantee for good babies.
It mostly goes like this:
First fanciers discover the super bird and only then they think 'hmm, were you bred of that pair?'
From then on 'that pair' gets a name: 'Breeding pair' and in most cases it will never give a super again.
It also seems that the longer a pair is mated the worse their babies are.
It stands to reason that Danny van Dijck will mate the parents of his 08-112 again next year.
I would be surprised if the babies would be any good,
INTERVIEW
In a German magazine was an interview with Vandenabeele.
One of the questions was: 'How come you have some good birds again this year?'
The answer was that in the past he mated his old bloodlines amongst each other to please clients who wanted pure Vandenabeeles.
Last year he did not care about the demand for pigeons and mated his own birds with imports.
Very good birds of his new matings were the result.
And what about those guys who are willing to mate your birds if you pay them?
They are the charlatans in pigeon sport!