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The rise and fall of Lin

Taiwanese Lin (the name is fake) and Belgian champion Louis (his name is also fake) had been friends for a  long time but the good relationship had come to an end.

Lin used to buy pigeons from Louis but with those birds that he bought in the last few years Lin lost both a lot of money and  reputation.

Normally the seller is to blame when birds are no good but this time it was the buyer.

About 20 years ago he started buying pigeons and right from the start he was successful with the off spring.

But as I said, those birds that he bought in the last few years let him down.

Here is the story, maybe some people can learn from it.

 

THE PAST

The first birds that Lin bought were real good birds and the deals that they made were very simple.

Lin faxed the Belgian champion 'I want 10 birds', he paid them and little later he got his birds.

He left it up to Louis which birds since he trusted him, he did not know the birds but only knew the Belgian performed well and so did others with his birds.

Every 2 years or so a bunch of birds were shipped and to this day Louis still remembers the fourth shipment.

Then his client asked for pedigrees and Louis, who in fact was more a racer than a seller, had a problem.

Pedigrees?

He did not know what pedigrees were but with some help of a friend he managed to make them. They were handwritten, since a computer was something that he had never seen at the time.

 

TIMES CHANGED

Now that he had pedigrees Lin learnt more about the origin of the birds till he found that many of them descended from 2 cocks.

Let's call them cock A and cock B.

This was reason for Lin to change his 'buying behaviour'. 

Unlike before he did not ask for a bunch of birds but he had special wishes.

He just wanted a few birds, preferably direct children from the basic birds, for which he was willing to pay a far higher price.

Louis sold him what he asked for but did not understand.

Why did Lin only want pigeon from birds that had become so old?

Why offer so much money for babies of these old timers that had lost much of their vitality?

Louis himself preferred to breed birds of younger parents for his own use and not just a few but a bunch every year.

'Breeding good birds is like a lottery, the more tickets that you get the more chances  you have to win he always said.

'The road to success is to breed many birds, race many birds and cull many birds' was his motto.

If you only breed a few babies from very old birds you  cannot race successfully anymore was his opinion.

 

DISAPPOINTED

The performances of the off spring of the direct babies of the 2 basic birds were so disappointing that Lin changed again.

You won't believe it but he asked Louis to mate a certain cock with a certain hen.

And Louis got orders such as the following:

 

'Please breed me:

- 2 babies of a son of cock A mated with a daughter of cock B'.

- 2 babies of a son cock A mated with a granddaughter of cock B.'

- 2 Babies of a son of cock B mated with a sister of cock A.

 

Later on he even asked Louis to only breed from hens with yellow eyes or mate birds with pearl eyes with a hen with yellow eyes.

Once it even happened that Lin asked for 5 inbreeds of cock A that should all haveyellow eyes.

Questions more stupid than that Louis had never heard but since they had a long and good relationship he bred the birds that Lin wanted.

This lasted for a couple of years and then Lin stopped buying. His results even became poorer and he lost confidence.

 

FINISHED

Lin was finished but in his club a new champion had stood up.

Let's call him Chen.

In the good days Lin had told Chen that he had gotten his good birds from Louis.

Chen thought the best method was to beat Lin with his own weapons so he applied to Louis and asked him if he could buy pigeons.

'No problem' Louis reacted but he had learnt his lesson and asked what kind of birds Chen wanted.

'Whatever' Chen said, 'I trust you. Just ship me 10 birds of your best, I leave it up to you which ones. I do not care much about pedigrees and even less about the colour of the eyes.'

Louis sent him 10 birds and 2 years later the name of the King of that club in Taiwanwas not Lin but Chen. 

 

LOUIS

Meanwhile Louis kept on winning.

His performances were as good as before and his motto  was the same as before:

'Breed many babies, race many and cull many.'

Of every 50 birds he bred he kept 5 maximum, the 5 very best.

He did not care for pedigrees, he did not believe in inbreeds, he knew nothing about line-breed and the colour of the eyes was the last thing he was interested in.

He even practised free mating since all the birds that survived the selection were good.

After having read this you may think Louis is a simple man.

That is correct, but he is a simple man with common sense.

Who was right and who was wrong?

The winner is always right and the winner was Louis.

And so far Chen as well. 

As I said: So Far!!!