Certainly instructive (27-01-26)
Certainly instructive
It must have been about a year ago that I received an email from Eastern neighbor Reiner Puttmann asking if he could copy articles. That name said something to me. I once sat with him in a forum in Germany I remember. A room full of fanciers who all thought that we, the people on the podium, knew everything about pigeons. 'Little' instead of 'everything' would come closer. I have forgiven them for that misconception, but the name of table companion Puttmann has stuck. Now he publishes the 'magazine' 'Brieftaubensport-International'.
NEVER SEEN
At 170 pages, it looks more like a book. Expensive paper and lots of photos of the best quality. That it is not exaggerated will be confirmed by people who know the magazine. It is also not 'overloaded' with advertisements that often come down to the same thing:
'Pigeons will fly faster if you give 'this food' or 'those supplements'.
Unfortunately, a newspaper cannot do without it.
I once was the editor of pigeon magazine De Vredesduif.
Every month we had editorial meetings, where the owner, understandably and rightly, was mainly interested in advertisements.
My mantra then was:
First get a good magazine, then the subscribers will come naturally and with the subscribers come the advertisers. The opposite would be easier, but that's just not how it works. So consider advertisements and sales as a necessary evil. No newspaper or magazine can exist on subscription fees alone.
STRIKING
Wim Pollmann, Jan Zoontjens and Klak were, as far as I know (!), the first or belonging to the first fanciers with pedigree cards.
At that time it was still in Dutch because Chinese buyers had yet to be invented. I think like many about pedigrees, but yet you can learn from them.
This is especially known to those fanciers who were lucky to have owned a super pigeon. How good were their brothers and sisters with the same pedigree?
Super racers with a handful of brothers and sisters that perform as well as the super itself are as rare as fish in the Sahara.
But as I said, you can learn more from pedigrees.
-They learn that by far the most Ace pigeons and winners are two-year olds.
-Many Germans have beautiful, expensive and durable lofts and more than in the past you now see aviaries before many lofts.
-The addiction to supplements is still as great as before.
-It is also surprising to see how many good pigeons come from yearlings. Fellow fanciers who do not breed from yearlings do themselves harm.
There will be superior racers with both parents quite old, but you rarely come across them.
Fanciers who sell 'all pigeons older than' every few years know what they are doing.
HENS
In the Netherlands and even more so in Belgium, many still have to get used to the supremacy of the hens. Because you can speak of that when you see which pigeons win the National races.
That 'the weaker sex' was taken literally was once seen in Belgium. To protect them from the dominance of the widowers they raced in a separate double. How different it is now, in 2025.
Now the question arises 'who protects the widowers against the hens?'
The latter excel especially in races that were once the domain of the widowers, races of 500 to 700 km with the wind on their beak.
The Germans have been able to estimate hens at their correct value for a long time. The Netherlands and Belgium followed. 'Only racing hens' became more and more normal.
LITTLE CHINESE EVERYWHERE
I sometimes point out that you should compare the average age of the club members with that of many champions. The latter are often several decades younger. And I'm not even talking about the Chinese. 'Fools with too much money' is often said by a well-known Belgian. The photos in Brieftaubensport also show that many fanciers have a companion, sometimes father, son or wife and that many yearlings are lost there. The Dutch had better be prepared because they will follow. Otherwise take a look at their real poor racing program for youngsters.
THAT TOO
It must be said that everything is relative. Five hairs on your head is not much, five hairs in the soup is a lot.
For example, I once went to look at Belgian 'pigeon friends' if there was a chance that I could see the pigeons arriving from two races on the same day.
In hot weather that was sometimes a shock.
'The Noyon racers' (230 km) were often a total loss, especially youngsters fell on the landing board, gasping for breath.
What will that be when 'the long distance birds are get home', we wondered. To everyone's surprise, those 'long distance pigeons' arrived as fresh as a fiddle. Despite hundreds of km. more flying.
USED HERE
When there were still about 100 fanciers living in my hometown, instead of the handful of today, you had a Dutch and a Belgian clubhouse right across from each other. For 400 km races the Dutch basketed on Thursday, the Belgians a day later. To the great annoyance of the Dutch, the Belgians only stayed one night in the basket. When the pigeons were home, the annoyance was over. The Belgian pigeons flew slower, were more tired, the competitions lasted longer.
It was not a matter of quality, it dawned on us later.
MY IDEA
The most pigeon-friendly is in my opinion the following:Pigeons have to arrive at the release site the evening BEFORE the race day and early enough to be able to feed and water them before dark. That comes down to two nights in the basket for Middle Distance, for my part also for Sprint races. And the next day let them go EARLY. Don't wait until it gets warm, as some Dutch people advocate because their pigeons would not be able to withstand inversion. Also in the morning before release DO NOT feed them, as some sometimes do, with the best of intentions.
Food for thought.
In the past there a pigeon market every Sunday in the town of Lier Belgium was very popular..
Germans and Englishmen got there by coaches. It still exists but that's all.
And nobody care about pedigrees. This was before foreigners came to buy our birds.