Winter 24-25 (12-12-24)
Winter 2024
Breeding season has started, but it is hardly possible to be successful when you do not switch on the lights in Holland and Belgium.
Chicken farmers know too well what influence lighting has on their chickens when days are so short. I wrote before that you only need to ‘light’ the cocks.
Once the birds are on eggs it is handy to have a timer that slowly let the lights go out. It prevents pigeons from flying the wrong way after the lights suddenly went out from one moment to the next.
It is clear that you only breed from perfectly healthy pigeons.
HANDY
It is handy that the cocks already have a box when you start coupling. So that not AND cocks AND hens have to look for where 'they belong'. You can achieve this more easily by removing all seats, shelves, perches and roosts at least ten days before you start coupling.
Pigeons in general, and cocks in particular, don't like to sit on the floor and if there is only room for them in a breeding box, they will occupy it faster.
Once 'on eggs' then the perches and shelves can, or rather MUST, be returned. More and more people like to change the pairs. That is easier with two (breeding) sections. So that they no longer see the previous partner.
NOT NECESSARY
Supplements, so-called inciting seeds, ‘stronger’ food, vitamins and so on are, as far as I'm concerned, all nonsense.
-Not to mention coupling at full moon.
-Lofts that have to be well insulated, as you can read in old books, is just as big a 'bummer'.
-I no longer believe in well-insulated lofts. Not in winter and not in the racing season.
- I do believe in the once so detested lofts with corrugated iron roofs.
- You see more and more top lofts of which the front or part of it is open, sometimes day and night. In other words, that the insulation consists of... gauze!!
IMPORT
When better fanciers get an old pigeon somewhere; Received, exchanged, bought or for joint breeding it is striking that, especially when it comes to cocks, they often have the same question to the man where they got the pigeon: 'Where in the loft is/was his place?' Good question. If it was 'bottom left' for example, it is best to put it 'bottom left' in the new loft as well. Questions like these are questions of good handlers !!!.
LUCK
I often point out the factor of luck within the pigeon sport.
One example, W de Bruijn asked me at the beginning of this century 'don't you have an interesting address to visit? I asked if it was a problem if it was an unknown name with very few birds and who lived far away?
Willem: 'Fine.’
Now I had 3 fanciers in mind and finally I chose for Gilbert.
So we went there, Willem bought a round of cheap youngsters and did what he should do: He was going to race with them. In short: If that Gilbert hadn't occurred to me, or... would I have gone there with someone else, or... If Willem had started breeding with the whole bunch, pigeon sport would have looked different now. Because ‘Murphy’s Law’ is a descendant of one of a bird called Gilbert that we got there.
Then Rik H would NOT have had his national Ace KBDB 2024. Then No one would ever have heard about Murphy’s Law and those world record prizes for its youngsters would never have been made. Why do I emphasize the right decision to fly with them? It made W enable to discover how good that pigeon was and therefore worth a good hen.
PEDIGREES
We should all know how relative pedigrees are.
I have known lots of real super pigeons in my life, but never one with a handful of brothers and sisters who were equally 'super'.
And yet they all had the same pedigree.
Pedigrees may also be educational. They taught me that many good birds have an import pigeon as a parent.
Pigeons with often the same name of a top bird in the pedigree are mainly found in the commercial lofts. They do nothing wrong, they give what the customer asks for; if necessary the sound of hollow vessels.
Many good ones also come from couples of which ONE is a yearling. Two very old pigeons may produce good ones, but those are exceptions.
And talking about good pigeons: Very few in our sport have been able to force the way up with money.
Money is easy. With money you can buy a very nice and expensive pedigree dog. But not the wagging of his tail.
FUNNY
Pedigrees may also be funny.
Several times I heard a fancier say: 'For my birds no pedigree cards. You can write down whatever you want there.'
But what did I see later? Very extensive pedigree cards in a report or in a sales list of the same man. Made up by the wife, a child or grandchild. You can guess why.
'And such a pedigree card must be as full as possible’, Gust Janssen always said. He had a good student in Leo Heremans. His pedigree cards from when he was an emerging star with those of his umpteenth total sale many years later was quite a difference. Nothing wrong with that. Just a bit smarter than the average fancier.
LOSING AND SO
Breeding is something some people do with a scared heart these days. 'Are we going to lose so many babies again?' What can be useful is to conform to the lofts that don't lose many youngsters.
What many have in common is that they give their young a lot of freedom in the first 3 or 4 months of their lives.
So not: 'Open the loft, clean and then get them back inside.'
The birds of many people who have few losses are roofers for a few months.
Young that are free a lot would also be less likely to be caught by birds of prey. Or so they say. What is also a fact? Youngsters with a different color are more likely to be caught. Here the hawk once picked one from 'Olympic Hurricane' from de Bruijn. ‘Good taste’ you will say? An ‘expert' thought otherwise. He said that every bird of prey would have caught that pigeon. It was a slaty. The only slaty in my loft.
Good old times. My Janssenbook was released.