Tips & Tricks

Secrets! A word that is often used in conversations between pigeonfanciers. Why do some fanciers become champion and most of the others don’t? Secrets? We dare to say that there aren’t many secrets in our sport. Becoming a champion is possible for everybody, if that person acts according to the basic rules in our sport.

What are, in our point of view, the basic rules?

We’d like to begin with a brief description of our formulated basic rules. Later we will inform you in more detail about our personal experiences. We also hope that this information will trigger you to react and to ask questions, so that we can have a world-wide pigeonchat, by which every one of us can learn from others. We dare to say that even big champions, with a lot of experience, can increase their knowledge and results. Let’s go for it!

1) A good loft.

What is a good loft? A good loft in a garden with lots of trees surrounding it can become a very bad loft when it is placed on top of a building. A loft of a champion in the Netherlands can be a bad loft in Asia. The environment of a loft influences the ‘quality’ of a loft. That’s why the choice for a kind of loft is more difficult than you think.  Little changes in a loft, for example more glass or more fresh airs, can influence the health of the pigeons dramatically. Even experienced pigeonfanciers make terrible mistakes by making a little loftchange.   

Our loft is a typically Dutch pigeonloft. Made of wood, eight meters long, two meters high and two meters deep separated in four departments of about two meters.  Each department has a big window of about 80 x 80 cm and a smaller window, through which the pigeons leave and enter the loft. The front of the loft point to the south. Dense trees surround the back and the left side of the loft. The roof is laid with stone tiles. We created extra light in the lofts of the old pigeons by putting plastic windows on the roof. We’ve got two departments for the old pigeons, in total 18 couples, and two departments for the young pigeons, about 40. In the departments for the youngsters we’ve got place for four breeding couples.  In the racingseason for the old pigeons we only race with the male pigeons, which means that we only race with 18 pigeons. That’s it!

2) Good pigeons.

What’s a good pigeon? The definition of a good pigeon depends on the experience of each individual pigeonfancier. The best pigeon on your loft is according to you (of course) a good pigeon. But when you compare your best pigeon with the best pigeons of other lofts it is possible that you have to adapt you definition! The best way to create an objective definition of a real good racingpigeon, you have to compare your pigeons with those of your competitors. Start with comparing your pigeons with those of your ‘colleagues’ in your own city of residence. When you cannot compete with the fanciers in your own club, it makes no sense to make a comparence with fanciers on federation, combine or even national level. Start to become a champion in your own club. The rest will follow.

3) Good food and other basic needs.

First the food for the pigeons has to be healthy. That means that it has to be free of diseases and insects. Try to develop a ‘good nose’ to justice the quality of the food.

The variety of the food is very important too. The more variety, the better it is. That’s why we mix pigeonfood of different foodcompanies. We gave our trust to some known companies, who delivered the food over many years. According to our racingresults the quality of this food is well proven.

The kind of food we give to our pigeons depends on the season. In the breeding season we give the pigeons more and other food than in the racing season. That’s also something you have to create a special feeling for. Later we’ll try to help you to create this feeling.

Other basic needs are of course fresh water, little stones, and minerals. By very strict selection of our pigeons over many years, we forced our pigeons to stay healthy without giving them extra vitamins and medicines.  Only paramixo is preventively cured every year. The young pigeons are injected against ‘pokken’. In the breeding season we give our pigeons a pill or cure against trichomonaese and in the racingseason we do the same every 5 weeks. But that’s it. Strict selection created a strong and healthy loft of pigeons.

4) Good management.

Management? Is that also a common word in our sport? The word is probably not often used. But in fact it is really necessary to make a good plan to reach your goals in our sport. Some fanciers have pigeons just for fun, but most of the fanciers race with pigeons to win 1st prizes and championships. For those who want to become or to remain champion, it is essential to manage their loft. What do you want? On which races do you want to score? How many pigeons can you actually keep? What kind of pigeons do you need? And much more of this kind of questions. Start to make you own plan within your own possibilities. You are the only person who knows which goals are reachable for you. When you made up your plan, it’s time to make decisions about the kind and size of the loft, the kind of pigeons and the way of treatment of the pigeons.