رسالة لمنس التي تحمل الكثير من المعاني للهاوي المغربي و الرياضة ككل

10-02-2012
Casablanca – Brussels,

Hello my friends, while writing this, I am in the airplane from Casablanca to Brussels and I just became 25 years old. Yes it is my birthday today! I just had a quick visit to Morocco, it was a very nice experience, I have visited several top lofts near Casablanca. The quality of the pigeons was very high and my respect for the Sahara-pigeons, these pigeons fly 1000+ KM and have to fly true the Sahara-dessert. I think the toughest race circumstances in the world. Very impressive! All the lofts I have visited were located on rooftops, very nice to see the pigeons come from the race, also the health of the pigeons was fantastic, this with a minimum on products and knowledge of medicines etc … !

The most impressive was the visit to the biggest pigeonclub in Casablanca, 150 members, 5000 pigeons competing on a 300km race. And all basketed in one club, IN OPEN AIR, with electronic system (all Tipes) and a very good truck to transport the pigeons. But what was even more impressive as most impressive is the fact that there are a lot of young members, I saw a lot of fanciers between 16 – 25 years old, pigeonsport in Morocco has a bright future ahead. Hopefully they can get a national committee that will organize everything on a professional way. Because know there is no federation taking the lead on everything, it is every club for itself. Too bad I had to leave sooner than planned.

So far my trip to Morocco, photos will be published on Facebook asap. When I left Belgium the company was putting its last hand on my aviaries. So normally when I wake up tomorrow everything should be ready. If so, all the pigeons can go in the aviaries and get used to the new environment. Than the season starts for us, the old and yearlings are vaccinated against PMX last week. Next week I plan a checkup with the vet and a vaccination against the pox.

The situation right now.
The hens are on the loft were they will be a whole year. The cocks are on youngsters between 10 – 20 days, so ready to be separated again. The hens I will pair up next week or the week after, they will get a nest (1 baby each normally) and on this nest I will start the training, first around the house, than a few traininglaps up to 40KM and when they are ready we start racing them, I want to give them as much racingkilometers as possible before the 500km races start, which are the most important for me. When the cocks are separated, they will get, just like the hens START-Mix (Matador) this is comparable with depurative with some sunflowerseeds and corn in it. I really like this mixture, it gives everything a pigeon needs this time of year.

The young birds
Nothing special here, we are weaning babies each day. They go on a loft with stro and a heatingplate (-10C at the moment in Belgium). They just get breeding mix and water, so very basic. The first part of the youngsters are also vaccinated to PMX last week (together with all the old birds). It is nice that this is already behind me, now only the vaccination against pox on the to do list. The oldest once start flying in the upper boxes, so for that section I will open the aviaries so they can go on and check out how the outside world looks like. At the moment I am not worried about letting them out, last year I first opened the loft the 18th of March. So still plenty of time, to get them outside (plus these youngsters are 2 weeks younger because I start breeding later).
We will see what happens the next days, a fancier lives from day to day. If something changes in the plans, you guys will be the first to know !! Now it is time to have power nap on the plane, time of arrival is planned 2:40 in the night, so I am looking to a rough short night.
http://www.vangeelpigeons.be/