Rik Hermans, Pulle won his 10th first prize of the season in the Kempische Fondclub (1st,2nd,3rd,11th etc against 343 young birds) and at National level he was 14th,29th,32nd against 17.007 entries with Rik winning the first three bird average…

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In the recent Guéret young bird national race won by Soetewye & Zoon, Tremelo (See previous report) there was also some other eye catching performances not only by Rik Hermans with his multiple team performance but also by Hubert Schroyens, Itegem a fancier who can still race at the top….

Hubert Schroyens …1st Provincal / 2nd National Gueret

After a glittering career winning among other things 1st National Champion young pigeons KBDB 1995… 1st Semi-National Montlucon against 9,300 old pigeons… 1st Semi-National Montlucon against 11,568 yearlings and best young pigeon of Belgium 2007 with the ‘Queen of Belgium’ (9th, 9th and 13th national), Hubert Schroyens (71) decided at the end of 2008 to sell his colony because of problems with his health.


He only kept some late pigeons and a few very old ones, and these now form the base of his current colony.
The best pigeon in that sale… the ‘Miss Lizzy’ (1st national zone La Souterraine and mother of the ‘Queen of Belgium’) was bought by Luc Houben (who is the son of Hubert’s brother-in-law Jef), and she was also used for breeding.
Hubert’s first words: “This is a nice ending. At first, things didn’t work out to my liking. This is the first time that I have entered them in a race with a sense of real pleasure. It’s my wife, her health is very bad. Every night, I have to get out of bed eight times for her, and my own health is also not what it should be.
Doing everything right is no longer possible, so we just have to do the best we can. My pigeons haven’t had a bath all year, and they are barely trained.
The young pigeons are darkened, and are raced from the beginning of the season. After 3x Quievrain and 1x Noyon they are raced on the sliding door method until the end of the season. The pigeons exercise once a day, and lately they are doing well. There is however a problem in the form of a neighbour who keeps chickens and who also feeds all visiting birds. He has a troop of some 40 pigeons there that always fly free. I have already lost a few very good hens, and it’s very possible that they are in that group.
That’s why I haven’t released the hens to be basketed for Gueret from the Wednesday before. And when they have been fed, the chance is even greater that they go wandering and won’t come back.
Medical care I kept very simple… three weeks ago there was a treatment against head illnesses, 14 days ago they got a tablet against tricho.
Before basketing, I put the pigeons together at about 10.30 am, after I’ve looked after my wife. They have already eaten by then, and about 1 pm they’ll get another light mixture of diet and candy seeds.
‘Faith’ (named after Hubert’s great grandchild) is nicely paired. She won her prizes but didn’t excel during the season, although the week before she showed her worth with 7th Noyon against 598 birds. Actually, her sister raced much better, but she lost her cock twice, and with the third cock, her enthusiasm was gone.


After we had basketed the birds for Gueret I said to my son that my 4th nominated (‘Faith’) was my favourite… A blue hen, not very big but very nicely shaped. She had only cast two flights and when she returned from the race she looked like she had never even left the loft.
Seven men were watching out for the pigeons from Gueret, but we had expected them around 3.45 pm, so everything was still closed up when the ‘Faith’ came back.
I was still upstairs and came down very slowly not to frighten her. She first sat on the traps, and very carefully I shooed her back. She jumped into the loft at 3.34 pm and so she lost a fair amount of time, but the first national had never been an option anyway. It’s lucky that she still wins provincial, because she could have lost that just as easily.
Still a nice ending of the season!”

Junior