Enhance chances (october 8th 2016)
Enhanche chances
It does not often happen that somebody new in this sport becomes a real champion just within a few years. Verkerk however proved that it is possible and to-day there is this 27 year old man in the south of Holland, nearby the Belgian border.
Maarten Huijsmans is the name and what he has achieved at such a young age looks like a fairy tale. A novice in the sport who has one good year is not that exceptional. But racing well year after year like Maarten does, even beating all those experienced older guys, is another story.
MORE THAN THAT
Of course such a man has good birds, but there must be more. He must be realistic and a good handler. This Maarten Huijsmans is realistic indeed. He has only 5 breeding pairs and what he said about his breeders surprised me.
‘In my breeding loft I prefer to have only birds that performed real well themselves, not their brothers or sisters.’’
How right he is. Now with the internet too much attention is paid to birds that do not deserve it. I mean the brothers and/or sisters of a good racer. I will give an example which clearly shows what I mean.
2014
Long way back (2001) Boeckx and me traded birds. And what seldom happens In such cases happened then. We were both happy with the result. From a hen of mine he bred a provincial winner and her blood is in many of his best racers and even in the National Ace of F Looyschelder. I mated the hen I got from Boeckx with my ‘Home Alone’ and they became parents of several real supers.
World famous ‘Fleur’ from Jespers v d Wegen, often described as the best breeding hen in Belgium, was a granddaughter of the pair. Now you may understand that in 2014 Boeckx and me decided to cooperate again. He used two cocks of mine, he mated them with 2 of his hens and we shared the babies.
One year later we were both happy. He got his ‘BAS’ (Boeckx x A S), that was a multiple first prize winner and became 3rd NATIONAL Ace KBDB. I got my ‘Super ZAV’, an exceptional racer, that was Ace bird in the Fed 2 years on a row.
AGAIN
Naturally we wanted to do the same thing this year. In January 2015 I let Boeckx use the same 2 cocks of mine which he mated with the same hens that produced those super birds in 2014. Again we shared the babies and guess what? None of them was able to win a decent prize. So I am talking about full brothers and sisters of the supers we had before.
And talking about ‘supers’, I have had several in my life and I have known even more. But I have not known many super racers whose brothers and/or sisters were also supers. Most champions know about this. That’s why they remate their breeders again and again. Now it may be clear what I mean when I say pedigrees are very relative. Or should I say much over estimated? The supers that I mentioned before had the same pedigrees as their worthless brothers and sisters.
BEST CHOICE
Some fanciers say that when you have 2 nestbrothers and one of them is a real good racer, the other is the better breeder. Pure nonsense.
The best thing to improve your family is buy a bunch of babies from an honest champion at a reasonable price and then: Breed many, race many and eliminate many. Most fanciers that have good birds themselves do not feel like importing ‘a bunch’ of birds. They want birds that are very closely related to a super bird, preferably a brother or sister. Or they buy the good racer itself, or its parents.
Others try to buy babies of the brother or sister of a super racer, which is a cheaper method of course. But I do not think this is the best thing to do, nor would I want the brother or sister of the super bird. I would prefer the babies of the super itself !!!
SO:
So imagine this pair that gave a fantastic racer and its brothers and sisters. Now there are several options if you want this bloodline.
-In my humble opinion the worst thing you can do is buy babies from a brother or sister.
-It would be better to buy the brother or sister of the super.
-Even better than that is to buy the parents.
-But the very best thing to do is try and buy babies of ‘the good one’, so the fantastic racer itself. A champion like Maarten Huijsmans cannot possibly be stupid.
He wants the right birds to breed from.
