Ruud Bakker – Zoelen Nat. Issoudun 16,803 old: 2-7-20-21-23 Morlincourt 5,323 youngsters: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14

Zoelen: Last weekend the only national day long distance race with national release was organized in the Netherlands. A race that was marked with fluor on the flight calendar by all top pigeons. National winner was Team Hooymans but 2nd national was won by the scalloped hen (NL22-8307598) of Ruud and Dolf Bakker from Zoelen.

Introducing Ruud and Dolf is an open door. The performances that this Dutch top colony has already shaken out of its sleeve borders on the unbelievable. We will certainly come back to this during the winter period.

NL22-8307598

Ruud Bakker speaks with a lot of respect about the Gerard Koopman pigeons because among others thanks to the contribution of the Koopman pigeons the performances of the Bakker colony shot up. This is proved again by “NL22-8307598” which noted the 2nd national Issoudun on her palmares.

“NL22-8307598” was born out of two direct Koopman pigeons. See her pedigree 

“NL22-8307598” is part of a 120 pair racing team. Ruud plays 56 couples on total widowhood and has some pigeons as reserve. Ruud is very clear about his goals in pigeon racing. To shine on the 5 long distance races and everything, such as feeding, motivation, training is applied at the right moment so that the pigeons are ideally prepared at the start of the long distance races. 

Some points we noted down for you:

• - The racers were coupled between Christmas and New Year and were allowed to raise a couple of youngsters. Afterwards, there was no more pairing, not even for a few days to train the pigeons.
• - Talking about training. At the end of March, the training basket was taken from the attic and in several steps, we went in the direction of 50/60 km. The sexes were not allowed to see each other at home.
• - After the first flight, the cocks and hens could hug each other for the first time, but only in the corridor in front of the loft. At the end of June, the first one-day long distance races are on the program and then they can celebrate in their living boxes.
• - Feeding is anything but an art at the Bakker home. All-in-One is the mix and in the beginning of the season this is supplemented with barley and paddy rice to make them a bit lighter but once the flights of truth are coming it is 100% All-in-One.
• The pigeons always get full feed. Many used by-products are Probac 1000, minerals of Mariën and Forte Vita.
• Pigeons must have enough flight hours on the counter before they start with the one day long distance races. If it's a season with a lot of north wind, that's no problem but this year there was a lot of south wind and Ruud let the pigeons do some extra training flights. This combined with the fact that the week before Issoudun there was no flight for old pigeons made Ruud decide to do an extra training flight of 210km.
• Before basketing for national Issoudun (605km), the sexes did not meet. They were just plucked from the loft, so to speak. Apparently more than enough to get a top result on paper because against 16,803 pigeons they won: 2-7-20-21-23-43-45-49-65-95 etc.. nationally. 61 out of 86 pigeons placed their ring number on the result.

Young pigeons

“These are coming off super” Ruud manages to say. “Since about two weeks they are on the sliding door and apparently this is enough to motivate them super. In Division 7, Morlincourt (311km) was on the program and a total of 5,323 youngsters were basketed. We won: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14-47-51-52-62-66-67-84-88 etc.. (64/87)

With 3 races to go, this makes one hope for the very best

Dolf and Ruud, best wishes from the whole Herbots team.

Stefan Mertens