Cosijn Robrecht – Pollare : 1st Provincial - 2nd Nat. Argenton 8,867 old birds

03 Jul 2024

Things are going super with the Cosijns family in Pollare (Ninove). On national Sancoins they already won the 2nd provincial and the 4th national against 12,962 year birds and last weekend the champagne cork could fly through the Pollare sky because the provincial win and 2nd national could be celebrated. Playing Top-5 national two weeks in a row! What a class!

Robrecht "we are a bit amazed ourselves at how things are going here. The season had a "peculiar" start due to various circumstances. First they worked through 3 speed flights and a middle distance flight before going to the provincial flight Vierzon. On those flights they won 1st and 3rd prize locally. The week they normally went to Bourges national but due to the death of my mum, they didn't play. Another week later they went into the basket for Toury but due to bad weather, the pigeons were brought back. Another week later a speed race (Noyon) was chosen and again they started with the first prize. The week after, we were at the basket table of national flight Sancoins and the hen which flew 1st prize Noyon won 2nd provincial and 4th national. The season was already successful for us, but apparently the forme fairy lives here on my loft because on Argenton we clocked the provincial win and the 2nd national. This is real family enjoyment because both my wife Agnes and my son Andy (who also runs a colony himself) are fully involved in pigeon racing. Without them, even pigeon racing would be non-existent. Hereby thanks for their help and support."

Rolled into pigeon racing via son Andy

Robrecht was a bird lover...son Andy, on the other hand, loved pigeons. Robrecht proudly says: "our Andy was 6 or 7 years old when he was constantly visiting pigeon fanciers around here. Me and my wife knew nothing of his interest in pigeon racing until one day a fancier showed up at the door to visit this young new pigeon fancier. I remember when we transformed an existing chicken coop into a pigeon coop. Andy filled in his first loft list and a few weeks later I was in the pigeon loft with him to basket pigeons. Little by little, the pigeon bug settled in my heart too. Step by step the results went crescendo and in 2007 Andy was crowned provincial champion middle-distance youngsters. Something to be proud of, I think.

In 2011, Andy moved to his own home and continued his pigeon ambitions there. I remained loyal to pigeon sport and since then you can also find my name on pigeon races. We help each other as much as possible, but once we start racing, we fight to be the first of the two of us to clock a pigeon. We live only 1 km apart as the crow flies... it has been a game of seconds several times.

Total widowhood

The 2017 season started with a group of 12 cocks and 12 hens. They are played according to the system of total widowhood. The intention is that the hens fly the large middle distance and the cocks the long distance. The cocks live in lofts with living boxes while the hens are in an aviary behind the lofts. When the hens are released, the cocks go through a small opening towards the aviary. The hens come in on the "regular loft"...eat and drink and while the cocks go loose. Once the hens have emptied the dis, they go back to the aviary and the cocks come back in on their loft. An ideal rotation system if you ask me.

System and base

The flight team bred early, but they raised young from the breeders. On 1/12, the 24-couple breeders were paired and these eggs go to feeders couples. The breeders come up with eggs again and the eggs of the main couples go to the racers that were paired on 14/12. This way, we have several youngsters from our main breeding pairs quickly.

At the beginning of April, the racing team was paired again and reared. After 5 days, they were separated.

Robrecht: "In terms of care, nothing is left to chance and both before and during the season we work a lot with natural products that have a positive influence on the airways. Here we think of Sliepzand (via drinking), Respi Top, etc... . During the preparation of the season, these products are given for 5 consecutive days. Just before the effective start of the season, we sit down in the waiting room of vet Wim Boddaert (Oostkamp) and on his advice, treatments are then given or not. This year we did not need to give anything for the respiratory tract. Only they were set free of tricho (during the season weekly with yellow drops).

The feed comes from Paloma. At the beginning of the week, 3 parts "D21" and 1 part "Super Diet". Feeding is done with "D100" and candy seed. Some feeding is done by feel with a tablespoon as a yardstick.

As far as motivation is concerned, we no longer put the sexes together on the day of basketing. The day before basketing we release the pigeons at 15km. We release the hens first and 10 minutes later the cocks and when we come home half an hour later we separate the sexes.

The basis of our colony was formed over the years. In 2010 we bought some pigeons from Jan Pappens, a year later we were at the front door of Gebroeders Vandenheede and bought pigeons from the line of "Morgane". In 2013, we were lucky enough to purchase several pigeons from Gaby Vandenabeele (including children "Rudy"). In 2020, we were back at Vandenheede's front door and children of "Matteo" disappeared into our basket. Last purchase, but of which we have yet to test the offspring, are pigeons from Florian Hendriks.