Kurt has been playing in one of the largest racing pigeons in our association for the second year now. In the racing year 2024, 88 racing lofts started in the RV Aachen-Nordkreis in regional association 411. If you want to place at the top, you need excellent pigeons, but the wind direction also has to be your friend from time to time. Kurt was able to win a top place with his pigeons in many championships this year.

The system with racing pigeons

Kurt has been playing with birds and hens for years, with the partner always staying at home. At the end of March, all racing pigeons are paired with the breeding pigeons and have to raise a young bird. After the second or third prize flight, all young birds are placed in the young bird loft and widowhood begins. The partners are not shown when they are placed until halfway through the season. From the seventh or eighth flight, Kurt lets the partners be together again before releasing them. On the day of the flight itself, the pairs can stay together for up to two hours.

Care

The breeding pigeons are given Avidress Plus and UsneGano in the water on several days throughout the year. Once a week they are given Blitzform. To support them during moulting, Kurt regularly gives his pigeons Hexenbier and Hessechol in the water. While the young are being reared, the breeding pigeons are given OptiBreed with the herb-vegetable mix for optimal care.

Not much has changed with the racing pigeons in recent years.  Hessechol, Blitzform, RO 200ready, Immunbooster, Bt-Amin forte, Carni-Speed and OptiBreed are still used. This year, however, more K+K Protein 3000 was used. Kurt noticed that his traveling team regained volume much more quickly. From Sunday, there will be 'Kurt's Delicious Bowl' every lunchtime for six days a week. This mix consists of peanuts, peeled sunflowers, hemp, cheese and Hessechol. This mixture gives the pigeons an extra boost of energy.

Successes 2024

Kurt was able to achieve many top placings, but particularly worth mentioning is the 2nd Regional Young Bird Championship, just behind the first.

Best flights 2024

• 27.4 Charleville 164 km RV against 2,653 pigeons: 1-8-23,..(63/32)
• 11.05 Chalons 250 km RV against 2,371 pigeons: 6-36-75-80-80,.. (57/31)
• 20.07 Arcis 300 km RV against 1,120 pigeons: 1-3-24-39-51-57,..(33/21)
• 07.09 Rethel 201 km RV against 3,998 youngsters: 3-3-9-38-40-40-40-43,..(53/36)  

There were some changes. Since the RV only had nine members left, they wanted to move to a neighboring RV, but were not accepted. Another attempt at the RV Baesweiler was successful. However, members of another RegV were also assigned to this RV, so the previous flight path changed. Kurt therefore decided to take his best traveling animals from the team and put them in the breeding loft. So mostly yearlings were used. It went quite well. Our sports friend was among the top of the 77 traveling lofts.

But then, after the 11th flight, there was a problem. Kurt's loft is only about 10 meters away from a field that is being cultivated. Kurt normally closes the loft for a few days when insecticides and weed killers are being applied. In this case, potatoes were being planted and a company applied the products at night without warning. Two previously successful racing birds were exposed to the fumes in unfavourable winds and were obviously so badly affected that they did not survive. An examination by a vet confirmed the suspicion. With a heavy heart, the adult bird race was stopped. Up until then, Kurt had one bird with 11 out of 11 prizes and three with 10 prizes.

So Kurt concentrated on the young bird race and kept himself unscathed. In the end, he reached 39th place in the national ranking. In the FG (89 hits) and in the RegVGrp he came first, in the RegV he was 3rd champion, in the RV he was 2nd champion with a gap of two points to the 1st champion. In the FG, RegVGrp and RV he presented the best young bird. After the six young bird flights, the group had achieved a percentage prize result of 73. Nine young birds received the full prize, a total of 48 birds won four, five or six prizes.

Use of Röhnfried products

Hessechol, Carni Speed and RO 200 are still on the supply list. In addition, there are immune boosters and Entrobac. Following a tip from Alfred Berger, Kurt now uses Opti Breed and K+K Protein the day after the flight. Peanuts, hemp, sunflower seeds and young Dutch cheese are put in a bowl and enriched with Hessechol three times a week. Blitzform is also used, but via the feed. The young birds were vaccinated with the RP agent, but only once.