Article By NM September – The Black Cock
Article Published 28 October 2007

Small in stature , a big heart and a huge competitor .That’s Andrew van der Bergh in a nutshell.

Andrew started racing pigeons in partnership with his brother William in 1979, in what must have been the strongest club in the Federated Board of Homing Unions, the Bellville South Pigeon Club. There they had to compete against the likes of Seargent Michaels, Kosie Adams, AB Basjan and many more great names in the FBHU. When he counted the number of Board races won by his fellow club members he lost count at about 19 or 20. Andrew recalls, with a rather naughty grin on his face, that they always were stone last on the result sheets, and used to be extremely happy if they ended second last. But as time went by he improved on his management , acquired better stock and soon started winning on club and union level. He never entered birds in the Board races as he felt that his pigeons would never be able to compete on that level. After a bit of convincing from his father he entered birds in his very first Board race, Hanover Rd, approximately 660 km. That’s when he realized that his fears were unfounded as he won the Board with some time to spare, repeating the performance the following year.

That was the start of his success story and Andrew’s current results in the strong BDHU prompted this article, as he once again won the Board race from Theunissen which most probably is the toughest race on the card. The birds were liberated 10h00 the Friday morning and the Saturday morning 09h00 two birds arrived together, to his surprise the one bird was from Kroonstad and the other his blue hen-7043 from Theunissen.The distance between Kroonstad and Theunissen are +- 100Km. Bare in mind that the Kroonstad birds were liberated 3½ hours before the Theunissen birds. The next bird in the Board was clocked 79 minutes later in Paarl, about 40km closer to race point. What an astonishing achievement!!!!

Blue Hen SA FB 2005 - 7043

Now let’s talk about the birds, management and his setup. The birds housed in the lofts are a blend of Hermans via Charles Kerekes, Catrysse via the late Miggel du Preez and a few Sierens via Ronnie Matthews. The Hermans / Catrysse crossings gave him excellent results over the long distance races and especially the progeny of his Check hen crossed with the sons of his Blouman. Blouman is a Catrysse cock with prolific breeding abilities and is sire and grandsire to countless winners.

Foundation Hen-Hermans ______Blouman - Catrysse

4 x winner (2nd Bloemfontein fed)

1st Fed, 6th Theunissen Board

1st Kimberley Fed

The above 3 pigeons as well as the Theunissen Board winner are all children of the foundation check hen X sons of Blouman. To date his Check hen already bred 11 winners. Even though Andrew’s family of birds is as good as anybody could wish for, he is always on the lookout for superior birds to improve his stock and regularly buys pigeons at the Sun City auctions. Andrew is also somebody who likes to help other fanciers and in his own club there are guys like P. Daniels, E Esau and R Sym that already won Feds with his birds.

Everything at Andrew’s residence is done with pigeon racing in mind, even his bedroom was built in such a way that he could sit on his bed and wait for his birds from the races and then walk a mere 8 to 10 metres from his bedroom to clock them. His breeding lofts are very spacious with a big aviary for the birds to get some time in the sun. His race lofts are divided into 3 compartments, 1 fitted with perches only and the other 2 perches and nest boxes. He loves to race his birds on different nest positions and the extra motivation helps a lot, especially on the longer distances. His birds in general are very tame, and I was amazed to see a cock fly out at 21h00 to perch on the roof of his stock loft and then just came back in as if it was daytime.

Andrew don’t manage his team to a set program, but rather plan his program one week at a time according to the needs of his loft. He believes in regular canker treatments in the summer months and alternates the following products, Soft trico, Flagyl, Emtryl and Turbosole. For respiratory ailments he prefers to use Longstim and Furasol. As far as his feeding regime is concerned he prefers a 4 - 1 mixture of maize and peas for the short and middle distances and increases the maize on the long distance to 6 - 1. He also gives his birds a lot of white sorghum on Wednesday and Thursday. For the middle and long distances his birds gets a depurative mixture consisting of barley, sunflower, safflower, sorghum, wheat, peas and linseed. The depurative mixture is fed from Friday to Monday,Tuesday to Thursday they get racing mixture. Training is done twice a week. Saturday’s from De Doorns (+/- 130km) and Tuesday’s from Worcester (+/-100km). The birds are circled for an hour twice daily when they are not trained .Cleaning is done everyday and the lofts are washed and flamed every 2 months. When in doubt about anything regarding his birds he consults with his friend Ronnie Matthews whom he considers to be his mentor.

In conclusion I sincerely thank Andrew for accommodating me for this interview as he’s in the construction business and gets home late at night. Furthermore I would also like to add that if we had more fanciers like Andrew in the sport today then there is definitely hope for our beautiful and fascinating sport in the days to come...

Article by NM September-“The Black Cock”