Article Posted 06 July 2008
By CJ Richter

This partnership is of father and son, and one of their earliest breakthroughs was when they realised you must have a feeling for pigeons from the heart. You are born with this and as you travel down the road to success you must also be in the company of other good fanciers and learn as much as you can from each other.

At stock, this father and son partnership start the season off with birds for sprint, middle and long distance races. Stock birds are selected from birds with good shape, well-balanced and they must have good quality feathering and strong backs. All birds must have these qualities, no deviations allowed. Most of all they like pigeons that arrive early to the loft, most of their champions possess these qualities.



Management

The lofts are scraped out daily, except the stock loft where the inmates are kept on deep litter. The racing loft are wooden floored which are kept clean throughout the racing season. As it seem to be a happy loft the birds circle and road train with such vigour that the partnership is quite happy the way things are. All the birds are on a good local commercial grain mixture and feeding time they are allowed to have as much as they prefer. Minerals and grit are given freely over weekends or early in the week. The partnership are firm believers in that antibiotics should only be given when it is absolutely necessary and when it is certain what is wrong in order to know what medicine should be given. The birds are vaccinated against Paramyxiovirus and treated against Cocci, Canker and worms before the start of each racing and breeding season.

Pillars

The pillars of this racing partnership is built around pigeons obtained from:

a) J H September (NSHU).

b) Gunther (NRHU), Catrysse.

c) J Nel (NRHU).

Birds


SA CMHU 1998 12499 2nd Federation Springfontein 800km (Only 4 birds through on day)


ERDHU 1997 0234 Foundation Cock (Gunther Catrysse)


SAFB 2005 2423 Put to stock after excellent performances in numerous races.

Robust youngsters that enabled him to become 2007 NSHU Champion.

Administration

I asked CLT Haupt, the father of the partnership, all sorts of things about the sport and its administration. Though he believes that there is a need for rules, it should be guidelines, not rigidly observed break them at your peril laws which stunt the growth of the sport, creating apathy amongst members when they can not implement changes.

He also believes we need a PRO and should blow our own trumpet to let the public know our efforts, for, while bad publicity is easily come by, the good variety is not so easy to get hold of. Haupt also believes that the cost of setting up in the sport these days, puts off an awful lot of would-be fanciers and that we should encourage youngsters as much as we can.

Always curious about what fanciers regard as their greatest thrill, I asked him what outstanding memory he had. He smiled, and without hesitation answered topping the Federation (NSHU) and being 10th in the Federated Board averages in the 2007 season.