Article Published: 31 July 2011

Randy Engelbrecht (Editor)
45 on School
Klein Begin
Kraaifontein
7570




Unscrupulous, Thieving, Cheating Pigeon Fanciers!!

For many years pigeon racing had been classed as a sport of gentlemen, a sport of men who would do an honest eight to five job and then come home and barely had enough time to spend with their pigeons before it became too dark to see.

There was no such luxury of a well-lit loft and the next morning fanciers had to just leave the food on the loft floor and leave for work while it was still dark. For many it became a real passion and enjoyable pastime, away from the hours and hours of hard labour they put in at their respective jobs.

Many years later the sport had evolved to the extent that fanciers could afford to have reasonably well structured lofts, including electric lighting to be able to even see to the needs of their pigeons after dark. As the interest of friends and family grew, more and more fanciers entered the sport. Today, there are probably close to eleven hundred fanciers practising their hobby just in the Western Cape alone.

As with all things in life, pigeon racing underwent major changes throughout the last few years. Fanciers from the more affluent areas with a bit more money to spend entered the sport. Technology became part and parcel of the sport with the advent of electronic clocks. Rings with an electronic chip were being used to give fanciers a slight advantage over the hand clocks with the need to first catch the bird and removing the rubber ring first becoming obsolete for such fanciers, which is what gave rise to me writing this article.

Over the past weekend, I had the dubious honour of getting two birds back from the race from Beaufort West. Nothing sinister in that when you sent your birds to the race then, but when one of them comes home after a year with a race rubber ring on it tells you that someone trapped the bird and instead of reporting it, decided to home it and race the bird without permission. The second bird came home the Monday morning without its electronic ring which can only mean that some unscrupulous, thieving fancier claimed it for himself. This bird won a race from Laingsburg the past Sunday.

This phenomena had become almost second nature to some unscrupulous, thieving fanciers who think nothing of actually stealing a twenty rand chip ring off a pigeon. One wonders what goes through the mind of such a fancier, knowing that the pigeon’s owner now has to go through the process of going to his race secretary, possibly some five or so kilometres away, cancel the chip and spending another twenty rand on a new ring. Strange that everyone is complaining about the cost of pigeon racing these days, yet these so-called fanciers do not think twice of stealing a ring from another fancier.

Come on, guys! Go buy your own! How do you live with yourself, or are you the same kind of fancier that will dope your bird to try and win a race?