Loft Esther Vereecke

Behind ‘loft Esther Vereecke’, you will find Esther Vereecke and Hugo Moris. At home in the rural village of Beerzel (Putte). The partnership between Esther and Hugo started in 2015, when these friends decided to race and take care of the birds together. They used to live in the same village (Onze-Lieve-Vrouw Waver) and have the same passion: pigeons. Now, the birds are raced at Esthers’ place.

Hugo has a lot of experience in pigeon racing. It goes back to the early 80’s when Hugo and his father Frans Moris (now passed away), raced at the national level, with one of their specialties being long distance. Hugo and Frans were a well known, high quality loft in pigeonracing. They achieved 5 national victories as well as 1th semi-national and 1th inter-regional victory. Between 1982 and 2007 they also won several provincial races.

Hugo has the advantage of a lot of time tested experience. Esther started pigeon racing on her own in 2008. She had to start from ‘zero’. She go into racing at the short distance races, then went further to middle distance (2011) and made a seamless step to the national races, with success! Experience and younger talent make an excellent combination here! A real formula for successful pigeonracing. The focus of their operation is to successfully race youngsters and widowhood year/old hens on the national races, up to 550km.

Youngsters

Esther was a passionate cyclist, who could always manage well in a bunch of sportive riders. Cycling and bird racing, are not so very different. To perform well, the athletes needs healthy food, lots of training and rest under ideal circumstances and atmosphere.

Youngsters are trained very often.  At loft Esther Vereecke, they start early familiarizing the youngsters with a transport basket. They put several open baskets on the loft, so they can get used to the basket and the transport by car. The youngsters can walk in and out of the baskets, even get feed in them. Road training of the young birds happens in several stages: first the field behind the loft, and then with a few kilometers at a time in both South and Southwest directions. When the youngsters are basketed for the first short distance club race, they are already used to the basket, so they stay relaxed. The year birds and old birds get these stages of training every season, first close to the loft an then the further distances.  A new season , starts training back from scratch!

The young darkened hens and cocks are separated after the 200 km race. These youngsters are weaned in January and February . During the racing season, they are raced on the ‘sliding door’ system. Hens and cocks live in a separate compartment and before basketing, the widow boxes and the doors in between them are opened, so they can be together and mate for several hours. During the racing season the birds get a medical check every 3 weeks. Veterinarian Docter Johan Nys (Itegem) checks the birds and they only medicate on his advice and after they are certain what is wrong. Esther and Hugo do not treat preemptively. Before and during the season, the birds get a lot of natural supplements to build their resistance and the immune system of their body: Hepatoveto, apple vinegar, Sedochol, go consecutive into the drinking water. These supplements are used 4 days after each other, then 1 day clear water, followed by 4 days of the suppelements, etc…

After the youngsters are weaned, the feeding mixture changes from breeding to moulting mixture, enriched with oily seeds, peanuts, hazelnuts, sunflower seeds… The birds are provided daily with fresh mixture of dried seaweed, clay stone, red stone, minerals daily.

Living and training like a top sports player

Once the racing season starts, the birds are loft flown once a day. When the birds are trained by car in the morning, they still loft flown in the afternoon. The widowhens also go along with the youngsters on all road trainings.

However, in the beginning of the race week, the pigeons get ‘open loft’, which means they get the opportunity to relax, have a bath, sit on the roof or on the lawn, go outside, back inside and out again whenever they want to. They are not forced to train and the birds enjoy this way of recovery. Hok Esther Vereecke believes the birds can reload much faster by doing this. Physical and mental well being are needed to recover from racing stress. On this loft, everything is done to make the birds feel beloved. Some fanciers find it a strange way of working, but a womans’ touch on the loft can work miracles, which it does here. When you look at the results, you may notice the difference.

Season 2017

Loft Esther Vereecke started the season with about 100 youngsters. After rigorous selection, only 30 youngsters remained. From the suriving young young bird team, only the hens will be selected to race as year birds. Meanwhile, the breeding loft is not being forgotten. All the race results and the breeding program are analyzed and kept up to date, so at the end of the racing season, they can evaluate every racer and every breeder on the loft.

There is a constant search for new, young and good birds. Every year birds are brought into the racing team. The new ones get a whole season the change to prove themselves. Esther and Hugo try to select the best racers for the breeding loft. Not a guarantee for breeding success, but by doing it this way, you only get high performing birds as breeders, so the possibility of a good descendant is realistic. Sometimes there is the temptation to race a good yearbird further as an old bird, but here, they believe the breeding loft is the fundation of pigeonracing. There is space for about 15 breeding couples. So, some of them go out and others join the breeding loft. The birds for other fanciers who are brought into the racing loft are mostly birds that race about 200 km and sometimes birds for middle distance. It is a constant search for strength together with speed. On this loft they don’t believe at first sight in pedigrees, but in real birds!

We are looking forward for next season! Good luck!

Topresults:

2013:

Bourges (july): 41th, 77th, 102nd national (on 18478 youngsters – 469 km)

Bourges (july): 56th national (on 11883 yearbirds)

2014: the year of the move from Onze-Lieve-Vrouw Waver, to the place in Beerzel (Putte)

2015:

Argenton (August): 71th national (on 11223 youngsters – 548 km)

Argenton (August): 88th national (on 2418 yearbirds)

2016:

Châteauroux (september):60th, 70th national (on 14762 youngsters – 519 km)

Argenton (August): 7th national (on 19592 youngsters – 548 km)

Argenton (August): 59th national (4582 yearbirds)

Souppes-sur-Loing: 1sth region Mechelen (on 724 yearbirds) middle distance

2017:

Châteauroux (August):59th national (on 4386 yearbirds)

Bourges (August): 89th national (on 12416 yearbirds)

Chévrainvilliers: 1th region Mechelen (on 1013 youngsters – 347 km)

Argenton (June): 55th national (on 22697 yearbirds)

 

Loft Esther Vereecke managed season 2017 with 13 victories, 3 places in the top-100 national (55,59,89) and 25 times top-100 provincial!

On top of that they achieved 23th national acepigeon on the middle distance with the youngsters, as well as 18th place national: best youngster on 4 national races middle distance.

Also descendents are performing well at other lofts:

– youngster: acepigeon Derby Brod (Croatia) 2015

– direct descendent: King ‘s Cup Winner (742 km) Thailand, january 2016

– direct descendent: 1th on 463 yearbirds (400 km) IAPC Portugal

– youngster: winner 2nd hotspotrace, Derby Brod (Croatia) 2016

– youngster: 38th place in final Algarve Great Derby (Portugal), 2017

– direct descendant: 3th place in hotspot race (Waeng Yai – Bangkok, 330 km) TGPR one loft

race, Bangkok, Thailand – December 2017