Cosijn Robrecht - Pollare 1st and 2nd Provincial Bourges 3,796 yearling birds 1st and 2nd Nat (z) Bourges 2,652 yearlings

‘Boenk erop’...voilà that's how we would put it. This achievement is really putting the dots neatly just above the ‘i’. If you know that Robrecht only houses 7 hens and 2 of them show proverbially all Eastern Flanders Bourges racers their tails, further explanation is simply superfluous. Results like these can safely be thrown on the table with a great deal of pride. 

For those for whom the name Robrecht Cosijn sounds a bit unfamiliar. Well last year Robrecht won the 2nd provincial and 4th national Sancoins against 12,962 old birds and a week later our sympathetic East-Fleming won the 1st provincial and 2nd national against 8,867 old birds on national Argenton. 

Robrecht is not the man to shout it from the rooftops. He is the ‘calm self’ but enjoys, together with his family, these achievements his limited hens team put on paper very intensely. 

‘Elza’ B24-4004526: 1st provincial Bourges

‘Joke’ B24-4004521: 2nd provincial Bourges

Total widowhood

The 2025 season was started with a group of 12 cocks and 12 hens. Currently 7 hens and 7 cocks are still home. Some were already selected out and others died or injured themselves on the field of honour. 

These 14 racers are played according to the system of total widowhood. The intention is that the hens fly the large middle distance and the cocks the long distance. The cocks are housed in lofts with living boxes while the hens are in an aviary behind the lofts. When the hens are released, the cocks go through a small opening towards the aviary. The hens enter the ‘regular loft’...eat and drink and while the cocks go loose. Once the hens have emptied the dis, they go back to the aviary and the cocks come back in on their loft. An ideal rotation system if you ask me. 

System and base

The race team bred early, but they raised young from the breeders. On 1/12, the 24-couple breeders were paired and these eggs went to feeder couples. The breeders came up with eggs again and the eggs from the main couples went under the racers which were paired on 14/12. In this way, they quickly got several youngsters from their most important breeders. 

At the beginning of April, the racing team was paired again and reared. After 5 days, they were separated. Robrecht: ‘In terms of care, nothing is left to chance and both before and during the season we work a lot with natural products that have a positive influence on the airways. Here we think of Sliepzand (via drinking), Respi Top, etc... . During the preparation of the season, these products are given for 5 consecutive days. Just before the effective start of the season, we sit down in the waiting room of vet Wim Boddaert (Oostkamp) and on his advice, treatments are then given or not. They did get set free of tricho (during the season weekly with yellow drops).

During the season, we give ‘Recovery’ (Koehoorn) on returning home and then for 2 days the aforementioned natural products As a control, we drip pigeons ourselves with ‘blue drops’ and if these subside smoothly, we are a bit more reassured again.

The feed comes from Paloma. At the beginning of the week, 3 parts ‘D21’ and 1 part ‘Super Diet’. Feeding is done with ‘D100’ and candy seed. Some feeding is done by feel with a tablespoon as a yardstick. 

As far as motivation is concerned, we no longer put the sexes together on the day of basketing. The day before basketing we release the pigeons at 15km. We first release the hens and 10 minutes later the cocks and when we come home half an hour later we separate the sexes. 

The basis of our colony was formed over the years. In 2010 some pigeons were bought from Jan Pappens, a year later we were at the front door of Gebroeders Vandenheede and pigeons from the line of ‘Morgane’ were bought. In 2013, we were lucky enough to purchase several pigeons from Gaby Vandenabeele (including children ‘Rudy’). In 2020, we were back at Vandenheede's front door and children of ‘Matteo’ disappeared into our basket. Last purchase are pigeons from Florian Hendriks and these are now proving at Bourges that it will not be a bad investment. 

Robrecht and Agnes...enjoy these top performances to the full and who knows what the coming weeks will bring. 

Congratulations from the whole Herbots team

Stefan Mertens