Francis Vanhamel from Beverlo wins 1st National Ace Pigeon sprint youngsters KBDB 2022
29 Jan 2023
The championships and especially the ace pigeons in the national championships KBDB 2022 were extremely low, the level gets better every year and the competition gets tougher and tougher. The guidance of the top fanciers has improved and everything is all about being able to play top. For the winner with the youngsters in the sprint, we go to Beverlo in Limburg, where we visit Francis Vanhamel. His super crack "Romulus" became 1st National Ace Pigeon Sprint Young Birds KBDB 2022.
For Francis this was a very special year after the performance of “Romulus” you are suddenly in the spotlight and he is not used to that. But the pigeon in itself deserves all the credit and I am glad that I was able to breed such a classy bird. For Francis, the pigeon sport started at the age of 10 with his father in the parental lofts in Beverlo. He went to school, but spent most of his time outside with the pigeons. Due to the work as a teacher and football coach, the pigeon sport was put on the back burner after graduation and he stopped pigeon racing for a while. In 2015 he took a new start in the current lofts and it gets better and better every year. He has been general champion in the sprint for several years in a row and aims to be able to compete with the very best in the provincial races in the coming years. In 2018 he became 4th National Champion Sprint with the youngsters and the parents of "Romulus" produce good pigeons with different partners every year.
So the restart came in 2015, Francis was a trainer in Tongeren and came into contact with Frans Rondags. He first received 4 eggs and then 4 couples on loan to breed. Afterwards he visited Kristof Mondelaers who then stopped his hobby and he brought the father of “Romulus” with him. This cock got 2 hens right in the winter of 2021-2022, the years before he always had a regular hen, but I still wanted to pair him again. Francis coupled him with a 100% Frans Rondags hen and from this comes this powerhouse, his nest sister has also flown well but not as well as him. He can now take care of the offspring in the breeding loft. I didn't have other brothers or sisters to play since I only put this pair together once.
Focus on the speed
Over the years I have preferred to play speed, there is a nice interplay with many pigeons and the time I had was enough to only race speed. Now the focus will gradually shift towards the middle distance and try to continue to perform just as well in the sprint with a slightly smaller loft.
There is room for 26 cocks in the widower's loft, which raise the eggs of the breeders in the winter. Apart from a few toppers who are allowed to raise their own youngsters. In March there is no 2nd coupling anymore, the pigeons come back outside at the beginning of March, because here too there are many problems due to the bushy area with birds of prey. In the beginning they train 1x per day, afterwards this temp is increased to 2x per day during the season. They only train once a day when it is very hot in the evening.
The widowers are raced purely on widowhood from April to the beginning of
August and they get to see their dish or hen very briefly (10 minutes) at basketing. When you get home, this is also very short in the beginning (30 minutes) and afterwards it always gets longer and longer.
Young pigeons
The youngsters of the 1st and 2nd round are together and this group is about 50 to 60 pieces. These are darkened from the beginning of March to the beginning of June, the 3rd round is no longer darkened. I light it from the beginning of July until the end of the season, but only in the evening until 11 p.m. I put a lot of time into training and driving the pigeons, for speed this is the most important thing in my opinion. In preparation I drive it a lot at short distances and during the season I drive it 3x a week up to 20km. Usually I release the hens here first and then the cocks a few minutes later. The difference in time from the beginning until they really know the system is a few minutes and that's what it's all about. Throughout the week, the pigeons do not often train at home and this is usually only half an hour and 1x per day.
With every training flight during the week, they are together for a maximum of 10 minutes, when I come home by car I immediately separate them and they no longer train that day. The sexes are separated here after they have had 3 flights in the wings.
If I drive on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, the pigeons do not see each other on the evening of basketing, if I do this on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, they come together for fifteen minutes on Friday evening. This increases to a maximum of 1 hour towards the end of the season. When I return home, it is important that the couples are really well paired and they stay together until the morning after, if that is all ok I will bring this back to the early evening on the day of return itself.
When returning home during the week, all boxes or extra motivation are closed, at the weekend during the race everything opens. But everything remains in the loft all week.
Ace Pigeon Romulus
A special story belongs to special pigeons, the 1st flight on June 4th he won the 4th prize from Momignies against 662 pigeons, a week later he just stayed away from home for a week. He came back, got time to recover from Francis and resumed all training during the week and was ready to fight again. On July 2nd it was time, the 2nd flight of his career could start. He won the 10th against 919 pigeons from Momignies and hopefully left again. No, it only got better because from then on he won the 1st prize locally 5 weeks in a row and in the combined game he won his national title together against 1000 or more pigeons. A classy pigeon who raced 7 times in his career and his worst prize was a 10th against 919 pigeons. The distance from Soissons (226km) suits him better than Momignies, because here he flew 1st and 2nd against at least 2,861 pigeons in 2 weeks.
After that 7th flight and enough prizes for national ace pigeon, it was decided to stop him, not an easy decision since you have to stop a top pigeon in top condition. But later it turns out that this was the only and correct decision because he brought the gold to Beverlo and the risk of losing such a top pigeon always exists.
BE 22-5088495 “Romulus” Cock
1st National Ace young birds speed KBDB 2022
1st World Best Pigeon Speed 2022
1 S.Prov.Soissons 2.861p
1 Soissons 1.052p ( 2 S.Prov. 3.185p )
1 Momignies 1.106p ( 5 S.Prov. 3.046p )
1 Momignies 784p ( 2 S.Prov. 3.282p )
1 Momignies 692p ( 24 S.Prov. 3.105p )
4 Momignies 662p ( 22 S.Prov. 2.469p )
10 Momignies 919p
Sire BE 14-2065050 Mark Janssens
Gr.F. BE 13-5031080 Super breeder - Mark Janssens
Father of “038/20” 12 x 1st – “017/17” 10 x 1st – “374/21” 7 x 1st
Son of “018/12” 1 Prov Ace Pigeon Sprint Young Birds KBDB 2012 ( 11 Nat Ace Pigeon 2012 )
x “001/12” Full sister “018/12”
Gr.M. BE 13-5033640 Sister King of Sprint - Mark Janssens
Full sister “King of Sprint” 1st National Ace pigeon Sprint yearlings KBDB 2015 -
12th Nat. Ace Pigeon Sprint Young Birds KBDB 2014
Dam BE 16-51510953 Francis Vanhamel
Gr.F. BE 10-5121252 Top breeder – 100% Frans & Gert Rondags
Son of “843/07” Rondags x “800/08” Daughter Speedy Girl Rondags
Gr.M. BE 12-5019123 Top breeding hen - 100% Frans & Gert Rondags
Daughter of “485/08” Line Figo Rondags x “271/04” Daughter 3 x 1st prize winner
Power supply
After weaning, the youngsters are given breeding mixture for another 3 weeks and then I switch to 1/3 Moult, 1/3 Vandenabeele and 1/3 Start Matador. They get this twice a day until the season starts. In the season itself I use the Matador mixtures, which are Start, Athletic and Turbo Energy. When they come in after each training they get peanuts with some hempseed and candy seed. On the day of basketing they only get food in the morning and then it is 1 spoonful per pigeon.
I don't use a different product on a daily basis, I try to stick with me and some of the things they get on a weekly basis. This is Belgasol from Belgica – De Weerd and Nutri Power at home, Konditiepowder once a week and Tolyamin Forte from Schroeder – Tollisan also once a week.
In terms of vaccinations I do 2x Rota – Paramyxo with the youngsters and 1 x Smallpox. In the autumn I treat the pigeons against paratyphus and they were not vaccinated last winter, the year before that was the case. For tricho and airways I cure the pigeons before the season and I use the yellow drop in the beak every week during the season. For the respiratory tract, I repeat the course 2 more times throughout the season, usually every 6 to 8 weeks.
Francis, congratulations from the whole HERBOTS TEAM on this great class box and your other results.
Buelens Kim
