Dominic: Our journey began with my father’s passion for racing pigeons in the mid-80s, where I grew up around the loft, soaking in every detail. It wasn’t until the mid-90s that I started taking a more active role, transitioning to a widowhood system and achieving good results across the waters.
In the e
arly 2000s, I made travels with my now-wife. Wherever we went, the pigeons came along, becoming a constant in our lives. Despite relocating multiple times, the pigeons maintained their competitive edge, though not always with standout success.
Settling into our current address in 2011 coincided with the arrival of our son and the expansion of our home. Balancing family life and my business in chimney sweeping, left little time for the pigeons, and their performance reflected this.
My own line of pigeons are from my late friend Pieter Oberholster . In 2009 I was given 10 unrung babies for payment for working on his house. These mixed with a pair of Hagans went on to be very good breeders. And more importantly breeder of of other breeders. In 2020 with my pigeon colony becoming too much inbred. I met Thomas from PIPA and had a interesting conversation with him a couple of year earlier and with the help of Pieter I ordered two cocks from Best Kittel II, one of the best breeders in the world. being a big favorite of coloured pigeons I asked if one son of Best Kittel II could be a grizzle and I was lucky to have a full brother to Grizzle BK before he was famous.
Then I bought two double Best Kittels from Pieter and a selection of hens from the Pipa. My favorit being BK 1st Ace super racer in her own right for Vermeerbergen-Wilms is a great hen in the loft proving herself with children and grandchildren winning in the club. A son winning 42nd super ace 63rd final in Dubai. Now the others are showing signs of good breeders as a full brother to BK Grizzel is starting to show full potential.
For the first few years I have put the better young birds in the stock loft especially when they came late from a bad road training or late from a bad race. Both of these pigeons from Best Kittel 1st ace have now bred winners. She is starting to be the mother of my loft, the stock loft and I am seeing their blood come to the front.
I breed 60 young birds for racing and i like to send to a couple of one loft races. I race under Team Ratel in one loft races . At the moment I like to send to Dubai OLR and the the Victoria Falls Race a small team of 5 or 8 pigeons as I want to test my pigeon against the world .
I was very happy with the performance of my pigeons in the Dubai OLR, with 3 of my 8 pigeons doing great in the final and the Ace competitions.
