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Maurice DeWaele
and Alex Schoors





The widowers' loft
 



The hallway in
the widowers' loft

Inside the widowers'
loft in winter

The Schoors-DeWaele
youngbird loft

The hens' racing loft




The corridor of
the hens' loft




Electronic clocking
set-up




Inside the breeding loft





The aviary for the
stockbirds

Elevated drinkers

Drinkers are dried
every day



"Black Nose"






"Blauwen Van Loon"





"De Argenton Duivin"





"De Marseille"





"Khadaffi"





"Laureaat '94 Duivin"





"Little Porsche"





"Michiel"

"Popeye"



"Terminator"




"Mistral"

Alex continues, "We didn't treat in 2003 against ornithosis." Maybe you're not going to believe it, but it's true. We worked a lot on the ventilation system of the lofts, and we must say that it worked. Before, we had a lot of ventilation with a lot of air above the birds. Now, we closed almost everything and the results were suddenly better."

"Widowers are normally basketted every three weeks. The first week after arrival we feed them Super Diet with a lot of Sedochol in the drinkers. The second week we give 50% Super Diet and 50% racing mixture. The week of basketting we give 100% racing mixture. Of course, we give vitamins, but never the same. We change things up a lot," Alex says.

YOUNGBIRDS

"From the moment that the early youngsters are weaned, 25 young cocks are put in a separate loft," Alex continues. "In the middle of June they are paired with an old hen. It takes around 14 days to make them pair, and if there are some couples who couple quickly and have eggs, we don't consider that a problem." "On basketting day hens and cocks come together for about one hour," Alex explains. "This happens the whole season. Ten years of experience taught us that young cocks grow in the widowhood system. The first national is not always good but the other races are tops."

"The other young birds are raced on nest position," Alex continues. "Maurits likes to race youngsters on nests. Twice a day the nest youngsters train, and we must say that we don't have any training problems. What is the ideal nest position? That's hard to say. It varies from bird to bird. The results on the second nest are normally better than on the first nest. It is always noted when a youngster won top prizes on a certain nest position because on the second nest it will fly very well again in the same position. Then he or she will be loaded with more money."
"When youngbirds don't race well on their first nest, we don't let them bring up their youngsters," Alex says. "Now when their youngsters are about seven days old we take them away, and they can start immediately with their second nest."

"The youngsters are darkened from the end of March until the end of May for the youngsters on nests, and until the end of June for those on widowhood," Alex clarifies. "The curtains are closed from 6:00 p.m. until 8:00 a.m. When you darken is not important as long as it is dark in the loft for 14 hours."

"With medication concerns, you have to treat youngsters very carefully," Alex cautions. "After weaning, they receive a five-day treatment against trichomoniasis, and during the season we treat against this disease every week for day, the day after arrival. We don't treat against ornithosis."

"In the early days," Alex concludes, "We didn't put a lot of work into training the youngsters, but now we train them also five times before they go to 50km with the club. Once they learn this well, they are basketted every week."