ANDRE MOONENS

of Strombeek-Bever, Belgium

by Les J. parkinson

Andre Moonens

There are always fanciers to visit wherever you go in the world but with me I very often look in on Belgium because I have Frans & Guillaume, who take me to see many of the modern day up to date winners. I have seen many reports of top winning fanciers in the British facny press but when I have gone to Belgium many of them are not rated because their winnings are far from the top awards availbale in their area. I have had many open invitations to lofts but I like to make my own mind up on who I visit and only after a bit of research. Who and where do these reportedly top fanciers come from? Well it is the fancy press that puts them on a pinnacle and what dictates many is money and that puts them on a higher level than they really are, especially when the slaes come round.

Bath time in the aviary

I am always looking for the top winners who deserve a mention and I, like many in my early days, have fallen foul of what the papers have had to say. Nowadays I am more inclined to look and ask a few questions about fanciers before I go and visit them. I am not going to mention names because that would not be fair but there are fanciers who have yet to prove themselves who have been declared Ace fanciers and world beaters but are not even their local club's best fanciers at any level of competition.

For this report I am reporting on a fancier who I had not heard of before and I didn’t even know that he was once the loft manager for Marc De Cock, who was 1st National 4th International Barcelona with the now very famous “Red Barcelona” that the late Brian Long purchased.

Grills up for a big clean out

Andre Moonens did gain a very good reputation as a loft manager but has also gained the accolades because of his top class performances in his own back garden. He has many top awards including 1st National Bourges 30,759 youngsters and the fastest pigeon of 55,781 pigeons. Andre does like the middle distance races and like so many Belgium fanciers the Bourges races at the end of July are the ones to win. Andre was saying that this race is the one for the middle distance fanciers in much the same way that Barcelona is for the long distance fanciers and rated as the premier race on the calendar.

Andre has been actively involved in the pigeon racing for more than 38yrs. He managed the lofts of Marc De Cock for about 8yrs and also had a spell racing with veterinary surgeon Dirk Moens where he also had plenty of success. Wherever he went he was a successful fancier and that sucess continued when he once again started to race on his own in 2008. With the experience that Andre had there wss no doubt that he was not going to take very long to get in amongst the winners. It didn’t take long before Andre won 1st Provincial Ace pigeon in the Middle Distance catagory young birds 2009. This really marked the start of a new era for Andre and he showed his fellow competitors that he could race pigeons in his own right. Then 12 months later the 1st National win was the highlight of his solo career in racing pigeons and they had to take notice of the performances acheived in his own back garden.

Hens' loft

To achieve sucess every fancier needs good pigeons no matter how good they are  in their own right as a pigeon fancier they need good pigeons. With his sucess in other lofts that he had managed he knew many winning fanciers and Andre went in search of good pigeons from the top lofts around. Some of the fanciers he went to I had never heard of but they are top winning fanciers. They included such fanciers as Louis Vandeneynde, Van De Wijngaert plus the ever presnt winning loft of Erik Limbourg with other sources being Ward Moons, Marc De Cock, Petrus Dehaes and the well known and very succesfull fancier Karel Boeckx. From these sources Andre built up a team of 20 pairs of stock birds because he was basing his stock team on what he required and that is a team of 100 young birds for his race team.

The lofts

The young bird lofts are nothing like I have seen before. It is known as a sliding door system with aviaries all along the front and I have never seen so many in and out places in a loft. These young birds are trained in stages and until they beat Andre home they do not go on to the next stage by then they are on a good line home. The young cocks are generally kept in the middle distance but the hens have a differnet agenda because they are prepared for the National races. Where we like to exercise our pigeons around home this is not very often done at these lofts. However they need their exercise so they are trained on Tuesday and Wednesday from a distance of 65/70 km that is aimed at keeping them keen for the races. Even though the young birds are separated they are trained together but after they have been in their home for half an hour the sexes are separated again. Then before they are besketed for a race they are put together again for between 30 to 60mins.

The stock lofts

The old birds are raced on the traditional widowhood system that is used by so many lofts around Europe. We all have our own view on what to feed the pigeons and for Anre it is the Matador and they start in the early part of the week with a clearout after the use of  Start mixture. Then when they get into the week they go onto the Sport mixture, then finishing the week with Turbo Energy that is made up of a fatty type mixture. Then if there is any doubt as to the condition of the birds Andre consults Eddy Noël who is the feeding advisor  for the Matador range of feeds for Belgium. We all have our own idea of the range of products that we prefer and for Andre they are the Backs system is stuck to at this loft. I cannot say much about the old bird loft because we saw very little of it because of the racing that was in progress at the time.

I have asked Andre to complete a questionnaire but whether he will is another matter because he is always busy. Once again thanks to Guillaume and Frans for taking me to see Andre and his fine team of racing and breeding pigeons.