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AAvviiccuullttuurree EEuurrooppee Theo v/d Bogaard is 56 years old and has pigeons since the age of 5. He is a breeder of King pigeons from the bottom of his heart and today he is a know King fancier in Holland and abroad, admired for his splendid breeding results in the colour varieties white, black, brown, andalusian, blue black barred and black tigered. Theo is a regular reader of our digital magazine Aviculture Europe; he looks forwards to each new issue and thinks it is of value for the fancy. A reason for him to participate in this

interview is because he wants to show the world what he is doing. Beside the pigeons Theo has also some Cochin bantams, a rabbit and a French bulldog. He used to have Japanese bantams in yellow blacktail, but his son preferred something else, thus lately he bought these blue Cochin bantams plus one lavender female at the

well-known animal market in Straubing, Bayern (Germany) on Epiphany (Jan. 6th) It’s a 760 km. drive, but he and his wife go there every year. Then he visits the market and several breeders. After so many years he knows everyone and is welcome everywhere. Already in August this year he had a phone call from ‘their’ Straubing hotel, as they had a request by a German club to book the complete hotel, but the hotel owner thought that Theo and his group had the oldest rights. Immediately Theo contacted a number of fanciers to confirm their participation and this year again some 30 fanciers set off to Straubing. Right: The two years old French bulldog, a nice companion breed of dogs, well educated and adapted entirely to the

pigeon hobby of his boss. If there are visitors or ‘strangers’ the French bulldog always ensures that he stays between the visitor and the pigeons. One day the dog was lost and

after a while found in a breeding compart-ment next to the nest bowl, while the pi-geons had to walk over him, to reach their food. Left: Two prizes won by Theo. On the right a statute of at least 20 years ago. The one on the left was won in 2008, as a honourable prize at the German specialty Club show for Second Best white King. The difference in type is clearly visible here. While talking enthusiastically about the sociability during the common meals in Straubing, Theo opened a photo album on his computer. He pointed a German pigeon breeder who has at least 300 white Runt

pigeons at home. In another photo a German breeder tries to determine the sex of a King, by using a sex indicator (his wedding ring on a thread) after he tried to sell two females as a couple to Theo. In another picture, they are admiring a real ancient tractor, having pulley belts at the side. Right: With pride Theo showed some of his diplomas. On the wall you can see ‘De Grote Prijs van Nederland’ awarded by the Ornithophilia organisation, won on the Avicorni show/National Championship Show of the NBS of December 2008 in Utrecht, for the Best Collection of young pigeons. In his hand Theo holds the diploma won at the German King Breeders’ Club Show in Wolfsburg (D) 2008. This city is also known as ‘Volkswagen city’ because of the VW factories. In one of the factory halls the German Specialty club held its annual club show with 600 King pigeons entered. Theo participates in this show each year since 1992 and last year he won Best Collection in Show with 6 Kings. Below: The house of Theo with the pigeon lofts and aviaries, soon the nets will be stretched across the garden, against the birds of prey.

In the morning at four o'clock they go to the hall, the sales start at 4:30 AM. At 7:30 AM there is a coffee break in the hall. Sales will run to 12 noon; then everyone goes home, most of them with a packed car full with animals. Theo goes visiting his German friends, for instance a breeder of white Kings; that man started only a couple of years back with the white colour and is already at the top!

Right: Brown Kings on the aviary roof. They are good flyers in spite of their weight of 900 grams.

Left: Blue black barred King, young female. Feathering in the keel is too fluffy, but the neck/leg line is nice. If you see how he houses them, you won’t believe your eyes. That man keeps a couple of hundred white Kings in an open aviary, with only some plastic around; the birds are simply open and uncovered in the snow! Theo would have liked very much to buy some of his birds, but he got nothing.

Right: White King, Young female, three times entered on a show and had in Germany 97 points and in the Netherlands two times 96 points. Also the annual pigeon market of Wasser-burg on the first Sunday of February is visited frequently. The distance from Kerkdriel to Wasserburg am Inn (D) is a little longer: 825 km. and this market also starts at 4 o’clock in the morning, just like in Straubing. Already in 1994, he won his first large ‘Ehreband’ on a German show, and there were many to follow. The second last Ehreband he won on the specialty club show in Wolfsburg with an andalusian King and the most recent in Dettelbach, with a brown King. At the age of 5, he already had pigeons, generally an ordinary racing pigeon or a Capuchine, or an Old Dutch Capuchine. Then came many years without pigeons, but after his marriage he seriously started with Magpie Croppers, later with English Modenas, but also many other kind of breeds, like Indian Fantails. The disadvantage of that last breed was that it was easily taken from the garden by the birds of prey. This will not happen with a King, simple because it is obviously too heavy for the birds of prey. Still he remains alert for the birds of prey; if they start searching for food for there youngsters it is nevertheless too risky and he pulls nets over his aviaries. Now his Kings still fly to the roof, and if someone was thinking that a King – weighing a kilo - could not fly, you can convinced yourself here to the opposite.

Above: Front view of a brown King, old female. She shows a feather separation in the neck. This bird won the King Ehreband in 2006 in Wolfsburg (D). Right: A side view of the same brown King. A short female with a nice neck/leg line and a good position.

Theo’s son – thirty years old now – took over the love for pigeons from his father; already as a small child he played with the large Croppers of his father. At this moment he doesn’t keep pigeons, but Theo is convinced that he will soon start with Indian Fantails again. Left: Blue chequer King female, the feathering looks a bit loose. The cshould be better.

hequering

After starting with King pigeons in 1976, Theo became member of the animal breeders association ‘t Bontje in Kerkdriel. There was already another club member with King pigeons; he had his pigeons from the well-known King breeder Blok from Woerden. At that time King pigeons were really a rarity at the Dutch shows. In 1977, he won his first Cup with Kings, but he became really enthusiastic after he met Cees Schoonenberg; “then the ball really started rolling”. Cees was his great example and especially the driving force for this hobby. Through Cees Schoonenberg he became a member of the Pigeon Society ‘het Zuiden’ in Eindhoven in 1983. In 1996,

Theo could buy his current house, with a large garden, in which he has plenty of space for his pigeon lofts and aviaries.

Right: Group of Kings in the avia-ry. Remarkable looking are the sitting boards on the gratings, while the pigeons seem to show no specific preference on where to sit. For many years he was a board member of the Pigeon association Bois le Duc’ in ‘s Hertogenbosch. He built a storage building for the

show pens, he was responsible for the condition of the pens and the water and feed cups so he did the maintenance work and made all trestle tables. He also did the catering and up to today he still commits himself to this association. But his heart bleeds, when he sees how they handle the cages and the trays of the association. He has thus suggested to make rules for handling and cleaning and asking a rental fee. The pens must be regularly in mainte-nance and the trays must be cleaned and disinfected. Left: Black King, young female, as an example for a small tail. At this moment he is still the treasurer of the

King Pigeon Club in The Netherlands. This specialty club made a revival lately and counts now 42 active members; that is including the Belgian and German members. Right: Headstudy of a blue black barred King, old female. In Germany the King is a very popular breed, although that is difficult to compare, because there are much more pigeon fanciers than in Holland. If you really want the competition, then you must be in Germany. At an ‘ordinary’ show you will easily find 600 King pigeons, but at the large shows there are a number of 2600 and even more. So, if you - like Theo - reach the top list of the six best breeders, then you have done a great job.

Left: A black tigered and a blue black barred King, both young females. The blue won Best King in Show on Avicorni 2008 with 97 points. However, in this picture it is a bit upright in position. With its 1900 to 2000 members the German King pigeon specialty club is considered as the largest specialty club in the world.

Right: Head study of a Brown King. The breeds up turn in the Netherlands for the quality level of the King pigeon, started a number of years ago, when the members of the Dutch Specialty club visited the big show in Dortmund (D), where they were able to purchase good material. Below: Black tiger King, young female, the same bird as on the previous page.

At the last Avicorni show in December 2008 in Utrecht, Theo won with his Kings ‘De Grote Prijs van Nederland’ for the best collection of four young Kings; for this prize both sexes had to be entered. In his case that were two males and two females, which gained 2 x 96 points and 2 x 97 points. He participated with in total 28 Kings and had four times 96 and three times 97 points. At the Kleindieren Expo in January 2009 Theo won Reserve Champion with an old male King.

Right: Headstudy of a black King, young female. Splendid results, but never-theless over all those years a lot of money has already been invested by Theo in his pigeon hobby. If he sees something to his likings, he is willing to pay for it. Quality can only be found abroad so you must start thinking of paying sums between 500 and 1000 euros. That is the price top breeders in Germany and other European countries ask, only in the Netherlands there are still many breeders who expect that Theo sells his pigeons for 30 to 50 euros per bird. And of course he helps serious breeders with good material for a reasonable price. Meanwhile in Germany after all those years of participating in the shows and visiting the breeders at home, a relation is built and now he no longer has to pay big prices, or any money at all, when exchanging pigeons for new colours or new blood. As an example of the prices, Theo spoke about last year at the VDT show in Nuremberg where he wanted to buy a couple of yellow barred Kings that were sold by auction. He could not be there himself, because he had to go home, but he had found someone to make a bid on his behalf. He had permitted him a maximum of 500 euros, but the couple was sold eventually for 750 euros.

Theo purchased his andalusian Kings in the time that the Dutch pigeon judge Gerrits was still alive; both they had little to none knowledge of the German language, but nevertheless with help of dictionaries and German maga-zines they wrote a letter to four German breeders of the andalusian Kings. Eventually one breeder, which had andalusian Kings to sell, reacted. Left: Front view of a blue black barred King, old female from an old breeding line with nice leg stance. This stock bird was never entered at a show. The main question was however what they had to pay and that was a bit of a shock, because the asking price was 1000 German marks apiece, or 500 euros. But Theo had put his mind to it, so on a Sunday morning the family v/d Bogaard and judge Gerrits left for Kassel (D), for a travel of 420 km. Eventually he bought four pigeons for the agreed amount. Still it was clear that such an amount of money was huge for the family v/d Bogaard and Theo realised that he had to work many overtime hours in the

Kings told him that the price he had paid to import the parents from the USA, was several times more than what he was asking Theo. Fortu-nately could breed a reasonable number of andalusian Kings in the following year, so that his invest-ment could be recovered by selling some youngsters to German bree-ders.

coming time. But the breeder who sold him this andalusian

Right: Head study of a

blue black

With the introduction of the andalusian colour at the Dutch shows, the pigeon judges

ft: A group of Kings, walking free in

barred King. The beak

could be somewhat shorter.

reacted rather different. Obviously it was difficult to accept that in this colour per definition a variation is present and moreover the males have the tendency to be less intensively coloured than the females. Today the same problems occur with the introduction of the brown colour. Four years ago he had the opportunity to purchase three brown females and he worked hard for the perfection and introduction of this colour in The Netherlands. But as

known this feather colour can bleach under the influence of sunlight especially at older birds. Unfortunately there is nothing to do to prevent this. Likewise the observations concerning the false pearl eye; it simply belongs to this colour. To Theo this is very disap-pointing, especially as he put in a lot of effort to introduce this new colour. Lethe garden.

In 2000 the Belgians founded their own Specialty club for the King pigeons. Theo participated from the beginning. Right: Head study of an andalusian King. This old female won in Dettelbach (D) in 2004 the King Ehreband with 97 points. The Belgium King breeders are more oriented on the American type, not only for the tighter feathering but they also strive for a lesser weight of 750 grams. Fortunately the various European countries are rather on one line with each other nowadays. The pigeons are a bit tighter feathered, but that is nothing new. And they are more strict on the correct neck/leg line. This means that the line of the back neck should fall behind the legs, whereas in former days the neck station was more forwarded, so that the neck line ended up before the legs. That gave an impact as if the back was too long. Another point is to pay attention to the width of the tail; you read remarks on almost every judge report. Still in fact nothing has changed; the standard always described the tail to be short and well closed carried. That has remained the same; one just pays more attention to it than in former days. Another detail is the beak, which is wanted now stronger and shorter, but that is also an interpretation of the standard, because a strong and medium long beak was already applied for. Left and right below: Andalusian King, the same old female as above. Nice short beak, but the eye colour is wanted to be more coloured. Also note the colour differences that may occur in the feathers of an andalusian; sometimes some feathers are darker. But most important are the mutual differences between andalusian pigeons. Probably this is inherent in the andalusian colour.

At the moment there are serious plans to organise a European championship for the King pigeon. According to Theo that will probably take place in Germany, where this breed has also the largest support. A good example for such an European championship was the last Club Show of the German Specialty club in Inglestadt (D), which had already a wide international participation from countries such as Hungary, Czech, Denmark, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium and of course from Germany. In Inglestadt the differences came forward, but also and especially the willingness to work towards uniformity.

bove and right:

e.

oints of interest ,

r badly in the long run.

AThe same young brown King femalLast year she was twice awarded 96 points. PThe King is a strongpowerful, short and round pigeon, always stressed by the broad round breast, the short and broad (po-werful) neck and strong, medium long legs, widely set apart. When breeding Kings you must pay atten-tion to aggressiveness, which you can select on. It is also important that the Kings put themselves in the correct station. There must be attention paid to the neck/leg line,

meaning that the continuing line of the back neck must end up behind the legs. Tight feathering is nowadays a must. Feather structure in the neck, or a feather separation, is unwanted. The head must ‘fit’ the body. Due to too full and too broad heads, at the whites, the red eye cere is no longer visible, and is not wanted. The tail should be small and in the correct station; ‘upwards’. Wry tails occurs more often and are rather hereditary. In the coloured Kings the eye colour is wanted sparkling orange/red to red; the Whites have dark eyes and the Browns – as an exception - have a false pearl eye, or a partial pearl eye, around the pupil. For this reason crossing between Brown and other colours is not encouraged, as it will influence the eye colou Left: Andalusian King, old female.

Right: A Group of Kings, in the aviary.

With a perfect stationed black female.

Show participation Over the last few years he is more selective for the shows that he participates in. Today he is only present at the large ‘National’ shows in the Nether-lands and Germany, where the competition is at its best.

There is an interval of at least tree weeks between the shows, which is good especially for himself but also for his pigeons to recover. So his pigeons never go to two following shows.

Above and right: The same dominant red old King male, imported from the USA in 2005. Note the nice narrow tail. Left below: White King, old male, not in an ideal position.

Right below: Headstudy of the same white King. Note the ‘free’ eye ceres and powerful beak.

Before reuniting birds in the loft with the other pigeons, the pigeons that have been to an exhibition are caged up separately to make sure they are fine. If there is something different with their droppings, they get a purification cure. Care and character The contemporary King brings up its young-sters well and easily they will have three nests per year. Aggressiveness is not wanted, Theo selected on the character and there are no aggressive birds in his loft. He has special wide breeding compartments, with a nest bowl in two levels. He starts with the upper nest and the second round in the bottom nest. Right: The nest bowls are wrapped with newspapers to isolate and the ink vapour is said to the help against parasites. The top site is taped off, so the Kings do not damaged it so quickly and it stays longer. When asking if they fly well, he says that now the netting is still off, in fact the pigeons have free flight. Thus there are some that fly up the roof of the house, but keep in sight of the garden and the loft. If one of his Kings has landed accidentally in the garden of the neighbours, he must go and collect him, as they cannot find the way back home.

Above and right: Andalusian King. This old male won 3 x 97 and 6 x 96 points, never less. In the morning his first interest is to the pigeon loft, where he checks the droppings. Accor-ding to Theo, watery dropping in the evening could possibly be caused by stress, but in the morning the droppings must be normal. No stress conditions in the loft also means no aggressiveness; he thinks an important reason for stress is caused by separating the young pigeons from the parents. In his lofts the family bond of the pigeons is maintained almost all year long. Not before mid-January the males and females are separated and are newly coupled in the week of carnival; that’s his scheme, practised since long way back, because at carnival he used to have a week holiday. At this moment he is planning the couples that he will mate, where he prefers to pair small males to large females. Starting earlier in the year, is of no use. Eventually the birds hatched in May are the best growers and moult exactly the same as the pigeons that are raised earlier.

Left: Blue black barred King, Young male, imported from the Czech Republic. After June the 24th, all laid eggs laid are taken away, so that in principle no more youngsters can be born after mid-July and all pigeons can start a normal moulting procedure. His experience is that later born pigeons have bad moults; they stop at the last two wing feathers and that is not ideal at the show. Every now and then a young pigeon from August is kept for a colour experiment. Of course such a pigeon does not go to the show, it even skips a year. During the year it is kept in the loft between the other pigeons, without causing trouble and in the next breeding season it is mated. Theo has good results in the breeding with such a late bred pigeon. Something else what still occurs with the Kings, is the difficulty to determinate the right sex. There are males that behave like females for a long time and the opposite also happens. That is why German breeders before buying a King use a sex indicator, mostly a coin or a wedding ring at a thread. The coin or ring will move back and forth in a straight-line head to tail for a cock bird and in a circle for a hen bird. You must believe in it though. In

the time the birds are separated, he must pay attention that they don’t become too heavy or too fat. Too heavy females lay none or infertile eggs. From the moment he stops the breeding the birds are fed 100% barley; the change of feed stops the lay. During the rest of the year they get a balanced ‘home-made’ grain mixture. Advantage of such a sudden change to only barley is that they start moulting quick and easy. Within two weeks they are entirely in down feather moult. Right: The lofts with the still closed breeding compartments. Theo is always advised by an old friend - a man of 78 who used to keep fond (long distance) racing pigeons. He reminds him to give the correct grain mixture at the correct time, and asks him if he has seen the vet with a newly bought pigeon for vaccination, because the risk is too high to lose everything. For this reason his pigeons are vaccinated every year against Paramyxo, which is in his case also necessary for participating in foreign exhibitions. Early October the vet comes over to vaccinate his pigeons and Theo sees to it that all of his 150 pigeon are in baskets and cages, ready to be vaccinated.

Left: An inside look in a breeding com-partment, for one breeding couple of Kings. For the first breeding round the nest bowl is placed above and for the second round below. Always at clean newspapers that are changed daily. Demands At this moment he gets many requests for pigeons, from Dutch breeders and also from foreign countries, even a Portuguese breeder wants to buy some of his Kings. It is always hard to decide weather he should sell or not, especially his brown Kings. That colour is still rather new and he is really not up to selling those yet. Last year he did sell a brown female after a lot of questioning to a German breeder; consequence was that he was beaten by the offspring of that bird at a German Show. On the other hand it also gives him much pleasure to help other breeders and consequently see them score high with the offspring; a proof that he is not selling poor quality pigeons and those breeders are always grateful; this way you make friends in the hobby. Surplus pigeons generally go to his cousin, who has a large aviary with all kinds of birds, simply for his pleasure, and he looks well after them, thus when Theo should need something he can always asked it back.

Left: Black King, young male, standing a bit too high.

Above: Head study from the same male as on the left.

Left and above: This is the father of the black King male on the previous page.

Right: Black King, a late bred young male, which never participated in a show. A top male with excellent eyes.

Left: On the question where he keeps his prizes, Theo said that for this we must go to the garage, because in the house there is no place for all of them. Recently he bought a beautiful cupboard in which he has placed the last won prizes. His ‘Ehrebanden’ are hanging on the wall. Ehrebanden are the highest prizes to win in Germany. However, most prizes are still wrapped up in boxes and diplomas are in stacks. He hardly remembers all he prizes he won over the years, except for the Ehrebanden, they are very special. In 2004 he won his first Ehreband with an andalusian King pigeon and he is not ashamed to say that the tears came into his eyes when he received his prize.

Ehrebanden and Diplomas of German shows; starting in the years 1994 and 1995. Strangely enough, he has never gained a Champion Diploma of the NBS, but Theo explains that he does not participate in a show by calculating his chances for such prizes. He shows with different birds and gains enough Certificates (for most beautiful of a judgement) but a champion diploma is awarded only if one pigeon has gained three certificates by three different judges.

Right: Theo’s complete breeders administration during 2008, one long list.

Left: Old white King male from 2005. Photo: Theo v/d Bogaard.

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Head: Fit to the body, filled front and skull well rounded in proportion to a full neck and broad body. Beak: Short, stout, to be carried in a horizontal position. White Kings have a flesh coloured beak, for red and yellow; light brown, other colours black. Eye Cere: Small, round and good visible. For white colour is intensive red, the other colours have less red eye ceres. Eye colour: Depending of the feather colour; dark for white, brown pearly and other colours orange/red to red. Breast dept: Prominent, broad and well rounded. Legs: Straight and stout. Well separated between the shanks and unfeathered. Neck/leg line: The continuing line from the neck must touch the floor behind the feet. Keel feathering: To be closed and smooth forming a well rounded line. Wing shield: Large and broad, well rounded and covering the wing butts. Tail form: Short, closed and with one tail feather wide. Back: Horizontal, short, broad en well covered. Neck: Moderately and stout with an upraised position, start from broad shoulders and well rounded body.

King-Club Deutschland www.King-Club-Deutschland.deAndreas Gehrmann, president Ringstr. 14, 28790 Schwanewede (Germany) Tel.0049 (0)4209/919217 - Fax 0049 (0)4209/919219

Finally Theo told us that on an animal market he bought a King female with a twisted breast bone, which gives now splendid youngsters with a straight breast bone. He once had a female King at the show, which got as a remark by the judge: “This is a male”. However, Theo had already six youngsters from this bird. Ivomex is used against internal and external parasites. Treatment is two or three drops rubbed in the skin around the cloaca. With Koudijs Eucalyptus he ensures the air ways of his pigeons, as a result of which a better breathing. Left: With an aerosol of universal machine oil, he treads the legs of his pigeons to give them splendidly glowing red legs and with fire

methylated spirits, he makes the feathers shine. Above: Against unpleasant smell in the pigeon loft, he uses Pro-Air air freshener. With thanks to Theo for his hospitality and the many good advices. Also thanks to the German Specialty KING club that provided us with the necessary information and authorisation for use of the posters from their Internet site. For more Information, see the following (specialty) King Clubs: Nederlandse Kingduiven Club Secretaris: Jouke v/d Siepkamp, Violier 9. 3434 HE Nieuwegein Tel. 0031 (0)30-6064308 e-mail: brunner@casema.nl website: http://www.dutchkingclub.nl/ Vlaamse American King Club Richard Vijt, Eekstraat 257 - 9160 Lokeren - België Tel. 0032 (0)9 348 32 46 King-Club Deutschland Vorsitzender: Andreas Gehrmann Ringstr. 14, 28790 Schwanewede Tel. 04209/919217 Fax 04209/919219 e-mail: kcd.gehrmann@web.dewebsite: http://www.king-club-deutschland.de/ The British King Club President:-Francis Bradbourn e-mail: ckeeler@ymail.com American King Club Publicity Director Publicity Director Blaine Broussard 507 N Thompson Iowa, LA USA Tel.: 70647 337-582-8806 e-mail: Pigeonman37@aol.com Southern California King Club PRESIDENT: Bill Harrison e-mail gloptop@aol.com

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