Another auction season starting and Peter asked if I could be ready first with something special to kick the season off. 

My loft consists primarily of 3 lines of birds with a few special exceptions that are brought in for a cross and then moved out.

The first line is Hardy Kruger, which whom we have had great success for over 10 years. The 2nd line is the Jeller Roziers, either directly from Jelle or through my good friend Geert Kolvenbag.  Geert had decided to retire from the sport and just today, Oct 5th, had his total dispersal sale with 29 birds bringing just shy of 135,000 USD.

That shows the success of this family of pigeons, as Geert has been top 5 lofts in the USA one-loft races for several years. His birds were all stolen just a year before this sale. I was lucky enough to have the last round of eggs from those stolen birds since I was visiting as he split the pairs up. My main hen Gigi has been the backbone of my loft, and she has her name because she was Geert's Gift. All of her siblings have bred a host of top racers and breeders.  

The 3rd line of birds is from Tom VanGaver.  

Tom was in a partnership with 2 other gentlemen several years ago, and they decided to part ways.  They agreed to sell everything with Pipa and each would buy back what they wanted. 

Jelle told me that I would like Tom's birds because he trained very hard and expected a lot from his birds. I bought my first bird in that auction, a daughter of White Finn 357. She is the mother of my Super 188 breeding hen.

Tom bought his famous Finn and Ricky in this auction, and since that time has simply amazed the world with the success these 2 cocks brought in Belgium and around the world. The wins are too numerous to mention in both Club racing and OLRs.  

2 years ago, I bought a son of Ricky and bred a dozen children with my best hens right away. A year later, I was offered 15K US for him, and he was sold. 

Two direct sons were selected to go into this auction and were taken to Peter for pictures. The next weekend, the bird I bred wins the Upper Canada final.

The mother is a daughter of that Ricky cock, and the father is a son of a Ricky daughter, making 2 of the 4 grandparents Ricky.  Again, the family scored and in a big way with a 5-minute lead over 2nd place.  Click the link below to read about the achievements of Tom's birds. 

I hope you like this selection and that they bring the same success and enjoyment for you as they have for me. 

https://www.pipa.be/en/fanciers/15197/van-gaver-tom-marnik