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Dirk & Louis Van Dyck : Famous Kannibaal Dynasty 2005

Thursday, 28th of April... It was a warm and sunny day. We had the opportunity to bring a visit to Mr Dirk & his father Louis Van Dyck.
On this picture you can see from left to right: Dr Carlo Gyselbrecht, Georges Van Riel.
Dirk and his favourite pigeon, in his opinion the best he ever had, the KANNIBAAL. Even 9 years after his best performances, Kannibaal is still a legendary pigeon in the pigeon world. He is even becoming more and more popular in countries like China. Kannibaal is not a heavy pigeon, it is middle sized, has a beautiful eye, a firm body, elastic wings...
Dirk is a lovely man, he doesnt like to talk about all his great performances. He likes to live a bohemian life... He enjoys life in all its aspects. He has a wife that likes pigeons, he just built a new house, he is president of the local pigeon club, he is happy with small things, ... We had a very nice afternoon.
Dirk Van Dyck and Carlo Gyselbrecht.
Nikolaas, Georges, Dirk and Thomas next to the painting with the Rambo, Kannibaal and Bourges. This picture is taken in the new house of Dirk ( he is living here for about 1 year ). Before he lived in the house of his father.
Dirk, Thomas, Nikolaas and Georges.
Dirk and Carlo Gyselbrecht. In the middle you can see his new computer. He also has an internet connection and just like many other fanciers all over the world, his favourite pigeon site is PIPA. We also showed Georges Van Riel PIPA and he was very surprised to see articles on his father HUYSKENS - VAN RIEL on the pipa site.
The Bourges, 2nd fastest pigeon against more than 40000 birds ! Bourges is the halbrother of Kannibaal.
This is a very small pigeon, actually a fancy pigeon. Dirk uses them as baits for the pigeons when they got home. Dirk breeds them himself, however it is not as easy as breeding regular racin pigeons.
This picture is a little bit dark. But it shows how much space the Van Dyck family has... An enormous piece of land for belgian norms. And on this piece of land Dirk is working from morning till evening, doing all kinds of jobs, mostly related to his pigeons. He also built a very nice brick loft, from which he will race in the near future. One day, he would like to race the long distance over there.
Also something that is invented and made by Dirk. It is very useful to bring all young pigeons in the baskets without having to take them one by one.
Thomas, Georges, Dirk and Nikolaas, holding the Rambo, Bourges and Kannibaal !
Thomas, Georges, Dirk and Nikolaas, holding the Rambo, Bourges and Kannibaal !
Everywhere Dirk has those automatic droppings cleaners...This picture is taken in the new loft in brick.
Picture in the new loft...In Georges Van Riel his opinion it will be even a better loft than all others...so we are very curious.
Air picture from a part of the Van Dyck lofts.
On one of the pictures above, you have seen the small pigeon, the bait that is used to make the other pigeons go more easy into the lofts. Well, in this small boxes in front of the lofts, these small fancy pigeons house. Dirk made all those things himself, as he is a very handy man.
Dirk, Carlo and Nikolaas looking in the loft of the racing hens. Dirk also races hens.
The mais Dirk gives to his pigeons is bred by Dirk himself on his land.
The new house ( about one year old ) from Dirk Van Dyck. Dirk lives here with his lovely wife and his beautiful daughter Natalia. The wife of Dirk is from Poland, so whenever Polish fanciers come, his wife can do all the translation; very useful sometimes Dirk tells us, as there are coming polish fanciers regularly. Well, actually there come fanciers from all over the world to handle the famous Kannibaal Dynasty.
Youngsters arriving at home. When we arrived I had the chance to help Dirk to bring away the youngsters about 8 km away and liberate there to train. The youngsters obviously arrived earlier at home than us.
Dirk & Georges carrying the young birds to Dirks small van.
In the car. We went to liberate the youngsters about 8 km from Dirks house.
Dirks beautiful daughter Natalia. She also went to join us to liberate the birds. Like you can see, education in pigeons starts from a very young age ! ;-)
The actual liberation. Finally we would like to thank Dirk, his wife and Georges Van Riel for this splendid afternoon. We enjoyed a lot to see those superpigeons and of course we also enjoyed the very nice company of Dirk and his family. It was also a big honour to meet Georges Van Riel, the son of one of the most famous pigeon racers Belgium ever had. Hope to bring you more pictures from trips soon !
minna - 15/06/2009