Editor's note: We planned to ask German fancier Hardy Krüger about the situation of German fanciers under the epidemic 3 days ago. To learn about the current status of the pigeon sports in there. Yesterday, Mr. Hardy replied to our question, so please kindly find answer such below for your reference. Hardy Krüger is a pigeon master who comes from Germany and performs well at one loft racing, he has been breeding pigeons since 30 years now. He had raised pigeons for only 4 years in 1992, started winning the national championship at the age of 16 and from that moment his life has changed.
1.What is your opinion about this COVID-19 (emergency situation) especially for German fanciers
It is the end of April and actually this weekend would have been our first private flight with old and yearling pigeons of around 200 km. Due to the outbreak of Covid-19, no flights are approved in Germany at this moment! The only thing that is allowed for about 2 weeks is that we can train our pigeons privately.
No flights are allowed in the large community until May 3rd. In the first week of May we hope that there will be easing. The transmission rates continue to decrease and more people get better than the number that gets infected every day.
2.Is there any influence for your plans for your young birds and breeding plan during COVID-19
The breeding continues as usual, as is the case every year. In Germany, the racing season of the young birds starts until early August, so there are no changes at the moment for the youngsters.
Hardy's loft
3.How do you manage your loft if racing sport is postponed because of the epidemic
My system with the old pigeons always looked like this: I pair them at the end of February and then separate them after about 20 days of breeding on the eggs. Then the birds are widowed.
This year, because of the outbreak, I decided to let each couple raise a young bird. And now I only separated the females from the birds about 1 week ago. The birds have been widowed for about a week now.
I already hope that we can start traveling in mid-May. At the moment, the widowers get around 1 hour free flight in the morning and evening at the house. At the weekend, a training flight is made and the widowers can spend about 2 hours together with their female partner.
4. What about your feeding system (nutrition) for pigeon now. (Is it like usual? Or do you make a different because of COVID-19?)
At this very moment I supply a very light mixture (see photo). The food of course can't be too light, because they train about 1.5 hours every day at the house.
the light mixture
Avidress and Carni-Speed
Get 3ml Usne Gano per liter of water with Avidress, 2 times every week
In the water the pigeons get 5 ml Avidress per liter water every day. This will lower the pH of the water.
From this week the pigeons will also get 10ml Carni-Speed per liter of water into the water with Avidress every day. I just hope that it starts in mid-May and the pigeons are in a certain basic condition.
5.Our last question is one about one loft racing: does the epidemic influence your young birds to participate in OLR?
Things are looking pretty good with the one loft races. In the past two weeks, some shipments have been shipped in Europe.