In my previous blog, I wrote about the moult. For many fanciers, that feels like the end of the season, but in reality, the next season has already begun. And for me, this is also a good time to take a proper look at the loft.
You can have fantastic pigeons and have everything right when it comes to feeding and health, but if the loft isn’t right, it will keep working against you.
I’ve seen that often enough over the years. Fanciers with good pigeons whose results weren’t quite what you would expect. Of course, there can be all kinds of reasons for that, but sometimes you don’t have to look very far. You walk into the loft and you can almost feel it straight away.
It’s damp. The air feels stale. Or there’s so much air movement that the pigeons are sitting right in the draught. For me, a good pigeon loft doesn’t have to be beautiful or luxurious. It simply has to work.
What do you feel when you walk in?
When I walk into a loft in the morning, I first use my own senses. I smell and feel what it’s like inside. A fresh, dry loft simply feels different from one where moisture hangs around.
Moisture in particular is something I pay attention to. Of course, you can’t control the humidity outside, but inside I don’t want damp floors, walls or nest boxes.
So you need fresh air moving through the loft. But ventilation is often confused with draught. Opening everything up is easy. The real skill is allowing stale air to leave without having a constant stream of air blowing directly over the pigeons.
And that brings me to something that is often forgotten: a good loft in the Netherlands doesn’t necessarily make a good loft somewhere else in the world.
I spend quite a lot of time abroad, and that’s where you really see how big those differences can be. In the Netherlands, we have to deal with moisture, wind, cold nights and constantly changing weather. In southern Spain, the problem can be the heat and strong sunshine. And in places such as South Africa, the United States or the Middle East, you are dealing with different conditions again.
That’s why I don’t believe there is one perfect pigeon loft that you can build anywhere in the world.
You have to build for the place where you live.
Position and roof
In the Netherlands, I’ve always liked a loft facing roughly southeast. I especially like the morning sun. It gives the loft some warmth and light early in the day without exposing it straight away to the strongest afternoon sun.
But I would never say that everyone should therefore build their loft facing southeast. The actual location matters much more. A loft standing completely open to the wind behaves very differently from one built between other buildings.
And this is where you see those differences abroad again. In a hot climate, some shade can actually be very important. In southern Spain, for example, you don’t want a loft baking in full sun for hours. So you have to think about its position differently than we do in the Netherlands.
The same applies to the roof. Personally, I’ve always preferred a fairly high pitched roof with traditional roof tiles. The space above the pigeons helps deal with heat and gives you more possibilities for good air circulation.
That doesn’t mean another type of roof can’t work. But I do believe good insulation is important. Not because I want to turn the loft into a heated room, but because I don’t want the temperature inside to follow every sudden change outside. And in a hot country, that same insulation can help keep the worst of the heat out.
Take a good look at your own loft
As pigeon fanciers, we’re often quick to look at the loft of someone who is getting fantastic results. We see something working for them and think: that’s what I need too.
But it isn’t that simple.
Even the loft of a champion living a hundred kilometres away can be dealing with completely different conditions. Let alone the loft of a top fancier on the other side of the world.
So instead of simply copying a loft, try to understand why it works.
Tomorrow morning, walk into your own loft and don’t do anything straight away. Just take a moment to see what it’s really like before you start opening windows, doors or vents.
If it feels fresh and dry and the pigeons are sitting there relaxed, that already tells you a lot. And sometimes the best conclusion is that you don’t need to change anything at all.
In Part 2, I’ll continue with how I check this myself and why, in the end, the pigeons are still the best judge of whether a loft is working properly.
Until the next blog,
Gerard Schalkwijk
Schalkwijk Speaks ️
