First of all, I would like to wish everyone a personally healthy, happy, and sportively strong New Year.

A year with calm in the loft, enjoyment in the daily work, and above all: healthy pigeons. Because let’s be honest from the start: without health, everything we do is meaningless. No breeding. No performances. No future.

I am not writing this blog from theory. I am writing it because I am facing it myself again, right now.

A Plan That Made Sense… And Still Failed

This winter, I started a project in which pigeons from another loft were brought here to be paired with my own birds. On paper, everything made sense. Good origins. Healthy pigeons. A light program applied. Enough experience, you would think.

And yet, it completely stalled.

Out of roughly thirty pairs, at most five actually came into real pairing. The rest? Nothing. No calm. No conviction. No real bond. Cocks that had settled perfectly during summer suddenly showed no interest at all. Pigeons that showed pairing behaviour in their own loft simply didn’t want to pair here. And vice versa: birds I believed were “ready” turned out biologically not there yet. And honestly? I should have known better.

A Pigeon Cannot Be Fooled

I had used artificial lighting. Perhaps too short. Perhaps just not enough. But deep down, I already knew. I had even been told: “These pigeons are summer-bred. In the first months, you really shouldn’t breed with them.” And yet I thought: with experience, light, and good care, I’ll manage. That is not ignorance. That is haste. And pigeon sport punishes haste without mercy.

Old Feathers, Young Bodies

What I am seeing now confirms everything I have written and experienced before.

Many of these pigeons still carry old flight feathers. That is not a detail. That is not a side issue. That is the body saying: “I’m not ready yet.” On paper, they are old enough. In the hand, they feel right. But biologically, they are still developing. You can pair them, yes. But without inner drive, nothing truly happens.

Or worse: it looks like something is happening, but it leads nowhere. You might get an egg. But no conviction. And without conviction, there is never quality.

Winter Breeding Requires More Than Light

Let one thing be clear: winter breeding can work. I have proven that myself often enough. But this past period has shown once again that winter breeding requires realism, not calendar thinking.

Here in the Netherlands, we have faced heavy snowfall and deep cold, conditions we haven’t experienced this intensely for many years. And this is exactly the moment when a fancier must adjust. A pigeon does not look at January or February. It does not care about your schedule. It responds to day length, temperature, and its own physical maturity.

You can use lighting and I do. Light sets something in motion. But light does not force anything. And when the body is still in energy-saving mode, especially during weeks of real winter cold like this one, nature will always defeat your schedule.

Especially in young pairs, cold and immaturity reinforce each other. Energy goes first to staying warm, not to reproduction. You don’t always notice it immediately. Sometimes it seems like things might still work.

But the bill comes later. In poor fertility. In restless nests. In youngsters that never truly had a head start, no matter how well you care for them afterward. That is not bad luck. That is cause and effect.

And that is why weeks like this do not call for pushing harder, but for reconsidering. Sometimes lifting your foot off the gas is not weakness, it is craftsmanship.

Pulled Back… And Rightfully So

I write this so openly because this, too, is a lesson for me. Even after more than fifty years of experience, you still make mistakes. Perhaps especially then, because you think you can control it. But pigeon sport is not guided by ego. Only by observation and timing.

The conclusion is clear: I should have followed my own strategy better. Not pairing too fast. Not forcing. Not believing experience solves everything. The pigeons are simply not ready yet. Period.

So I intervened. Not by pushing through, but by taking a step back.I separated the pairs again. Rest restored. No haste. No pressure. I will start again when it truly feels right. When I see, observe, and feel that the pigeons are ready, physically and mentally. Only then will they come together again. Not because the calendar says so. But because the pigeons show it.

That is the result of this entire situation. And at the same time, the lesson I have learned again: Those who dare to slow down, continue to move forward.

That is not weakness. That is pigeon sport.

In Closing

Winter breeding is not a sprint. It is a test of insight, patience, and self-control. Those who dare to wait often win later. Those who force things almost always pay the price.

Remember this in January: Not every pair that can lay should lay. Not every plan is sacred. And sometimes, postponing is not a loss, but pure profit.

Because in the end, our sport is not about who starts first, but about who arrives at the start best prepared.

Until the next blog,

Gerard Schalkwijk
Schalkwijk Pigeons