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Busschaerts bound for Australia Within the past few months my friend Phillip Bouffler of Gurnayville Stud, Lockhart NSW, asked me if I knew where he could obtain some good Busschaerts in the UK. Now a question such as this, simple though it may sound, is not an easy one to answer. There are quite a number of both studs and private fanciers throughout the UK who can supply Busschaerts. I returned to him with the question, just what types do you require and what do you expect of them, when you get them? This in its turn left Phillip a bit bogged down as well. Eventually the answer came out in its most simplified form, when he said that he wanted "The real thing". My reply to that was a simple one in that if he wanted the "Genuine Article", there was only one man in my opinion to go to and that was my old mate John Crowder of Mansfield. The reason I thought of John was that in his time John had bought exactly 62 pigeons from Remi Georges Busschaert of Beveren-Lee and had proven to all the hard way against heavy competition. He also had the good stock sense to keep them intact as a family. This resulted in both type and color being exactly the same as the birds of the late master. He purchased pigeons off the very best that Georges Busschaert had, pigeons whose names have become household names in the sport worldwide. I will list some of John's acquisitions below. "Thor"
Belge 73/3154016 a son of Brother Zorro direct from Little
Black. John also owned birds such as "Mosboro Productive Gent" a direct son of Pluto and Belgium Queen and "Rapido's Girl" from Rapido and Devina. Throughout the late '70s and early '80s he gathered around him one of the most fantastic collections of direct Busschaert pigeons in the UK. Today he still has many sons and daughters of the originals in his breeding lofts and it is sons and daughters of these pigeons that I recommended Philip to buy. It is said by many that Georges Busschaert bought pigeons from here and there, put his name on them and never really developed them into a family. This is in fact very far from the truth. This family of pigeons is no different from any other family. They are all inbred to a small number of very successful pigeons. Pigeons such as The 45, The Klaren, The 85, Old Sooten and the Coppi Hen. Georges Busschaert intertwined his bloodlines in an expert fashion. He created a race of pigeons that after WWII were the spearhead of modern Belgium racing pigeons in the UK. To say they were unbeatable would not really be truthful, but to say that they were extremely successful would be the truth. These bloodlines are now in Australia. They are not the product of in-family crossing nor are they a branch of the family tree but are in fact the tree trunk. Original and as straight as they come. * The
webmaster recommends as further reading: Click here to
order/enquire about Busschaerts from Spring Mountain
Lofts.
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