Arnold Hendriks & Ben Meijberg
The Netherlands
Constantin Huygen Str. 50
NL 6445 BE Brunssum
Tel:0031/455250085

Masters of long distance already achieve top results in their approaches! There are many lofts and partners in the domain of pigeoning but surely there are only a few teams which are equipped so exceptionally well in their resorts that they are "doomed" to success. Here in Heerlen such a constellation is to be found, a team has grown which complements one another in an outstanding way. Two absolute specialists work together and the great exception is : they harmonize with each other for already many years.

Two old foxes, who harmonize with each other

Arnold Hendriks is an admirable man, not only for his business successes, no, much more because of his personality. He has never wanted to stand out, he has remained a nice person, although he owns several textile shops, a sports centre and a lot more. The 62-year old started with a vendor´s tray, today he is, among others, the sponsor and head of the management team of the first-league football club Roda Kerkrade (which in October and November ´99 was opponent of the VfL Wolfsburg in the UEFA-Cup). Hendriks´ quite personal hobby has always been carrier-pigeoning which, because of lack of time, he cannot work on all by himself, at least to his personal ideal. Therefore he looked for a partner. Ben Meijberg (63) is the one responsible for the practical part in the pigeon realm, the one who is manager of this department and supported at all transpired work by Hub Kleinen, the house gardener. Ben was a pitman, already became an early pensioner in 1967 and has been an enthusiastic carrier-pigeon-breeder right from the beginning and a successful one at that. Already in 1973 the first co-operative work started. In the beginning he was solely "under contract" as a provider and as a soloist sent his pigeons from his home - and super strong at that. It came as it had to come, since 1978 the team Hendriks/Meijberg exists really officially, their pigeons are accommodated in a model-loft- construction high above on the office building (flat-roof), very near to the home of Hendriks.

Hendriks/Meijberg look upon themselves as "Fondhok", not totally groundless, as several visitors rubbed their eyes in bewilderment when the pigeons returned from a 900-km flight straight in a row as if they had started at 300-km. The long-distance run is the big passion of the two breeders and they therefore have this priority and ambition with their pigeons. They can already look back on many commonly achieved successes where not only super prizes of the big national flights such as Pau, Vincent, Dax or Tarbes attracted attention but also auto-prizes in 1990 and 1991 where only the best birds of three long-distance flights have a winning chance.

In the past two years the athletes from the garden loft on the roof-top brought a 60 % travelling performance and it has to be taken into account that internationally only every fourth pigeon (25 % arrangement) is entitled to a prize. In the past travelling season 1999 four classic birds were in on it and achieved the following results:

Vincent 977 km 22/10 prizes against 21.210 pigeons, starting with the 551st place
Dax 960 km 25/10 prizes against 19.125 pigeons, starting with the 69th place
Soustons 970 km 23/11 prizes against 10.953 pigeons, starting with the 441st place
Barcelona 1097 km 7/5 prizes against 28.095 pigeons, starting with the 738th place.

Although Hendriks/Meijberg were always able to register highlights on long-distance flights, they again gained a fine-sounding and desired title at the "National long-distance championship" of the Netherlands in 1991 and the 15th place in the championship "West-European Marathon-champion" in 1997. This title is staged on the five flights Pau, Barcelona, Dax, Marseille and Perpignan with the two fastest pigeons nominated. Whoever wants to take part in the run for such a title may not show any weaknesses or even make mistakes during preparation time and with the nomination - a "fine watch-maker" is needed and this Ben Meijberg is without question, as shown by the good results for years. In this context the flight results have to be named which were achieved at the "preparation-flights". And especially these results are never mentioned by Ben Meijberg because to him they are of secondary importance but to a German visitor for example they are rather vigorous. Look at the season of 1997 because here it can be seen that the Hendriks/Meijberg pigeons are also able to achieve super prizes in series at flights from 100 km up to 600 km - well marked, in preparation to their actual task :

on April, 30th, from Mettet with 117km, against 585 pigeons: 2nd, 4th, 8th (1st + 2nd pigeon were nominated)
on May, 8th, from Rethel with 195 km, against 427 pigeons : 1st, 2nd, 7th, 13th, 14th (20 pigeons up to place 55)
on May 19th, from Creil with 310 km, against 496 pigeons : 1st, 9th, 10th, 14th, 15th, ...
on May 24th, from Bourges with 495 km, against 156 pigeons :1st, 4th, 5th, 13th, ...
on June 7th, from Argenton with 581 km, against 137 pigeon : 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 7th, 8th, 12th, 17th, 18th, 20th, ...

Subsequently from Pau the fastest double-series was achieved with the 1st and 2nd nominated pigeons, where the two flew the 22nd and 46th national prize against 1944 pigeons and in the international score against 6689 elite pigeons, they came in on place 82 and 205. From Bordeaux 13 of the nominated pigeons won 11 prizes.
One of the judging criteria for an outsider is surely the number of travelling pigeons being available and in the past year 1998 those were altogether only 36 birds, which had to swing the game one´s way. For long-distance games that is a rather small team.

The pigeons are Ben Meijberg´s elixir of life. When becoming an early pensioner he set the goal to play with his pigeons up to his 65th birthday. Now he has extended this to his 70th birthday and is obviously on his best way to orient himself by the example of the 76-year old Roger Florizoone, so : open end !

Ben´s daily routine is determined by the pigeons. In the summer months from April to September he lives quite near on a camping site, although his home is in the same village. In the morning at 6 o´clock he trains the pigeons by letting them fly, at 9 o´clock the early morning shift ends and Ben goes swimming. Then, "high above the roofs of Heerlen" the long second shift begins. Only those birds are sent on a journey - for the season 2000 there are about 60 widowers in their starting blocks, which, as in the years before, are "moved" twice a day. At the beginning of the season Ben works with the aid of a stick/flag, the windows are shut at this time. An hour of flight time is the duty Ben gives. After all there are 20 breeding pairs and about 120 youngsters which have to be looked after. The stock of youngsters can approximately be divided into two equally sized groups, on one hand the winter bred ones from which the breeding pigeons are selected by the end of January and on the other hand the second breed where the pigeons are joined together at the beginning of March. This corresponds to the normal first breed in Germany. In this case they are travelling pigeons who rear a young one. When the eggs of the next clutch are about 5-6 days old the females are taken away and the eggs given to someone else.

The goal determines the system. As already said, successes at long-distance flights are his aim - that´s what all Ben Meijberg´s doing is focused on.

a) training
In order to prepare for the big marathon flights the travelling birds are assigned to do tours of 100 to 600 km in a 14-days-rhythm. On the "free" weekends the pigeons are trained privately on 30 km flights. Even on these occasions the widowers are allowed to see their females for maximally 15 minutes. Thus the birds have been basketed, besides the private training, already 10 times under competition conditions (plus training), before the seriousness of life begins and that means that each single one has to show for at least three 1000 km flights to which performance it is enabled. At these preliminary matches no money is at stake but then ..... The yearlings are sent up to 800 km and only the best are allowed to remain in the loft.

b) feeding
Slender fare is looked upon and used as basic food. Before long-distance flights an "increase" is given over the time-span of 14 days and on the last five days the portion of Indian corn is increased up to about 80 %. Ben no longer gives peanuts - the question of quality finally helped with his decision.

c) Realization of shape
Two pigeons have to be nominated for the marathon championship or listed first into the entry-list respectively. The person who does not give the straight tip has no chance to win. But Ben is a good observer in the loft as well as in the air. In order to select his "candidates" he only needs quarter of an hour in which he observes the pigeons in the air at their training. The basic requirement is to be able to recognize all birds - also those flying. He regards it as absolutely good shape when single birds separate from the swarm. "They are fit and selected, although some luck is always necessary" the specialist says.

d) motivation
Not every bird has to be basketed and prepared for each long-distance flight. So Ben has developed his own method. Even if only three pigeons have to be prepared for a flight, all inhabitants of a loft would get excited. Therefore only two of the three identically looking compartments (same interior equipment) are occupied. The third compartment is reserved for the end-phase of the preparation for long-distance flights. The flight participants are put there for their special treatment and are allowed to spend 3-4 hours with their females - before the Barcelona flight even the whole day.

e) health
Throughout the year, before and after a journey, the veterinary has the final say in the pigeon stock. The vaccination against PMV is accurately carried out "... and if I think something is wrong I go to the vet again. If you have pigeons for such a long time as I do then you have to see if something is not right. I have to be able to look at the droppings in the morning and realize if they are all right !" So says Ben live-text. For the long-distance pigeons on the day after their flight it is obligate to take a bath, whereas Ben prefers the pigeons go into the tub made available in front of the loft on their own free will. The bathing-water is the still warm juice of boiled pine-tree needles with salt and vinegar added to it.

In spite of all successes neither Arnold Hendriks nor Ben Meijberg rested on their oars. On principal one is content with the pigeons available. All the "pigeon-blood" now being in stock, goes back to ten pairs of the own old species which were kept from the clearance auction in 1993. One was from the line of the "116", called "De Pau", because he had been placed 4 times among the first hundred from this releasing site - in 1989 he achieved the 2nd place nationally and the 6th one internationally, or the "092" male, who was brilliant since Barcelona.

The second standing leg of the current (breeding-)stock are the Eijerkamp/Muller pigeons, which are decisively responsible for the past year flight results. They are a whole row of magnificent pigeons who can fascinate each onlooker simply by their wonderful eyes. - see photo, too -

Just as everywhere in life competition stimulates business it is the same in carrier-pigeon-sporting and especially Arnold Hendriks learned to keep a sensitive eye on the competitors so as to be able to react purposefully. He makes no exception in his hobby domain. He watched the brilliantly playing Roger Florizoone from the Belgium Nieuwpoort who achieved great successes with only a few pigeons and decided to get all eggs of Florizoone´s 44 pairs (from the whole stock : breeding-, travelling-pigeons and yearlings) at the beginning of the breeding season 2000. And these pigeons, too, will as all new acquisitions be put to the acid test at air-races. In this decision Hendriks´ experience of life plays an important part : he got pigeons from renowned breeders which did not fit properly as he says. But he also got birds from small lofts which were a superb success; with the same philosophy, Arnold Hendriks lead Roda Kerkrade to the top of the Dutch honorary division with a small and very young 17-pool of players and a matching trainer.

The quality of the Hendriks/Meijberg pigeons also shows on other levels. Some exceptional pigeons, e.g. "Trommelen", "Iwan" and "Pau" of this loft in Heerlen moved to the "Venushof" in Oeren. And also in Germany the pigeons from the other side of the border, but only a few kilometres away from Aachen, fly extremely well as can be seen from the example of Thorsten Daum in the Odenwald (17th district) who got some basic birds from Hendriks/Meijberg. As a final remark to this report I would like to quote Arnold Hendriks who said : "The best thing in life is to sit with the pigeons - that is better for me than holidays!"