Introduction

I am Arjan van Gent and I am now 33 years old. I am living in West-Knollendam.
 I am married to Monique.
Of the 750 inhabitants I am the best and only pigeonfancier. I am a member of 
Zaanstreek Noord, a club of 50 members.  
We can play al the nationals and internationals in our club. 

Because I have a very demanding job, I chose for the extreme long distanceflights, 
just to relax myself.!

 History

In the summer of 1996 we moved to West-Knollendam where we bought our house. I started
again with new birds for the overnight longdistance. My dad has the breeders and to test the new
pigeonloft I got a round of late youngsters. The loft is an fabric loft of Dumo. 
My father and I flew before 1996 on the loft which is now the breeding loft. It containes two 
departments. My dad is a real breeders, he loves it...I am a flyer, a competitor. Like this
things are very well devided... I can concentrate on flying with the birds, while my dad breeds
them.

Het loft for the flyers

The loft is devided into 3 departments. On the left there are the widdowhood cocks. Next ther is the 
door and the corridor. Then there are the widdowhood hens and in the right there is the department
for the youngsters. They also have an aviary, which is always open. Only with gailforce winds the aviary
is closed. The aviary is 1 meter by 1meter 50. The loftfront is to the west. On the youngbird loft and
on the widdowhood loft there are spoetnik traps. This for the electronic clock that I am using. the brand is
Victory. 

The Youngsters

I have every year aboyut 35 youngsters of my own. They only get the yhoungsterflight for 
learning purposes. I don't fly them for prizes. They only have to come home in good shape.
The youngsters are not darkened and are trained as much as possible. 

The overnight flyers

When the flyers are one year old or older, they are played following the total widdowhood system.
Like this, the hens and cocks are both played. I follow the rotation scheme. So the hens train first,
while the hens are training, the cocks are going into the loft of the hens. The hens enter after their
training the loft of the cocks and receive there food here. The cocks are liberated for training and the
hens are going to there own department. 
The cocks enter their own loft after training.

Before St. Vincent, the birds are 3 weeks on widdowshood.

The yearly birds are flying the day longdistance flight, with one overnight at the end. The older birds
are devided into teams for St.Vincent, Mont de Marsan and the ZLU, international flights. 

A part of the loft of the cocks.			The widdowhood hen department.