AN INTERVIEW WITH WARREN FOSTER, WHITE FLIGHT BREEDING STUD, GREENHITHE, ENGLAND.

Warren Foster is a writer/photographer for the Racing Pigeon Pictorial and many other journals around the world. He is the owner of Bluewater racing lofts in Kent. Over the last few years he has done a lot of travelling around Belgium, Holland and Germany. He has met most of the pigeon "Greats" including Janssen, De Klak, Van Loon and many others. Warren has a lot of knowledge of the world pigeon scene in general and he is owner of the world famous Pure White Emperor family of racers. He has now been a pigeon fancier for 30 years and became interested through his father. His brother and cousin also race successfully. His first "success" was after a few years of racing with his father and brother as D Foster and Sons, with moderate success, he then decided to race in partnership with his cousin. He was 14 years old and his cousin was 12. They raced to a 50 year old outbuilding at his cousins house, which got soaked every time it rained! In their very first race they competed in, they gained a 3rd Club in a very strong Club. Their very small team of 7 or 8 young birds then went on to win the Young Bird Averages that year. Warren was also gifted by his father, with a young blue chequer hen. This little pigeon went on to win the three longest race average for him, including winning Thurso, 500 miles. They also competed in two Open events that year, sending two pigeons each time. They were 2nd and 3rd Gravesend IPM Open and in the same week, the same pigeons went back to win 2nd Tilbury Open. They certainly had a very lucky start, and won a considerable amount of prize and pool money. Needless to say, most of it went back on their pigeons! Warren's main family of pigeons are his famous White Emperor pigeons, which he has maintained for over 20 years. They are Busschaert based and he has now added 2 or 3 selected birds to blend in with them - mainly Combine winners with high birdages. He now classes these birds as his own family. They are winning in many parts of the world. His main racing loft is about 24 feet long with three sections housing 24 widowers and a large section for young birds. He has clear plastic sheeting on the front of the loft that allows the sun's rays to shine through on to the nest boxes. He has sliders in the roof that can darken the loft if required. Warren believes in a good balance of sun and darkness within the loft - he feels it is very important and can be gained by experience on what suits your family of pigeons. He has found that darkening his loft in the first part of the week and opening up the sliders for the last day and a half has been beneficial for him. But of course, he knows one or two fanciers that do the reverse of this!! He makes up his own racing mix, but has also found that mixing 2/3 bags of top widowhood mix together also works very well. Concentrating on sprint to middle distance racing, Warren thinks it is very important to feed his pigeons in their nest-boxes so each bird's food intake can be monitored closely. For middle to long distance races, communal feeding on the floor is quite adequate, but he also attaches food pots to certain boxes to increase fat or carbohydrate content for the appropriate races. On being asked the question, having met many of the world's well- known pigeon fanciers, is there one fancier who has impressed you more than others - Warren said he had been very lucky to meet so many top fanciers and handled so many top pigeons, and that sitting down talking about pigeons with many of these fanciers has been extremely rewarding. Louis van Loon has impressed him very much, as did Jos Van Limpt de Klak. But one fancier in particular was Joop Koop of Eindhoven - who is a working fancier and his team of pigeons and performances are some of the best he has ever seen. Having handled many families of pigeons, which family does Warren rate the highest? He said this was a very difficult question, but that Janssen based pigeons are amongst the best and much credit must be given to these fine fanciers in the production of this strain. The Klak Janssens are some of the most perfect pigeons he has ever seen. For nearly 20 years, Warren has kept folders on virtually every theory he has come across and has cut out and kept the best articles, including eye, wing, tail and many other theories. He is still unsure after all these years, that any of them are particularly important. The two main things he looks for now is to purchase winning pigeons or if this is not possible, direct children of winning pigeons. The other is natural health - pigeons must always look alert and bright eyed. Obviously it is then down to the fancier to motivate the pigeons. Aces have an extra special sense that when a pigeon is passed to them they can judge in a few seconds if the pigeon is a good one. But this is really an intuition that very few fanciers possess and even fewer fanciers possess and even fewer could explain. Warren says he has handled too many Combine and National winners, that so-called pigeon experts would not give the time of day to. The only thing he has noticed is that a high percentage of ace breeding hens do tend to possess many of the qualities that some experts look for, especially the eye! As to the future of pigeon racing - Warren answered that two or three years ago he would have said the outlook was gloomy. He now thinks a major change is taking place for the good. Most club racing will soon disappear and the majority of fanciers will participate in Open, Combine and Classic levels. He also predicts a massive interest in International Futurity races where some specialist fanciers in this country will specialise in this alone. Warren would love to see a Millenium race organised - a series of three or four events to include only the top four or five fanciers from each country around the world. He also feels a further change will be in the next 2/3 years. It will be common to run big international futurity races via the Internet and that we are not far away from seeing some races where all the brids are electronically tagged so they can be traced from start to finish during a race on a central computer at the clubhouse. To finish, Warren's advice to new starters in the sport and to those who would like to be more successful, is to first of all obtain the best birds that you can afford - not to be drawn in by all the different tonics and vitamins available on the market, even though some of these may be very good - they can be very expensive. Most of these things can be found in your own kitchen - ie garlic, onions, carrots and all vegetable water from cooking them. He also adds Ribena (blackcurrant cordial) to these items and adds one cupful to two gallons of water every day. He suggests that antibiotics should be used sparingly, if at all and eliminate pigeons from the loft which do not look right. Always remember healthy pigeons are winning pigeons!

White Flight Breeding Stud UK 4 Valley View, Greenhithe, Kent DA9 9LU, UK Tel / Fax: 01322 385541 Mobile: 0789 9096845 e-mail: warren.foster-wfp@virgin.net

[ Home ] [ Interview ] [ Contact Us ]