Insect Power

‘If we look at nature, we see that most seed-eating birds switch to insects when they are with youngsters. Nature tells them that those animal proteins are necessary for the development of the youngsters and not the plant proteins they normally eat.’ With that idea, Frank already gave kitten pellets (for young cats) to his pigeons. His Beo's are given mealworms and larvae of the black soldier fly in addition to various fruits, all in dried form. The mealworms are less interesting because the skin contains poorly digestible chitin. This causes blockages and so much less of this is given.'

When at the Descheemaecker Pigeon Centre early this year a sample came in in powder form of the black soldier fly larvae (not directly intended for pigeons), I got the idea to test this anyway,’ says Frank. As the first results were good, the product was further improved so that Frank started systematically administering it from mid-April. He liked the result: ‘The pigeons seemed to come around faster and trained back to their normal rhythm quicker. So the build-up to the next flight had started faster,’ says Frank.

If we look at the yearly overview of the results, we see that the entire team continued to perform at a high level from start to finish, practically every result was listed weekly in the ‘good performances’ section on PIPA. They started with 2 first prizes and ended with these. In July, Frank even took 8th place among the superstars of the month in the Gouden Duif. ‘Because I still have the impression that the product was working, we at the Descheemaecker Pigeon Center decided to put the product on the market. Due to the 76% black soldier fly larvae, this product contains no less than 40.8% animal proteins,’ Frank says.

The product will be marketed under the name ‘Insect Power’ in 400 g packaging. With André Roodhooft, who comes for coffee at least twice a week, we always talk about the ins and outs of pigeon racing, what we do or have done weekly, etc. André was obviously aware of the test and therefore confided to Frank: ‘If you put it on the market, I'll give it too!’

Dosage:

1 tablespoon (10 grams) per kg of feed and combine with garlic oil (1 tablespoon) 

Sport season:in the evening on the day of arrival of the race, 1 full tablespoon per kg of feed mixed with a small tablespoon of garlic oil. Then on the 2nd day both in the morning and in the evening the same but the grain was first mixed with Sedochol plus from Belgica De Weerd.

Moulting & Breeding season: twice per week