Holle Kroppers en andere sierduiven: 2020 - The Holle story continues

Hi to all,

as you all know I always have loved the Holle Cropper.
I never said farewell to the breed, although I have not given the breed the attention it deserves. I played all my cards on the racing homers, especially those that cover extreme distances have my admiration.
This year I got some new opportunities in my professional career. Opportunities I gladly accept. The Corona virus came by later, which turned everything upside down, but that is aside of my decisions.
This had some effects on my hobby, or rather passion. With my changes in my professional career I'm not able to race pigeons anymore. Breeding is possible, although I had to make some changes in the daily routines of taking care of the birds.
The emphasis stays on the long distance racing homers, in the last decade already some incredible results have been achieved.
But, it also gives new chances for having focus on breeding Holle Croppers.
Last year I had already a good year breeding, when you consider the number of youngsters I was able to raise.. This brought some new perspective.
Back in 2013 a resolute decision was made. The remains of what was once a great stud of selfblacks, bluebarreds and bluegrizzleds had to go. The resistance to all the bad that came in with the racing homers showed that there was no future for what was left of this stud. They were simply not able to build the immunity needed to stay healthy in the changing environment of my lofts.
In the same year I was able to purchase some birds from reknown Henk Weijmer of Kampen. Pied birds were on my list for a while, especially when the history of the breed comes in sight.
As memorised before: not much good came out of it in the past years. The racing homers demanded all of my attention.
In the last seasons I had some help from the Deuzeman family and also from Jurgen van Weijck.
Which makes my breeding stock of the moment as followed:
This year there is one pair of blackpieds, one pair mealy barred x blackpied, one pair of creambarreds and one pair of cream x mealy barred.
My first aim is to breed some birds that will give perspective on good type and good balance, the base on which I built a great stud once.
The reason I have the cream and mealy barreds is that I try to breed something worth building with, painting comes in a later stage.
Results so far this breeding season: from the first round four youngsters out of 8 eggs, 4 non fertile, all eggs were laid under feeders, second round 6 fertile eggs out of 8 eggs, all laid under feeder pairs, hatching the coming week. The 4 pairs are working on their third round of eggs for now. Hopefuly we are able to raise a bird that will help building a new strain of winners.

Some pics of my current breeding stock: