July/August 2026

10 – Purebred PIGEON morning after the show we had a flight to Zagreb, Croatia, and Monday afternoon found us at Vladimir’s place. When visiting we could see why he is known world-wide for his Poms. The quality and size he had on his birds was tremen- dous. All his birds were great quality! The birds that were imported from his loft should really add some quality to the Poms that are here in America. Vladimir had a really nice set up for his birds and it was easy to see that he spends a lot of time with his birds as they were all very tame. Jonathon and Jeff bought quite a few birds to import from him. On Tuesday we visited two English Pouter breeders and one Norwich breeder. We added a few more birds from their lofts to add to the shipment. On Wednesday before heading back to Germany we visited two more Pom breeders. It was interesting seeing all the breeders’ lofts. All the guys from Croatia showed us great hospitality while visiting. I would like to thank them for their great kindness to us while visiting. We ended up with close to 70 birds in our shipment (with birds we were also importing for three other guys). Unfor- tunately all the Elsters and a few of the Poms died during importing but thankfully most of the birds survived and were released to us after all most a three month ordeal. Hopefully several of the pouter breeds will get a boost with the new bloodlines that were imported. It was a very worthwhile trip. I would like to encourage anyone that would like to boost their pigeon ego to visit the world’s largest pigeon show in Leipzig, Germany! There were approximately 350 breeds shown. Listed were the most poplar breeds that we are familiar with here in America: Pouters and Croppers 3,019 German Modenas 2,117 Red Bar Lucerne Rzhev Tumbler German Beauty Homers 1,020 Strassers 748 Kings 720 Steller Pouters 515 Voorburg Shield Croppers 444 Oriental Rollers 430 Silesian Pouters 418 Brunner Pouters 351 Modenas 314 Thuringer Swallows 312 Arabian Trumpeters 292 Show Racers 279 Old Dutch Capuchines 239 Giant Homers 226 Frillbacks 218 Lahores 201 Yellow Norwich Cropper