TWO Beautifull WHITE GRIZZLE hens on offer from RACING SILVER BACKS
Origin of the Silver Back Grizzel Family
I got my first Grizzel hen known as “Madonna” from the late Conrad Botha in 2004.
This hen was an excellent racer and helped me to end up 2nd (by 7 points) in the Transvaal Homing Union Young Bird point in 2005.
Seeing that she was such a beautiful hen with a rich purple eye I was scared that I would not see her again should she enter the wrong persons loft !
As Conrad used to say: Fanciers will throw their mother in law into the air to try and catch her!
Conrad told me that Madonna’s parents came from Faunty Gilmer.
After Conrad’s death I contacted Faunty and this was his response:
From: Faunty Gillmer [fauntyg@vodamail.co.za]
Sent: 31 January 2012 11:30 AM
To: Thys Matthysen
Subject: Re: Origin Grizzel Pigeons
Hi Thys -
Thanking for making contact with me - sorry to hear about Conrad - I was not aware of the fact that he had passed away - I have not got the original ring numbers of the pigeons sent to Conrad but my Grizzle family was built out of a Spangle Cock whose parents were imported by Nico Rabie mated to an imported grizzle hen from De Scheurmaker brothers - the first babies out of this mating won 13 races - some of them were 4 time winners - they are breeding winners down into the 4th generation - I later imported a Tournier hen from Hans Eijerkamp to refresh the blood and their first daughter, 008, won 7 races. The Late Anthony Highland had one of these hens that bred him 13 winners - wherever they went they performed well. Hope they give you pleasure - what happened to Conrad's pigeons?
Regards
Faunty
I like the very light grizzels – the almost white ones and I battled to find a GOOD Grizzel cock that would compliment Madonna.
I found the perfect cock / family at Hans Olivier “Hankoo hokke”
Hans bought a Jean Voss Jennes hen on Barnie Deetlefts sale in 1998
Lot 9 – she was one of the more if not the most expensive birds on the sale.
See her impressive write up from the extraction in catalogue!!!
At the Hankoo lofts see just continued to produce the goods. One of her first sons was a federation winner for “Hankoo Hokke”.
Brian Paulsen bought the Federation winner cock from Hans and in 2003 he also bought his mother the Jean Voss Jennes hen for R6000.
As luck would have it in January 2012 accept for a few birds I bought out Brian’s entire stock which included his beautiful “Grizzel” family.
Amongst the birds, to my surprise, was the original Lot 9 Jean Voss Jennes hen still in beautiful condition at the age of 17 years!!
I wasted no time to breed together the off spring from the Voss Jennes hen to Madonna and her children.
The first babies are beautiful on the eye and in the hand - very light in color like Madonna with the feather legs like the Voss Jennes hen.