Found this book on my old farm in Sweden. No idea how it got here.

23 comments
  1. I’m on the picture!

    What year is that map? There’s no motorway on it, so it should be the early 80’s or before.

  2. Oh my family was into this big time i. 60’s early 70’s but all the animals got sold when my granpa died suddenly in 76. Wonder if there is anything in this book about his genetic line of pidgeons

  3. Pigeons are the gangster rappers of birds, so it figures they’d migrate to Sweden since these days that’s where all the best action is taking place.

  4. Please scan every page of this book so we can all be enthralled by the (probably) fascinating history of carrier pigeons.

  5. My guess is that a contingent of pigeons were transported there to be released to see which one would get back home the fastest. Whoever transported them there may have left the book behind.

    Either that or the book is one of those gifts nobody wants, and so it just kept getting gifted to someone else until it ended up all the way in Sweden.

  6. My home is on that map, Torhout!!! And yes there is a (relatively) large community of race pidgeon breeders here. They are called “duivenmelkers” which loosly translates to “people who milk pidgeons”.

    People laugh at this sport/hobby all the time, but let me tell you, you’d be amazed what kind of money is in this breeding sport. Top pidgeons sell for hundreds of thousands €. Even the average player who can breed a line of champions can easily get a few thousand € for a single chick. My father in law is a breeder in the area of Leuven.

    It is actualy super interesting and very traditional for Belgium and northern France.

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