Breeding system

When you ask Marc Schreurs for his breeding system, he laughs mysteriously and says "I have no real breeding system... I just put together two pigeons..."
Of course nobody will believe him, for to maintain a breed of pigeons during 35 years and more with the same pigeons, while introducing new blood sparsely, there must be a system.

The Schreurs-Vandueren era (1970-1990)

Founding the strain

As one can read elsewhere on this site, the late Jan Schreurs, father of Marc and Patrick, founded his breed of pigeons with very few base pigeons: the Old Cattrysse, his granddaughter the Oude Blauw, the red Couple "1 nat. Saint Vincent x Goed Rood Desmet"...
All this pigeons came from a very small loft maintained at a very high level by his owner, Guillaume Petri.
Those pigeons were so good and the breeding base was so small that Jan Schreurs had no other choice than inbreeding them: halfbrother-halfsister, aunt-nephew, grandsire-granddaughter and so on.
Because the founding pigeons were already strongly inbred by Cattrysse, Vander Espt, Jos Hermans and so on, the breeding results were very stable from the very start.

Two lines

Jan Schreurs bred two lines out of his basic pigeons:

a blue line out of an inbred mating: Old Cattrysse x his granddaughter Oud Blauw
a red line out of the Red Couple of Petri, mixed very soon with the Old Cattrysse

But the two lines were intermingled very soon. And the reason was simple: the intercrossing of both lines gave superior pigeons such as the Blauwe Marathon.

Fixing the Marathon line

Jan Schreurs knew he had to fix the bloodline of the Blauwe Marathon.
He did this by ... inbreeding still more. So he mated

a son of the blauwe Marathon to a sister of the same Blue Marathon
the Blue Marathon to a sister of his sire.

Cautious inbreeding as one can see.
But both of those aunt-nephew pairings gave excellent breeding birds.
This line survives until today in birds as Birgit, Barcelona Jan etc.

More inbreeding by Hub Peeters

By mating to cousins out of the blue pair of Schreurs, Hub Peeters founded a famous line of Barcelona champions with a very high breeding capacity.
In 1998 Schreurs-Hauben will reintroduce the Peeters pigeons to refresh their own blue line.

New blood: the Vale Beunen

In 1975 Jan Schreurs introduced one single new bird: the brother of the famous Vaaltje of Beunen.
Jan Schreurs knew very well what he had tot do: mate the Vale Beunen to his best hens and cross the offspring back with his best pigeons.
So he mated the Vale Beunen to

the founding hen Oud Blauw: gave excellent racers
the nestmate of the Blauwe Marathon
another sister of the Blauwe Marathon

In both last cases an excellent breeding hen was the result.
Jan Schreurs crossed the two hens back to his best breeder, the Superbreeder 47, a grandson of both the Blauwe Marathon and the 1 nat. Saint-Vincent.
Out of this outbreeding-inbreeding process came a whole dynasty of superior birds: Caesar Pau, Apache, Invalied and their offspring.

The lesson

when you introduce new blood, only the utmost best origin is good enough
mate the newly introduced bird(s) to your best pigeon(s)
cross the offspring back to the inbred strain:

effect of this procedure: you gain new vitality by the effect of heterosis (bastard strenght) and the homogeneity of the own strain is not compromised.

The Schreurs-Hauben era (1990-.....)

The Kuypers upgrade

When he started in As in 1989 with the same breed as his father, Marc Schreurs thought it was time to introduce new genes in the strain. After serious consideration the choice fell on the inbred Kuypers strain.
Marc introduced some Kuypers pigeons via Maurice Borgers in his newly formed breed in As. But he was very selective: of the 30 or so Borgers birds he obtained, only 3 or 4 were judged good enough to introduce in the breed.
The same procedure was applied: outbreeding and then inbreeding and with the same succes: Vale Barcelona II, Miss Biarritz, Goele, Saffier, Barcelona King etc..

The Brinkman hen

The introduction of the Brinkman hen was another masterly move by the Schreurs brothers: maybe the best upgrade of the strain since the Old Cattrysse.
As soon as Marc Schreurs discovered the breeding potential of this highly inbred van der Wegen hen, he didn't hesitate and started inbreeding the van der Wegen hen herself to fix the bloodline for at least one more generation.
The results of the crossing of the two inbred strains are very promising: Dark Angel, Pursang, Kleine Barcelona, Torgal, Melissa, Adelina...

An example

An example tells more than pages of theory. Let's take the pedigree of Adelina, 21 nat. Barcelona in 2006. Her pedigree illustrates very well the breeding genius of Marc Schreurs...

B 5278250-99 Sire Adelina	B 5014902-93 Vale Barcelona II 13 nat. Barcelona	B 5014981-89 Donkere Borgers Sire Barcelona II Kuypers INBRED Barcelona Pair	B 5008301-86 brother Willem 19 int. Barcelona
			B 5319815-84 Moeder Interpares
		B 5337025-88 Claudia	B 5023278-85 2 nat. Marseille INBRED Old Cattrysse line
			B 5134163-87 Het Schoon
	NL 1394750-93 Dam Pursang 13 int. Perpignan Full sister to the Dam of Turbo106 of the Frenken Brothers (35 and 128 nat. Barcelona)	NL 133680-84 Lichte Barcelona INBRED Old Cattrysse line	B 5233387-81 Vader Blinde Hub Peeters Direct Schreurs
			B 5233390-81 Stammoeder Hub Peeters direct Schreurs
		NL 1290031-90 Zus Turbo II	NL 1448888-82 de Barcelona
			NL 1103117-83
B 5052238-02 Fortunata Dam Adelina INBRED half brother x half sister Daughter Dark Angel	B 5094159-99 Marco	B 5014902-93 Vale Barcelona II 13 nat. Barcelona	B 5014981-89 Donkere Borgers Sire Barcelona II Kuypers INBRED Barcelona Pair
			B 5337025-88 Claudia Daughter 2 nat. Marseille INBRED Old Cattrysse line
		NL 4049974-89 zus 1 nat.St.Vincent INBRED van der Wegen	NL 627342-79 de van der Wegen
			NL 627242-79 Nestzus Bergerac
	B 5082147-96 Dark Angel 28 nat. Barcelona	B 5012317-93 Zoon Marseille INBRED Old Cattrysse line	B 5023278-85 2 nat. Marseille
			B 5083799-91 20/14751 Orleans
		NL 4049974-89 zus 1 nat.St.Vincent INBRED van der Wegen	NL 627342-79 de van der Wegen
			NL 627242-79 Nestzus Bergerac

What do we learn here?

Adelina is a product out of uncle x niece. This is the closest inbreeding Schreurs-Hauben judges fit for racing purposes.
Dam of Adelina is a judiciously inbred hen with the very best pigeons of the loft: Vale Barcelona II (13 nat. Barcelona) and Dark Angel (28 nat. Barcelona) both grandchildren of the 2 nat. Marseille!
The inbreeding is done to continue the bloodline of the Brinkman Hen which is proven successful!
At the loft of Schreurs-Hauben this kind of relatively close inbreeding is done exclusively for breeding purposes.
The next step will be that Marc Schreurs will fix this line even more by mating the dam of Adelina with her own father, 159-99.
It suffices to look at the following pedigree of the Pursang, 13 nat. Perpignan in 2002, to understand what inpired Marc Schreurs to make the Adelina pairing. One will easily recognize the same successful combination of lines...

B 5271895-00 Sire Pursang Inbred Brinkman Full brother to the dam of Adelina	B 5094159-99 Marco	B 5014902-93 Vale Barcelona II
		NL 4049974-89 Sister 1 nat.St.Vincent direct Herman Brinkman
	B 5082147-96 Dark Angel	B 5012317-93 Son Marseille
		NL 4049974-89 Sister 1 nat.St.Vincent direct Herman Brinkman
B 1394750-93 Dam 13 internat. Perpignan Granddam Adelina	NL 133680-84 Lichte Barcelona Hub Peeters	B 5233387-81 Sire Blinde
		B 5233390-81 Stammoeder
	NL 1290031-90 Sister Turbo II Frenken Brothers	NL 1448888-82 The Barcelona
		NL 1103117-83

The breeding system

The general principles of the breeding system of Schreurs-Hauben:

To maintain a breed of pigeons, there is only one system: inbreeding, but never to close.
You can never inbreed recklessly: inbreeding can also fix bad qualities! Inbreeding goes hand in hand with a very severe selection.
You need a rather large base to avoid inbreeding to closely. For racing purposes the best results are obtained by mating two loosely related pigeons inside the breed.
Close inbreeding is only appropriate for fixing bloodlines and thus for breeding purposes.
While introducing new bloodlines, one can never be to demanding: only the best is good enough.
You have the best results by introducing strongly inbred pigeons. If the combination matches well, the results are stable and almost predictable.
Breeding is an art, you need a lot of "feeling" but also a good part of "luck".