AMERICAN FRIENDS OF THE BRUNNER CROPPER CLUB The club dedicated to the promotion and advancement of the Brunner Cropper in the USA October 2013 Newsletter Fred Maenpa - President Helen Symington Bulletin Editor
Presidents Message As the show season begins the AFBCC looks forward to another outstanding year of record breaking Shows. Our Club is still going strong and our Brunners continue to impress at shows throughout the country. With the NPA National coming up in Oklahoma City, which is a hot bed for Pouters, we could see a Brunner Entry approaching 200 birds. From what I have heard many of the top Pouter breeders in America are planning to attend. As of this date the West Coast has had three shows. In July it was the NP&CC Young Bird Show, in September the LAPC Young Bird Show, and the Great Western, all breed all age show in October. At the Great Western we had a total of 27 birds shown and our Judge was Charlie Rowe. Charlie did a great job sorting through a nice group of birds. The Champion was a beautiful Young Black Cock from J&J Lofts. Our Champion Brunner also went on to win overall Champion Pouter and Cropper. Reserve Brunner was an Ash Red Young Hen from J&J Lofts. Best old bird was a Mealy Grizzle OC shown by Fred Maenpa. I have included a few photos of birds and fanciers taken at the show. Our AFBCC members won two of the top three Pouter and Cropper awards with J&J Lofts winning Champion, John Heppner Reserve, and Sieglind Tate second Reserve. Our thanks goes out to AFBCC Members Charlie Rowe and Layne Gardner on the job they did judging the finals. Working the finals together they got it right. Thanks guys. I would like to welcome our new members and wish everyone a great Show Season ahead. Please push our Brunners at your local shows and support your District Directors as much as possible. Our Directors have been sent AFBCC awards for 2013 as they had requested. While at your district meets don t forget to ask your Directors about our AFBCC stickers. They are beautiful 31/2 x5 stickers that can be used on your carrying cases, cars, trucks, buildings, etc.. Each member will be given two and additional stickers are available for $1.00 each. Just a quick reminder we are still looking for a Director to support our club in Canada. If you or someone in your area is interested please let me know. The Canadian Fanciers have many fine Brunners and deserve our support. Our AFBCC bands for 2014 will be arriving in mid December. We still have a number of members with balances still due. I will mail out the paid orders as soon as they arrive, but will hold off mailing orders that were not paid in advance. Please refer to the list below and mail in your balances as soon as possible. All 2014 bands were pre ordered and sold, but if the bands are not paid for, before mailing, I will sell them to other Members on a first come, first serve basis. Why not pay your dues for 2014 along with your band order. Mike Hughes is our Sec/Treasurer and I will forward your dues to him if sent in with your band money. Please send me your balance ASAP as I will need to pay off our club balance as soon as the NPA sends me our order. Band orders that are paid in full: Band Orders with Balances still due: All Fowler (100) Barry Ward (25) Bob Bollinger (100) Gerald Butler (100) Mike Hughes (100) Fred Maenpa (200) Leiby Silva (25) Walter McKeen (60) Adrain Carrera (35) $3.00 postage due Jim Clinton (270) $124.50 including postage Rod Davis (20) $3.00 postage due Wes Pfanderhaur (50) $25.50 including postage Richard Bohman (35) $18.75 including postage Jeff Clemens (85) $41.25 including postage Mike Crook (35) $18.75 including postage Corey Hays (80) $39.00 including postage Jim Symington (100) $45.00
If you are interested in 2014 bands and your name is not on the list above please let me know. If bands are available I will let you know. My breeding season for 2013 was a mix of good and bad. I raised over a hundred young brunners, but while going through a complete demo and rebuild of my lofts lost a few young birds in the crowded temporary holding pens during construction. As the project is coming to a close I look forward to a great year in 2014. A complete review of the new loft will be a part of our next bulletin, once it is finished. I have included a couple of photos of the new loft in this bulletin as it is nearing completion. There is never a good time to rebuilt but I am now looking forward to my new building. In closing, I would like to remind everyone to contact our Southern Director Gerald Butler with any questions about the January National. It should be a huge Pouter and Cropper Show and the awards for the show are ready to go. Our next bulletin is scheduled for February and should include Show reports from our District meets. If you have photos please forward them along with articles to Helen in a timely manner. I will have a report on the upcoming November Pageant and invite everyone to take an active part in the AFBCC. Send your 2014 dues to Mike Hughes and band balances to me. I wish everyone success at the upcoming shows and hope to see you at the 2014 National in Oklahoma City. Once again, please help one another with birds and promote our wonderful little breed as much as possible. Have a wonderful Holiday Season ahead and a great New Year in 2014. Fred Maenpa, President New unfinished Loft
New unfinished Loft Great Western Best Old Brunner Mealy OC Great Western Black Tiger YH Great Western Luis Rodiguez, Mike Hughes, Jim Clinton, Stan Maksee (LtoR) Great Western Stan Maksee, Leon Stephens Great Western Sieglinda Tate - 2 nd Reserve THVRinger Jim Clinton Champion Brunner John Heppner Reserve English (LtoR) Overall Pouter & Cropper Winners
Great Western Brunner Champion BK YC J&J Lofts Great Western Reserve Ash Red YH J&J Lofts J&J Lofts White Young Cock Yellow Young Cock Young Hen J&J Lofts birds being Trained
Southern Directors Report The winter show in Oklahoma has come and gone and the Mid-South Pouter and Cropper Club held another successful show. We were the second largest specialty club entered with a total of 142 pouters and croppers. Brunners made up about 65 of those. I think this number of Brunners will rise considerably next year as we have several new members who have birds to breed from this season. I think we can have 90 or so if everyone has a pretty good season. This year's Brunner champion was a nice old black cock shown by one of our new members, Barry Ward of Fort Worth, Texas. I had reserve champion with a young white cock. I am always happy to see new members do this well as it encourages them as well as others to see that it is not always the longtime breeders who can win. Congratulations Barry. The pressure is now on for you to continue to be in the midst of the competition. Our Brunner group is growing here in Texas and Oklahoma. In addition to Barry we have added Don Sutton of Mellisa, Texas and Al Fowler of Hollis, Oklahoma. I know that Barry and Don have joined the AFOTBCC, and I will talk to Al about joining as he is coming over to visit in the near future. Marvin Wengert of Kansas picked up several pairs of Brunners from me at the Oklahoma show after having lost a number of his stock to a varmint. I hope he will be back showing with us next year. We have the potential to have 100 Brunners at this show in the near future. As for me, I haven't started to mate up any birds. My Brunners just do not do very well until the weather begins to warm up. Last year I started with them in February and mated the old to old birds first and worked my way through them mating the young to young last and this seemed to work pretty well and allowed me to start a little earlier. However, this year is going to find lots of young birds in the line-up so I will most likely not put them together until around March 1. Our temperature just changes too much from day to night. I know Jim Clinton already has most of his together. As usual he will be way out ahead of most of us in young birds. I don't plan to breed from as many pairs as last season. I am going to try to discipline myself and use 18 pairs. A little history here. I bet that most of you did not know that the Mid-South Pouter and Cropper Club is an offshoot of the the old Southern Pouter Club. That club is no longer in existence but the Mid-South Club is growing and thriving here in the Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas area. Each year we sponsor the pouter show held with the Oklahoma Pigeon Association's winter show. The Mid-South Club began with a handful of members and stayed that way for many years, but in more recent years has begun to grow. We have 21 members now who show Reverswing, Brunner, Hana, Voorburg, Old German, Horseman, Holle, Norwich, and Saxon. We lost our V.P. in November to cancer and to my knowledge he was the last of those who were instrumental in the formation of the Mid-South Club, and he helped to hold the club together all these years. At this year's show we had 20 of the 21 members present and 16 of them were exhibiting birds. I think this speaks highly of the dedication of our club members, and this is the reason I am optimistic about the club's future and the number of pouters and croppers we will have on display in the coming years. Also, I have never had a year where so many people were asking about getting Brunners to add to their lofts. I hope this is a continuing trend. I really do hate to have to turn interested people away. When they have to wait a year to get birds they most often lose interest. I had already helped six individuals with birds and didn't have any more to spare. I hope this New Year will be a successful and healthy year for each personally and with your hobby. Gerald Butler Southern Director
J&J Lofts I put birds together in Feb and 275 young birds later the season is shutting down. There are 16 to be band and 4 eggs being set. The blues, blacks and grizzled are very good and the black tigers have been the biggest disappointment. I just can't seem to control the spread of the white. They are good looking birds before the molt and unrecognizable after the molt. Over all it has been a great season. The birds are all dipped for mites and well into the molt, ready for the show season to start. The Great Western, first show of the season, is just around the corner. I have my training area set up and will start training the first of Oct. The Club will sponsor a champion and reserve champion award for the show. This show is the Western District meet and has always been a good show. Charlie Rowe will do the judging and has done a good job in the past. Try and make it. My partner Jeff has moved about 100 away and bought a home. Last week I went up for a couple days and we built a 10 by 12 breeding loft for him. This will help him in the breeding next season but we have a real problem as to where we are going to house the young birds. Jeff had a huge place for them but is too far away for either of us to use next season. There isn't much else going on at this time but will be a lot happening as the show season gets underway. Jim Clinton Champion and Reserve Champion Awards for the Great Western. Both won by J&J Lofts.
Young White Cock Young Black Hen Young Mealy Grizzled Cock Black Hen Young Cocks in training for the Great Western
AFBCC Eastern Director Report September 2013 By Bob Bollinger Hello everyone! I hope you all have had a good breeding season and are looking forward to the shows this fall. I must say that I am very excited. My work schedule has been and continues to be rather hectic. With that being said, I will likely have to limit my shows, but that makes the ones I plan to attend even more special. In the East we will have meets at the Reading Young Bird and Winter shows. We are also fortunate to have the National Young Bird Show hosted by the CPCC and of course the National in Oklahoma will be within driving distance. I plan to attend all of these events but regrettably that doesn t leave much time for anything else. This year I had an OK breeding season. It started well, then I had a lot of varmint problems, then it slowed though summer, and now the birds are back at it again. I am happy with my show team of yellow and red selfs. I was also fortunate to raise a number of nice white bars that I will be showing. I was hoping to raise a lot of reds and yellows to meet the many requests I have received. It looks like the only birds to go will be a few breeders and some late hatches. This year I had a lot of trouble with rats, snakes, and get this, flying squirrels killing youngsters. I pride myself in keeping a well manicure yard and loft area. I have never had varmint problems like this year. I continue to fortify my pens and I hope to raise some more late hatches and then roll into next year very efficiently. Our unofficial show season started off with our local county fair. The York Fair draws large numbers of visitors from several states. Pigeons have been a staple at the fair for decades and breeders do their best to keep the numbers up so the public can see that our birds are more than just flying rats. I have to admit that my favorite part of the fair is coop in and coop out. There is always a bevy of excitement and invariably a crowd of children who want to touch a pigeon. It sort of makes all the effort worthwhile. This year I was fortunate to win the event with a nice yellow OH. Even before the judging I watched people walk by the cages. Many stopped to stare at the brunners. They were certainly a highlight of the poultry building. As you can see, the show winners were set off in special cages in the main aisle. At one of our small summer shows we had another nice turn out of brunners. There were 4 exhibitors including one junior member. We also had another junior member join the club and start with a pair of brunners. Not too bad for a show with only a few hundred birds.
In my discussions with some of our other members we realized that things have been a bit quiet in the club for the last several months. I know I have been real busy and I know many others were fully booked too. We should all try to make an effort to reach out to other members. This keeps the club fun and exciting. Just recently I have updated our web site with the show list that I know about and all of our recent bulletins. If anyone has any show dates, pictures or other information to post, please email it to me. (pictures sized for web publishing would be the best) I will do my best to keep the site fresh and engaging. We are hoping to have an excellent turn out of brunners at the National and NYBS. I look forward to seeing everyone there. Let s bring all the birds we can. This will really get everyone s attention and show off our growing club and breed! NYBS 2013 Update By Bob Bollinger Once again pouters and croppers were represented well at the NYBS. There were 280 pouters entered with 260 birds shown. Pouters and coppers followed only the rare breeds in overall bird count at the show. The CCPC did an excellent job of hosting the event. Everything was well organized and the judging went smoothly. Our breed was also well represented as a brunner won Reserve Champion Pouter / Cropper overall. Jerry Sindelar judged the final lineup and commented that all of the top birds were very nice. The yellow YH #4709, bred by Bob Bollinger, showed very well and never stopped performing throughout the event. Kent Baumgardner judged the brunners where 22 birds were exhibited. All in all it was an excellent day.
Secretary/Treasurer Report The treasury balance stands at $360. Since I started as Sec/Treas with a beginning balance of $299, the following funds have come into the club: Al Fowler $3.00 for band shipping Bob Bollinger $48.00 for bands and shipping $10.00 for two Junior memberships for Heather Heidcalf and Marissa Shirk. Marissa is a new member. We need to get everyone to send in their dues and band payments. We will need to spend some money for awards for the shows that are coming up. So, send your dues and band payments to: Mike Hughes 132 Poppy Rd Morenci, AZ 85540 Or I can take PayPal payments at mhughes1074@yahoo.com. A warm welcome to new Jr. Members Heather Heidcalf and Marissa shirk. I hope everyone had a good breeding season and is getting ready for the upcoming show season. I made some good progress with the project to make shield marked Brunners. I was able to raise an assortment of colors and patterns in the first cross. I will now be putting these together to hopefully get some shield marked birds then it will be back to Brunners. I was also able to raise a few black Brunners and hope to have a few of them in the shows this fall. Have a good show season, Mike Hughes
Vice President s Report Hi everyone just wanted to tell you about the Irvine Park Young Bird Show. As always it was a lot of fun. There were a lot of nice birds there and some real promising brunners. My birds are starting to show some promise, but my hat is off to Fred Maenpa who won with a really nice little tiger hen. And thank you Charlie Rowe for doing such a great job judging our brunners. Here are some pictures of some of the birds at Irvine. I hope you enjoy them. See you at the Pageant this year. Jim Symington Champion
Join the AFBCC! www.brunnercropper.com The American Friends of the Brunner Cropper Club is dedicated to the promotion and advancement of the Brunner Cropper in the USA. We are a club that promotes friendship among Brunner Pouter breeders and anyone interested in the beautiful Brunner Cropper! Name: Address: City, State ZIP: Phone: Email: Colors Raised: Please remember to include your email address! This will allow you to receive an electronic color copy of our bulletin and help reduce the club s mailing costs. Thanks! Membership Dues Adult $15.00 / year Juniors $ 5.00 / year jpouter52@aol.com Send form to: Mike Hughes AFBCC, Secretary / Treasurer 132 Poppy Rd. Morenci, AZ 85540 mike@norwichcropper.com
AFBCC Current Club Officers President: Vice President: Sec/Treasurer: Southern Director: Western Director: Midwest Director: Eastern Director: Canadian Director: Bulletin Editor Fred Maenpa Orange, CA 714-538-7408 (H) 714-865-9480 (Cell) fjmaenpa@sbcglobal.com Jim Symington Anaheim, CA 714-254-0505 (H) 714-812-0737 (Cell) Jrs605@msn.com Mike Hughes Morenci, AZ 928-965-9053 (H) mike@norwichcropper.com Gerald Butler Olney, TX 940-564-3827 (H) grbutler@brazosnet.com J& J Lofts - Jim Clinton Medera, CA 555-662-1105 (H) Jpouter52@aol.com Mike McLin Rice Lake, WI 715-790-6266 Race_W_Me@hotmail.com Bob Bollinger Stewartstown, PA 717-993-0994 (H) 717-880-1088 (Cell) RSBollin@aol.com OPEN POSITION Helen Symington - Anaheim, CA 714-254-0505 (H) elenis@roadrunner.com AFBCC IS DEDICATED TO THE DEVELOMNENT AND PROMOTION OF THE BRUNNER POUTER Club Patch Club Bumber Sticker