Feeding "à la Jos Thoné" (new video)
新闻与结果

Feeding "à la Jos Thoné" (new video)

February 5, 2020

Feeding is one of the most important aspects of pigeon racing. Fanciers are always in search of new and better mixtures for their birds. The large offering on the market doesn't make it easy to find the perfect mixture. A complicated feeding procedure, like constant weighing, is nothing for the modern pigeon fancier. Jos Thoné likes to keep his feeding as simple as possible. Even more, the food should be adjusted to the pigeon's real needs. Together with Beyers, Jos Thoné has developed his own mixture "Thoné Olympic". This mixture is a pure allround mixture, that we use 365 days a year for all the birds.

Feeding "à la Jos Thoné"

Jos Thoné: "Feed is very important and there is a lot to be won and lost by it. I think there is more nonsense spoken and written around it than anything alse in our sport. My stock birds are always given as much as they want. My racing team on the other hand, that's another story! Quite often I'm asked, how much should you give for a 200km race and how much for a 700km race? Let me put it this way: there is no hard and fast rule. If it's going to be a difficult 200km race, then you give heavier food. If it's an easy 700km race, lighter food. It's the same in winter: when it's really cold, give a heavier diet; when it's milder, a lighter diet. What I'm trying to say is, there is no fixed rule. You have to follow your instinct and keep your eyes open!"

Video presentation of our feeding practices

Beyers Premium Thoné Olympic

Everyone who has ever met Jos Thoné will agree with this description. He is an all-round player and winner with an enormous amount of feeling for pigeons. He is ambitious and passionate in his love for pigeon racing, and he is often ahead of his time. Jos is a worthy ambassador for Belgian pigeon racing.

Since starting up as an independent participant 1991, working from his current location in Niel-by-As, he has been at the top level and has continued to adapt his methods to the highly evolved sport of pigeon racing. As a fellow-pioneer, he has successfully introduced many new facets that have won a big following (e.g. in loft construction and interior installation, blackout with supplementary lighting, full-widowhood and having one pigeon scoring exceptionally in five National races in the same season, etc.).

In 2001, Jos was looking for an all-round and versatile mix that was adapted to his racing system and which he could use during the breeding and the moulting season too. In a nutshell, he required one feed mix for the entire year. He wanted to avoid unnecessarily disrupting the pigeons’ intestinal flora and to make feeding pigeons as simple as possible for every fancier or loft keeper.

At the time that was not an easy task, but it presented a great challenge for our Technical Consultants. BEYERS Premium Thoné Special was the result of the co-creation with this top pigeon fancier. It is a versatile all-round mix of smaller cereal types to ensure optimum uptake while providing the nutritional value that allows you to get the most from your pigeons’ qualities. Besides other advantages, using this mix led to outstanding results in all disciplines and to a phenomenal list of victories.

Pigeons have become faster and they train harder and better, which means that they need adapted husbandry and nutrition. It would be astonishing if Jos had not evolved since the time he first worked on the feed. He still wants a single feed mix to serve as the main ingredient of the diet, and one that was good for all seasons. So, Jos and our Technical Consultant Ludo Wille looked into the possibilities for upgrading the mix’s functionality with reduced addition of other mixes during the seasons and an even better match for Jos’s current feed and racing system. BEYERS Premium Thoné Olympic is the result of that quest. This is a new and improved version of Thoné Special, and it looks very nice. The biggest difference in the composition compared to Premium Thoné Special lies in the ingredients that supply proteins. They were mainly legumes (dun peas, maple peas). The quantity of those ingredients was greatly reduced (16% -> 4%) and replaced by small and fat-rich seeds with highly digestible protein content (hemp 3%, rape seed 2% and milk thistle 1%) and other legumes (peas small yellow 4% and lentils 3 %).

As a result, the crude protein content has risen slightly (15.5%), but far more important is that we add more small and fat-rich seeds to increase the biological value of the proteins and achieve a higher utilization of protein content (= better digestibility).

Just as we do with any BEYERS mix, we have tested this new and improved composition extensively with Jos Thoné and some other willing lofts, before presenting the final successful formula to you. And we provide all the details about his current feed system with this new premium all-round mix.

BEYERS Premium Thoné Olympic

  • A beautifully multi-purpose all-round mixture for the whole year
  • Limited addition of other mixtures during specific seasons
  • Winterbreeding: extra proteins through a Liègois mixture (extra peas)
  • Racing: extra carbohydrates et fats through Sport Energy Galaxy and Long Distance TT Galaxy.
  • Moulting: moulting intensifier