B24-5012124
1st National Argenton 6,523 yearbirds

Distance: 539km
Velocity: 1,547 m/m

Argenton II had an entry of 6,523 yearling pigeons, and the national winner was the beautiful blue widower of brothers Luc and Carlo Lenaerts from Gorsem.
The brothers are having a fantastic season, with their tally of “regional victories” (which typically means beating an average of 2,000 to 2,500 pigeons) already flirting with the number 15! That tells you the Lenaerts brothers' racing team is in top condition. The highlight of their pigeon racing career (so far) came last weekend with the victory of their very first national win.

Speed, Middle Distance, and National Races

The 2025 season began with a group of 40 hens and 34 cocks. The 34 cocks each have a partner that stays at home, while the 40 hens have to share 15 stay-at-home cocks.
“That takes some juggling early in the season,” Carlo explains, “but once the hens are spread out across speed, middle distance, and national races, this system works perfectly. The principle is simple: whoever comes home first gets to cuddle with a cock. The others are out of luck.”

The 34 widowers are housed in two lofts: an attic loft and a garden loft. The national winner has his box in the attic loft.
Carlo says: “On Candlemas (February 2nd), the widowers were paired and allowed to incubate until they lost interest in the nest. Once they abandoned it, the hens were removed from the loft and the cocks went into widowhood. If everything goes smoothly, that’s about ten days before the start of the season. In our humble opinion... ideal. Oh, and during the breeding period, we visit veterinarian Raf Herbots. We follow his advice regarding vaccinations and any treatments. We place a lot of importance on a good start to the season—if things go wrong there, it’s hard to get back on track.”

The flight schedule of their racing pigeons varies weekly. Everything is analyzed on a week-by-week basis. If they’ve had a tough race, they might fly a shorter race the following week before returning to a national event. It all depends on how the last race went, how well the pigeon recovered, and the weather forecast. All of these are factors in selecting the right race.
This season, for example, their national winner flew national Bourges, national Argenton, national Tulle, and now Argenton again.

As for feeding, they rely on the Plus mixes from Versele-Laga: Gerry Plus as the base, with Champion Plus and Superstar Plus for building them up. They also use supplements from Herbovet, Röhnfried, and Belgica-Deweerdt.
You won’t find a fixed care schedule here. Both feeding and the use of medication and supplements are all done “by feel.” We rely on our years of experience, and it hasn’t let us down yet.
Speaking of medication: the week before the national win, we gave the widowers “4 in 1” from Deweerdt—a very good product to support digestion, because keeping pigeons eating well is just so important.

The foundation of our colony includes pigeons from Marc Bollen (St. Lambrechts Herk), Jan Pappens (Hundelgem), and Stefan Mertens (Geraardsbergen – pigeons from Jan Pappens and Willem de Bruijn).
We’ve also recently acquired some new pigeons, but we’ll only know in the coming years whether those will be successful or not.

Stefan Mertens