Another major national stage this season was the National Stendal marathon competition, a stage for which the pigeons were launched on July 11, at 08:24. Satu-Mare Association was the organizer of this stage, and almost all the participating fanciers had distances around 1000 km and even more. One of the longest distances (997 km) also had the winners of the contest, team Tau + Dănilă from Arad, those who managed the performance to win the 1st and 4th places on the race, with two hens competed using widowhood method.

The organization of the National Stendal 2019 competition meant an intense concern from the members of the Satu-Mare association. In order to attract as many participants as possible, numerous cash prizes and pigeon products were put into play, as well as a special trophy, very suggestively called “Golden Wing”. It seems that these efforts were not in vain, for Stendal participating 340 fanciers from several counties of Romaina, including Moldova area, and a total of 3,410 pigeons.

Team Tau + Dănilă, 1st place and 4th place of the race

Of all the fanciers, the best arrivals were to those from Arad County. The first 13 places of the ranking are occupied exclusively by Arad pigeon fanciers, although they did not have the smallest distances in the competition. The winners of the contest and the big trophy are also from Arad, fanciers Nicolae Tau and Daniel Dănilă, who together form the team Tau + Dănilă. The two hired 16 widows, mostly hens, for the Stendal National competition. The most motivated of them, 6030166/2017, arrived home at 20:56, good enough to win the first place and not to be overtaken by any other pigeon in the overall ranking. She was soon followed by another hen, 6026741/2017, who arrived  home just 10 minutes later. Even so, it ranked 4th on the launch, so the team Tau + Dănilă had two pigeons in the top 5. “We have been competing in this formula for three years, with Mr. Nicolae having most of the merits. Most of the time he deals with pigeons, training and maintenance, and I notice that the results are getting better. As pigeon origins, we have the old Stichelbaut pigeon family, brought by my partner from Stelian Bordeianu, and lately we have brought a lot of originals Aarden, Kipp, Martha van Geel, Ovewater etc. From these we reproduced youngsters that were only competed in the races with autumn young birds, then they were moved to the breeding loft. Basically we fly with grandchildren from the original birds, all being combinations of the families I told you earlier. The pigeons started the season on natural method, and before the first Extreme long distance race they went to widowhood. The two hens in 1st and 4th places were motivated by jealousy. In the flight team there are only 11 cocks and 22 hens, practically being two hens for one cock. To motivate them very well, the hens are left alternately in the box with the cock, then they are released together to fight for the nest box and the cock. After 1-2 minutes they are taken to the race. The first arrived hen is from Stichelbaut pigeons, cultivated for many years by Mr. Nicolae, and the second is 100% Aarden. In general, pigeons get a lot of tea, with rare days when they drink only clean water. We use nettle tea a lot, but also from other plants. Even upon arrival the pigeons receive in the water a mixture of honey and lemon. The only treatments we do during the season are for trichomoniasis and the respiratory tract, and we use very few products ”, explained Daniel Danila.

For team Tau + Dănilă, Stendal National was a perfect race. Out of 16 engaged pigeons, 14 returned home and 13 of them ranked it. As the winning hen was also on their chosen team, and in the 33rd place was ranked another pigeon from their team, this time a cock, the Tau + Dănilă team also took second place in the fanciers competition. Thus, with the 1st and 4th places on the launch and the 2nd place on fanceirs, the two were the protagonists of the best results of this season’s edition of the national competition Stendal.