| In
the Fall of 1995 we purchased a 6 bird young bird kit
from David Clausing. These were our first Houbens. They
didn't impress us at this point being late hatches and
most of them on their 7th tip. Because of their
bloodlines and David's success we decided to pair them
up and give them a try. This turned out to be a wise
decision with 5 of the 6 breeding winners in the first
year. They blossomed as yearlings and now looked
beautiful. One of these "kit" birds was a
compact little apple bodied smokey blue hen we named
"Smoke Dream" who became the mother of our
loft. She was a double granddaughter of Houben's
foundation cock "Young Artiest" We tried to
acquire the imported parents from David but he had
already sold them to two different fanciers and one of
them out of the country, we believe. "Smoke
Dream" went on to produce 12-1st place winners with
her children and now her grandchildren producing winners
as well.
Needless
to say we became very interested in the Houben strain.
Over the next 6 years we purchased 14 direct children of
"Ziko" and "King David" from the
Clausing loft and visited David in Nocatee, Florida
which is only 30 minutes from our Florida home in
Sarasota. This would be an appropriate time to thank
David Clausing for starting us out with this remarkable
family that wins out of turn. We have sine added the
"1383" and "Dana" bloodlines.
We
decided it was time to go to the source direct, the
HOUBEN FAMILY LOFT so with the help of my good friend
Eric Gioiosa, we started importing a few select stock
birds each year from their top producers. We had instant
success with direct children of their champion producer
"Perfecto" and now have 8 direct children of
this outstanding producer. We also acquired a few
imports through David. We have built our NETTIS FAMILY
HOUBEN FAMILY by blending "Ziko" and
"King David" line with our "Smoke
Dream" children and "Perfecto" bloodlines
along with direct children of "Rico" and
"Pinnochio" arguably the 3 best producer cocks
in recent years in the Houben Family Loft. In addition
we have brought back our out of area futurity winners
and put them to stock to keep the winning genes in our
Houben Family current.
Those of
you that fly the Houbens know what a pleasure it is to
enjoy their consistancy 100 miles to 500 miles. They
also cross extremely well with other strains such as
John Sampson's Van Houttes.
The
Houben Family Lofts are definitely Master Breeders
providing foundation stock around the world. Our sincere
thanks to Luc and family for sending us such quality
stock.
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