A little history.

Jos Loobuyck was only twelve years old when he kept for the first time a few pigeons. He lived then in Merkem, a little village in the neighbourhood of Diksmuide. He obtained his first pigeons from his uncle Julien Maes from Rumbeke. He played then only the short distance races. When he went to school for some weeks, all his pigeons had disappeared. His parents had a shop and no time to look after these birds. So…

In 1958 Jos got married to Marianne. And after a few adventures he settled in Otegem, the village where now Silvère Toye lives. Jos worked then for the firm Bekaert in Zwevegem and had again some time to keep pigeons. He had some successes with pigeons of the 'Manke' from Jacques Catteeuw.

In 1966 the family Loobuyck moved to Aalter. Jos and Marianne had then four children. First two girls Els en Ann and then two boys Jan and Wim. Jos came to Aalter because the firm Bekaert started a new establishment there. Jos worked as chemist in the laboratory.
At first there was no room for pigeons. But when Jos always went looking at the pigeons of the neighbours, his wife told him to get his own house for the pigeons.

As little boy son Jan went with papa on the lofts. He had been involved with pigeons since he was a child. Now he is doing everything together with his father. The racing lofts are owned by Jos and Jan takes care of the breeding lofts.

In the seventies they played only short and middle-long distance races. The '04' and the '13' were two very good widowers and had many successes.
In the eighties some 'Poitiers-pigeons' from uncle Julien Maes came to the lofts in Aalter. They also introduced some pigeons of Raoul Verstraete (Oostakker), Daniël Van Ceulebroeck (Balegem) and Albert Jolie (Sint-Lievens-Houtem). These races came on the loft through a friend. So Jos and Jan had in 1985 a beautiful 'miller' tauber and a black hen that formed a 'GOLDEN BREEDING COUPLE'. And this was the start of the long distance career...