White Dove Release featured in St. Louis Post Dispatch

[Hayseedboy]

Show Me Doves What: A business offering ceremonial dove releases at weddings, funerals and other special events.

Where: Residence in unincorporated area of St. Charles County.

Information: Call Steve Fortner at 636-281-0351 or 636-978-1675, or visit online at www.showmedoves.com.

County man's
hobby takes flight

A single dove release at the end of a funeral costs $100; a 10-dove release along with a single dove released by the family to represent the deceased costs $275.
Watching the flock of white doves fly lazy circles above Steve Fortner's house in St. Charles County, you might get so taken by the sight you'll forget you're getting dizzy.

The sun shines through the birds' wings and gives them a hazy glow. The distinct flap-flap-whoosh-whoosh sound of their wings grows louder, as the birds fly closer to the ground.

Back in their coop, the birds sit in their crates and coo a constant, soft symphony.

This is everyday life in Fortner's little corner of the world, which includes an 8-by-24-foot coop in his backyard off Laura Hill Road. Fortner markets the beauty of his birds for his business, Show Me Doves, which offers ceremonial dove releases at weddings, funerals and other special events.

The flaps of the dove's wings at these events blend with the guests' ooohs and aaahs, and then the doves circle low to get their bearings and fly away in a single group.

"It's a pretty uplifting experience," said Fortner, 41, who also owns a candy and soda-vending business.

Fortner believes that Show Me Doves is the only such business in the metro area in Missouri, and he often refers Metro East customers to a man in Belleville with a similar business.

The birds are white homing pigeons, which are still considered doves. All doves and pigeons descended from the rock dove, and selective breeding created the homing pigeon. Fortner keeps about 110 white homing pigeons in his coop. He uses about 50 of them for racing and releasing, and the rest are for breeding or are too young to race or fly long distances.

No matter where the doves get released, they almost always make their way back home to the coop. When Fortner does lose a dove, it's to the usual enemies: hawks, power lines, storms or extreme temperatures.

Fortner generally goes to weddings or other events within a 50-mile radius of his home, but for occasions such as races, the birds can find their way home from hundreds of miles away.

Fortner first started keeping birds in 1996, when he kept quails to train his hunting dogs. He had always been interested in racing pigeons, so he got connected with the St. Charles County-based North End Racing Pigeon Club and started keeping some.

Friends started asking to borrow his white pigeons for release at weddings. He eventually sold all of his dark-colored pigeons and started keeping white ones only; and Show Me Doves started as a business in May 2000.

These birds are different from the smaller, ring-necked doves you might see at pet stores - those wouldn't survive in the wild at all, Fortner says. The pigeons are born with a natural homing instinct, but they still need to be trained, to build strength and endurance. Fortner begins training when they are at least 3 months old, after they first start to perch on top of the coop and look around outside. They eventually join the rest of the birds on their daily flights around his house and neighborhood.

To continue the training, Fortner puts the birds in crates, drives about one mile from his house, releases them and lets them find their way back. He continues this several times a week, working up to five miles, then 10 miles, then 20 miles, until the birds can find their way home from about 75 miles away. They're usually fully trained by the time they're 6 months old.

In addition to their daily flights, which last about an hour, Fortner tries to give the birds about 50 to 75 miles in extra exercise a week. He spends a lot of time driving the birds in his truck west on Interstate 70 to the Truxton exit, so he can release them.

The doves can cost as little as $5. In rare cases, they have been sold for $25,000. Caring for them is a daily undertaking of feeding, exercising and scraping waste off the coop floor. "You don't just throw them food and water," Fortner said. "I've got a milk crate in there that has $300 worth of medication, to just keep on hand."

Fortner averages about 50 weddings and about 70 funerals a year. A single dove release at the end of a funeral costs $100, and a 10-dove release along with a single dove released by the family to represent the deceased costs $275.

Weddings are always happy occasions, and he's always happy to add his dramatic touch. Two doves for the bride and groom to release from a decorated basket costs $100, and an additional 24 more doves in two more decorated baskets costs $350. Fortner's wife, Sharon, often helps him at wedding releases.

Only once has a bird had an "accident" on a guest, and the person laughed about it and jokingly blamed the bride, he said.

Fortner is grateful he's turned a hobby into a business.

"Everybody's always appreciative," he said.

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/new...C%22pigeons%22

[pdpbison]

This seems pretty cool to me...

I recon the Birds have fun, they get to 'work; now and then and have something to do.

Keeps 'em trim and fit...!

Everyone has a good time, and the fellow gets to make some of his living doing something fun with Birds...

Pretty allright...

Phil
Las Vegas