More on Releasing Pigeons

[Glen Walker]

I have been letting my young pigeons fly from there loft on their own for a couple of weeks now. They leave and route then come back in. How far can I expect to be able to take the birds from home for a release and have them return without getting too far? These are not "fancy" pigeons they are just common, what I call, barn pigeons.

[raynjudy]

It doesn't matter if they're feral pigeons--all pigeons "home".

Racers train their birds by taking them progressively farther and farther. Pigeons homing at or beyond 500-miles is not unusual, but you should really ask the racing guys about this.

If you don't get an answer here, post your question in the "For Sale" section, as the racers and breeders hang there.

I'd be happy to send you some information on pigeons. Just email me and I'll reply with attachments.

Good luck!

--Ray

[Joel]

Hi Glen,
Start by taking them a short distance, maybe a couple of blocks. Do this a couple of times and then double the distances ie. 1 mile,2,4,8,16 etc. Idealy it is best to release at each distance a couple of times. Also releases should be before meal time so they are sure to head straight home. At first you might want to let them fly as a group and later try individual tosses. Im no expert by no means but ive read a little and it works for me.
Hope this helps.

Bye,
Joel

[peter]

hey glen
your trying to race commies won,t work when i was young we raised commies and we were sucessful at homing them about 60 miles after that we would lose them every time GARANTEID they do not have the stamana, contition, body, or the heart(the will) to fly long distance. Little trips around town or out to the lake would be fine but it take a lot of time. These birds i raised also were about half homer the "purebred commies" never made it past about 15 miles. so around town to work or your kids school just for fun will work but you will lose a bunch. If you need racers then get in contact with a local breede tell him your starting out and he will proably get you some good birds for cheap. Also if you want to race there will be no room for the commies you will get frusterated because the inter breed so you get the point.

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peter

[peter]

also ray
we racers do not train commies they have been breed carefully over a couple hundred years and therefore making them the way they are. you will get no where racing commies and if you tryed to race them in a club you would not be able to. for one the members would laugh so hard you would proably leave and if you stuck out all of there jokes they would not let you put your birds with theres because commies carry so many dieses and parasites it would be dumb. I have been quiet for a while but i can no longer stand it if you don't want me here that is okay no hard feelings. but to be truthfull with you glen if a commies come s in my loft it is a pain in the butt. because one. i have to ring its neck, two. for a week following i have to dust every day and put de-wormers in the water and three. i have to keep my birds from flying with the other members for about two weeks to make sure they did not pick up any wierd deseases.
Have a nice day no hard feelings.

[bigbird]

Peter,
Thanks for your informative post. I learnd alot about the differences between feral pigeons and bred racing homers. You should not be afraid to speak the truth here at Pigeons.com We are all learning.
Regarding your comment about "ringing its neck" I think refers to killing the feral pigeons that intrude your loft.
May I make a suggestion here. Refrain from comments about killing pigeons here at Pigeon-Talk. Perhaps you might consider taking the intruder a distance from your loft and releasing it instead of killing it. It probably will not return because feral pigeons don't make good homers, as you have pointed out.
The reason I suggest this is because I am against killing pigeons of any kind. I vote for life, not death.
Peter, I hope you will not go away...we appreciate your honesty here. It is always difficult to speak the truth, but this web site needs truth, heart felt truth as we know it.
Pigeons forever.
Carl

[Glen Walker]

I'm not trying to race them and have no plans to. I just want to be able to release them and have them return home. Thanks for the info though.
Glen

[raynjudy]

Peter, nobody questions your expertise. And I didn't say you could train feral pigeons to perform like pure bred racers--look elsewhere in the posts and you can see that plain enough. I do know the difference. But all pigeons do have homing instinct.

I deleted your post to Constantin because it is unnecessarily cruel. Who are you to tell this person to "get a life" and to call them "pathetic".

Your description of "cutting the wings off" of ferals to train dogs and the "fun" of shooting them, in your reply to Constantin was the act of a moron.

I for one, jumped at your resignation from this site. You've required more coddling than I have time for.

You've been shown more than enough patience and respect here, sir. And you have not reciprocated on most occasions.

As for clubs, I'm sure there are some fine ones out there. Perhaps we will attract a racing enthusiast with some manners. As for cliques, I have no interest in making a conformist's club out of life. I avoided them in martial arts and I've steered
as clear as possible from them in business.

--Ray