Thinking about selling homers

[clucklebeed]

I'm thinking about maybe breeding and selling my homers and then using the money to buy fancy pigeons, how much do homers usually sell for?
My breeding pairs are a lightly splashed brown tinted blue check hen, and a heavily splashed light grizzle cock, two pure bluebars, offspring have had white ocasionally, and a bluebar hen with a heavily marked bluecheck cock with a white marking on his head. I'm thinking about pairing a pure bluebar cock with a slightly heavily marked bluecheck hen with a white head.

[spirit wings]

why don't you just save your allowance or do some work for some money instead of letting the pigeons do all the work, and bring more pigeons than you may need in to the loft, if you are unable to find homes for them there they will have to stay and then you would have no/less room for the fancies.

[dishan]

I suggest u not to sell homer...save some money from other source and then purchase fancy pigeons....

[learning]

Originally Posted by clucklebeed

I'm thinking about maybe breeding and selling my homers and then using the money to buy fancy pigeons, how much do homers usually sell for?
My breeding pairs are a lightly splashed brown tinted blue check hen, and a heavily splashed light grizzle cock, two pure bluebars, offspring have had white ocasionally, and a bluebar hen with a heavily marked bluecheck cock with a white marking on his head. I'm thinking about pairing a pure bluebar cock with a slightly heavily marked bluecheck hen with a white head.

When you are talking about racing homers you have to understand that color is of very little to no consequence to a buyer looking for racing stock. They are going to be looking for the bird's race background and history. The family pedigree will have a lot to do with the bird's value to many potential buyers. In order to comand top dollar, there will have to be records of the bird's accomplishments available to see.

You may be able to get a few dollars for some babies but unless they are race proven they probably will not carry much value.

Dan

[LokotaLoft]

if you look at just about any pigeon auction page you will see that pigeons are not selling anywhere!! ...unless like Dan said they are raced and have a good record for doing so or are proven breeders of racers in the top of the race sheets ... please dont add to the masses of unwanted birds in the world thinking you are going to make a buck off them

[clucklebeed]

I don't race pigeons, I don't actually have racing pigeons. Their just homers. Plus my birds breed like crazy, and everyday I through out another egg. Those birds are just desperate, they even hide eggs from me now! We don't have anything to seperate them, and I love raising babies. Plus I think I might actually get my mom to let me have more babies in turn that I get rid of them when their older, even though I know I'll be regretting it. My parents offered to let me have some fancy breeds in turn for some of my homers, but I just can't let go of the ones I've had so long and know perfectly by name and personality and everything... Certainly some people will take a pigeon for just a few dollars, and within a year I went from 6 birds to near 20 (some died though), probably way more if I let all their eggs hatch. it could go a long way if I saved, and I'm just asking what people will might pay for homer, even if it's just a few dollars.

[MaryOfExeter]

Well, I've been selling my extra breeders for $10-$15, and they are racing pigeons. So plain ole homers may not bring anymore than that. Do yourself a favor and only breed the birds that are already sold. What I mean by that is, don't breed until someone says "I want some babies", in which you would breed 2, 4, or whatever they want to buy. Lots of people just want homers for the fun of watching them fly or maybe taking them to work/other daily places to fly back, and no further. So those would be the ones looking at your birds because of the color and whatnot.
If you start breeding birds and cannot find homes for them, then you're stuck with more babies and less room for the fancy birds, so keep that in mind

[clucklebeed]

Places I've seen where people sell pigeons they have to have ones that are already born, if this all works out where can I post an add or what-not for them?

[Jay3]

You mentioned that you throw the eggs away. I hope that you are replacing them with fake eggs. If you just throw away the eggs, and don't replace them with fake ones, the birds will just keep having eggs. This is very bad for the female, to keep having eggs. If you replace them with fake eggs, it slows down the process, as they will sit on them for a few weeks.

[Hillybean]

Jay3 has a very good point. If you are not replacing the eggs then they will continue to lay non stop... If they are able to keep false ones then the hen should take a rest on the egg laying.

I think you could get about $10 out of each bird... It just depends...

Are you trying to sale some that you already have, or new yb's as they are weaned??
Do you have a loft big enough to hold both the homers and the fancy?? I believe you stated that you already have 20 birds and most beginners don't build a loft big enough to house that many.

Please keep in mind that a LOT of fancy breeds can't feed their young...so keeping some pairs of homers and swaping eggs might be a good idea. Most can't home and their flight isn't always the best. Different care must be taken to keep them safe...no free flying...unless it is in a flight pen.

There is just a lot to consider...

-Hilly

[clucklebeed]

Actually, we did have around 20 or so, but then the feral that I trained as a homer when he was just a baby found a mate in the wild and took off, one of our birds mysteriously dissapeared after spending the night on our roof, and two birds died of CRD so now we have 16.
And with all the eggs their laying, 10 dollars sounds pretty good.
And I've alredy tried fake eggs, they don't buy it. Usually they'll just kick them out of the nest or lay eggs in the nest with them.

[spirit wings]

your set up sounds very disorganized, they will sit on dummy eggs, I just think you don't want to here that. I just think it is a bad idea for a kid to breed birds no one may want. why use your birds when you can use your own brain and muscle to do a job for someone and make the money yourself. you really need to join a club like 4h or something so you can learn good husbandtry which is the first thing you should be worried about and not making money off of living things....which is a bad message IMO. If you were my son this is what I would tell him.

[Jay3]

Originally Posted by clucklebeed

Actually, we did have around 20 or so, but then the feral that I trained as a homer when he was just a baby found a mate in the wild and took off, one of our birds mysteriously dissapeared after spending the night on our roof, and two birds died of CRD so now we have 16.
And with all the eggs their laying, 10 dollars sounds pretty good.
And I've alredy tried fake eggs, they don't buy it. Usually they'll just kick them out of the nest or lay eggs in the nest with them.

They will sit on the eggs for a couple of weeks. Eventually they will give up and lay more, but I doubt that your birds "don't buy it" when the rest of us all use them. It does slow them down from continually laying. It really isn't good or healthy for your hens. They can't just keep laying constantly without bad results. You really need to use them if you are taking away their eggs.

[Jay3]

Originally Posted by spirit wings

your set up sounds very disorganized, they will sit on dummy eggs, I just think you don't want to here that. I just think it is a bad idea for a kid to breed birds no one may want. why use your birds when you can use your own brain and muscle to do a job for someone and make the money yourself. you really need to join a club like 4h or something so you can learn good husbandtry which is the first thing you should be worried about and not making money off of living things....which is a bad message IMO. If you were my son this is what I would tell him.

I have to agree. You have had a problem with bullying in your loft, to the point where a few of the birds wouldn't even go in to eat or drink. You even mentioned that you weren't sure that one of them was getting enough water during the hot weather. If you haven't even taken care of those problems yet, then I don't think it is a very good environment to be breeding babies in. It sounds very chaotic and uncontrolled. Spirit wings is right. You first need to learn how to take good care of the birds you already have. That means keeping them safe from bullys, and making sure that their environment is safe and comfortable for them. You mentioned also, that three different birds had taken over three nest boxes each, and the other birds were forced to stay on perches, and three, even on the floor. That is not a good environment for keeping birds, and surely not for bringing more babies into. Think about being a good and responsible owner and keeper of birds first, before even considering trying to make money with them. You don't have enough perches or nest boxes for your birds. Why not start by fixing what you have first. The welfare of your birds should come first. JMO.

[clucklebeed]

Actually, I got that sorted pretty well. Squeakez goes in more often now, and none of the birds seem to pay attention to her. When she first found a good spot (though she doesn't really like to sit anywhere but the floor for some reason) to roost, Rocko always chased her out. I started to imatate what the birds do when they get in one of their boxes, so when rocko was a box away from squeakez, I made cooing sounds and chased her away a few times and it worked, rocko wouldn't go anywhere near where squeakez was roosting. El pollo loco has found a nice spot away from avila while rocko is busy with her baby and new eggs. Greenie has still found a spot, but avila has found a new one that cutie and warrilthe2nd are pretty dominant over, so I'll have to see if I can get them to stop. Squeakez is just an oddball though, she has a place where no one will bully her yet she still prefers the floor. Splotches has a few options to where he will sit, I'm hoping survivor might exept him sitting on her perch with her though, wich is where el pollo loco previously sat. The birds do like the perches though, both are very dominant and could easily win a box yet they chose perches instead. We had too ill birds, squeakez one of them and the other warril. Warril recovered quickly and squeakez is right around the corner from recovery, I think it might have just been a mild cold or something, yet warril apeared to have a fever at one point...