Keeping them flying

Are these birds Homers? If they are then taking them 20 miles out shouldn't be a problem. How long have you had them and how old were they when you got them? Do you have loft or just a cage? Answering these questions will give us a better idea of your situation so we can help you out the best way we know how.

Henry

How old, what kind of pigeons, and how long have you had them?
How do you feed? Dave

Henry, i am going to start calling you Quick draw! GOOD Questions... Dave

LUCKYT said:

How old, what kind of pigeons, and how long have you had them?
How do you feed? Dave

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That's what i just said! We must have been typing at the same time!

LUCKYT said:

Henry, i am going to start calling you Quick draw! GOOD Questions... Dave

Click to expand...

Did it again! LOL.

Wow! at the exact same time... Again, you are GOOD Henry! Dave

I apologize homeseeker, didn't mean to hijack your thread with mine and Dave's silliness

They are last years birds I got right before Christmas . I feed them before I go to work and when I get home unless we are going to fly them. We have 2 males we are flying right now and we will toss them and the feed the others to encourage them. I just have an aviary no big flight cage. I think we may be to blame for one of them, we would hand feed him chopped cashews so now when we toss him sometimes he will fly right back to us looking for treats. The short distances they fly they seem to be strong and fast, it just seems they like to land halfway accros the yard and walk in.

Maybe the yard is the problem? If I take them out farther they will have to fly all the way home??

Have they done ANY routing? Leaving the area, even if for only 5 minutes. What does your yard look like? Lots of trees? Open and you can see for a long ways?

Sound like a feed issue. I would feed them more corn and barley and see if you can get the interested in flying more.

Randy

Yep... I think randy is right. cut out the high fat Cashews give them only standard pigeon mix, and get them trimmed down, and a little bit hungry. Dave

On top of getting them trimmed down, continue releasing them in your yard, from the farthest point from the loft preferably. Lazy birds get in the habbit of coming out and sitting on the loft. Chasing them away can cause them to get in the habbit of landing in trees.
However, releasing them makes them fly, even if they only do one loop back to the loft. If you repeat this every day, they'll soon get those muscles worked up to where they'll want to fly when let out. If they get up and start routing, you can start training them

It sounds that they are older birds that don't like to fly. But it could be feed issue as well. We need more info. Do they or have they routed (fly around) your loft? It could also be that the yard is too close to them so they decide they rather walk. Now are you feeding them pigeon grains plus the cashews? If so then they are probably fat (cashews might be fattening) so they are too heavy to fly. Any pictures? When my birds stop flying or flying short, I know they are fat again if they are young birds.

The cashews are only a once in a while thing for a treat, not enough to affect their diet. I typically get about 75 yards from the loft with a clear line of sight to it when I toss them. I'll back off the feed a bit and see if it changes things. How many times a week would you relase birds for exercise?

homeseeker,

Twice, early morning, just after dawn preferably, and late afternoon 1&1/2 hours before sunset.

Ralph

Everyday right now because it is spring and the hawk is not killing mine. The rest of the months (not including summer) every other day or lock down for one week after hawk attack. For the last four days one of my pair is routing on and off for 1 hour (1 year old and 6 months old). Basically they fly, then land, rest a minute or two and takes off again over and over. My other fat birds don't feel like flying. Usually I only fly them around 30 minutes each day to prevent the hawk attention. I call them in to eat that time. Again older birds (more than 1 year old) are too lazy to fly. Have fun with young birds. Those are the ones that love to fly. Older birds love to mate. Any picture of your birds?