The National White Dove Release Society is where you should start. They are active and offer a lot of help to members. They have a yahoo group that is very active, too.

 

I have a small white dove release business, have been doing it for about 5 years.There have been post on this site about starting a release business,look for them.I would suggest the book White Pigeons-the color of Money-its not very expensive but has good basic info.If you dont have birds now find out all you can before you get involved. Jeff

 

I will look into that. Thanks! Have you benefitted from doing it? Im not looking to get rich, just think its a nice touch to a wedding and no one around my area offers it

 

Make sure you get quility white racers to start with, we have people on this site with white racers, or you could PM Denis Kuhn he is a member of this site he also has a web site. Whiteracers.com he has white birds that win races.
Dave

 

I already have homers but am looking at getting a couple pair of whites. One of the pair is of the disney bloodline. I mainly want to have a profitable side business just to buy more birds of different breeds and build a bigger loft.

 

I might have two babies that are white, breed from two grizzles that could be for sale .They are banded and in no way will they always produce all white pigeons, but the up side is that they are on the top of the list as far as racing and homing ability . I just banded them last week end. Was going to keep them for future breeders.

 

i know a guy in maryland who has pure disney white homers,their bands are even from the disney loft

 

Is he selling them? Ive only mentioned the idea and with all the connections i have in my area there seems to be quite an interest.

 

Yes he is ,he always have young birds

 

Do you have any contact info for him?

 

Well to say I have benefited from it could be a stretch. I have racing homers and was looking for a way to get a little feed money.I dont have a lot of whites around 17 flyers right now.I have made about $700 this year.Thats with no advertising or promotion.I have to turn down some funerals because I work during the weekday and many funerals are then.I also do some events for free.If I feel its the right thing to do.I would say I benefit in the look on peoples faces when I do a release.And I always get questions about the birds which is a good thing too.In my case its more of a hobby and not a business.There is a guy in my club who is retired and has 3 lofts and near 100 white birds and does very good in regards to money.But he also hires people to do the events that he cant get to.So I will say what I have said before.....Lots of birds=lots of money=lots of work=lots of headaches.Not many birds=less of the above including MONEY. Jeff

 

I sold a white pigeon to a guy in Michigan that has a release business and he told me that he has contracts with all the funeral homes in his area. Once one home started to offer his service they all started to do it because it was really liked so he get payed every month for supplying the birds.

 

Well either way thats a benefit. Im not looking to make a fortune 500 business but if i do enough to support my pigeon addiction and get the wife off my back ill be plenty happy. With my schedule i could do funerals but i wont do that. The guy that gave me my first 10 homers does funerals and out of respect i couldnt even think of doing that. I plan on sticking to weekend type events though.

 

I have whites. love them! I used a few of mine in a bicentennial parade. they were released by a Sunday school class off of Noah's Ark. it was cute. I have proven pairs if interested. plus I'll have a ton this spring. good luck.

 

I'm kind of working on this "business" as well. Right now I have 8 pairs however for the next couple of years I just want to develop a stock of white racers that can fly home consistently before I even attempt to start doing releases. It's kind of just a mini-project I'm working on to get good results from white racers.

I hope to breed at least 30 white racing pigeon YB's in 2013. Of the 30, I'll select the best one or two birds to put into the breeding loft. Start eliminating the breeders whose young do not perform or home well and build the nucleus around the birds that do.

I don't plan to make big bucks from them, maybe just enough to cover the costs for my racing pigeons that I'll be flying in races.

 

I have also decided when this gets going, Since I have gotten into pigeons In memory of my father who passed back in October, I'm going to allocate portions of my earnings to help in my community to folks that are battling cancer. I could donate to cancer foundations, however I believe there is already a cure, but there is too much to be made for them in chemo and radiation. I would much rather see my money go to helping people that already have cancer improve their quality of life and I believe that's what my dad would want me to do.

 

Don't forget a nice big fat slice for local, state and federal taxes, including your 15% contribution to social security. Then there is the yellow pages, liability insurance, health insurance, fees to attorneys and CPA's, yellow pages, and various advertising media etc. If one has never run a small business, then they are often very surprised as to how many other entities will be there with their hands out.

Are you going to operate as a sole proprietor or will you form a LLC ? If you can figure out how to turn it into a successful business, then I would franchise it as a turn key system, that way you can do numerous weddings or memorials every single day somewhere, and won't be dependent on the local weather.

 

Yeah thats a good idea! The more connections you have the better your business would run. Just advertise on local online sites (craigslist, etc) and talk to wedding planners and what not and you should do fine!

 

I have done memorial services, but I didn't use white pigeons. Everyone seems to be hung up on white, but I have yet to find a rule book which states that pigeons used in some kind of memorial service must be white.

I read where people are thinking about getting into the "Dove Release" business, where it is obvious, they are focused on the pigeons, instead of the actual needs and wants of clients and customers. Believe me, the easiest thing will be to come up with baskets of pigeons. The hard part is coming up with baskets full of paying clients and then having the staff and equipment to be able to service these clients in such as way, that they would recommend to their friends.

 

here's two grizzles from a two grizzle mating, got them from josepe, these are racing birds i'll be adding to my whites to strengthen my recessive whites

 

Very nice. Not a whole lot of grizzle in there lol. Ive got 2 pair that will supposedly throw a couple whites every season...we shall see!

 

Dan,
They sure didn't griizle up like I thought they would.I kept the round after them to race as yearlings this year.The hen looks like those and the cock has a nice grizzle pattern.I think both of yours may be Hens?These are their parents:

 

Well, i didnt really think about it that way, i will be changing my plans around, but since ive never done this before and never attended an event that included it other than me releasing the white homer for my dads funeral service, im kind of shooting in the dark so i definitely appreciate your advice! Ive actually already spoke to a friend about a DVD that i could play at bridal shows and such and one to hand out. Just out of curiosity what would your fee be for this type of coordinated event? And do you charge per bird? And as far as a website that is already in the works. And for brochures ill call my buddy that owns a print/sign shop. But first thing i still need to get my birds haha.

 

Well, i didnt really think about it that way, i will be changing my plans around, but since ive never done this before and never attended an event that included it other than me releasing the white homer for my dads funeral service, im kind of shooting in the dark so i definitely appreciate your advice! Ive actually already spoke to a friend about a DVD that i could play at bridal shows and such and one to hand out. Just out of curiosity what would your fee be for this type of coordinated event? And do you charge per bird? And as far as a website that is already in the works. And for brochures ill call my buddy that owns a print/sign shop. But first thing i still need to get my birds haha.

I was surprised at what the top end fees are for a top of the line "Dove Release". Consider that in the good ole days, people would spend $5000 for pictures. Of course digital cameras have killed that business.

The fee is what the market will bear. Back in tim buck too, where the reception is in a fire hall, well.....I wouldn't even offer such a service in that kind of market. Determining the needs and wants of your particular market is what is important. In some markets $300 might be at the top end, where in other markets, that would be at very low end. My friend relayed a story to me where he was at a friends wedding where they paid $1200 for apparently a service which impressed the folks attending. With the "average" wedding cost of between $25,000 and $27,000 there just might be opportunity to get a share of that for someone in the right market, that knows how to market their service.

I would imagine having a number of packages, for various price points. Going to take an hour or so to explain your service and get a contract signed. Then numerous phone calls before big day. Then on the wedding day, things do not always go as planned. I don't see how the "Dove Release Coordinator" can effectively preform the service without being there a few hours at least. So, there are hours of selling time, time at the job, plus overhead. Plus I don't know how one will do more then couple of weddings a day, and even at that, it will be a long day. And on days that it rains, regardless of how many hours you have in planning the big day, you could have many hundreds in pay just vanish because you can't preform the service.

Rather then doing 5 to 7 a day, I would imagine that doing 5 a week could end up being a good week. I looked at some numbers briefly, and in my mind one would need $350 per event and up. And you would need to selling and preforming these events every day. And even at those level of fees, I suspect most would not earn enough to cover their personal living expenses.

You have a lot of homework to do.

 

I never leave my birds with anybody!I have too much involved and respect for them to do that.I bring my birds to the event and stay until they are released.I offer to help in any way I can.I have heard to many horror stories from people about birds being dropped off and not coming out of the basket and such.One of the first weddings I did at a wedding venue the lady said she found the birds in a box at the front door the day of the wedding.I am now the preferred white dove release vender for that location. Jeff

 

I never leave my birds with anybody!I have too much involved and respect for them to do that.I bring my birds to the event and stay until they are released.I offer to help in any way I can.I have heard to many horror stories from people about birds being dropped off and not coming out of the basket and such.One of the first weddings I did at a wedding venue the lady said she found the birds in a box at the front door the day of the wedding.I am now the preferred white dove release vender for that location. Jeff

Thats horrible! I would never do that. And what do you typically charge per event?

 

At every event I have done I have been the one giving instructions to the bride and groom.The day of the event I get there about 30 min before and go over how to hold the birds with the bride and groom, or if they release out of my heart shaped basket I show them how to do that.I also do the same at a funeral.Then yes I just wait until its time for the birds.Then I bring the birds to the participants and let them do their thing.Here is my website...............
www.luckyloftwdr.webs.com
Jeff

 

I would rather do less dove releases than to let strangers release the birds.

You can just charge extra for your presence to be at the event. For example, if you were originally going to charge $125 to release 2 birds, you could charge $150. The extra $25 can cover your fuel costs and your time costs. For any additional bird over 2, charge an extra $10 or $15.

You could give better offers to people that don't have that much money. Your fuel/time cost would still be covered in the price.

If you do the releases yourself and charge fairly, there is a good chance you might get more business through better customer service.

If you get an offer to do a release outside of your 30-40 mile radius, you can charge the person per every mile you drive.

We have kilometers in Canada so an example would be:

The price for me to come to the location and help the participants release the birds would be included in the initial price if the location of the event is located within 40 kilometers of my house. Mainly, the radius would cover Abbotsford (my city), Chilliwack, Mission, Aldergrove, and Langley.

Services in Surrey and Vancouver which are the two largest cities in British Columbia (Abbotsford is 3rd), would cost an additional $0.50 were kilometer travelled. So if the service was 20 kilometers away from my 40 kilometer radius, I would charge an additional $10.


The $0.50 additional price per kilometer is not final. It may change to whatever the price of gas is at the time of the release. I haven't really calculated that part yet. It might be more because I'll be losing time driving further into larger cities (lots of traffic) and might be losing fuel money while idling in traffic so I might charge more for everything outside of my radius.

But basically, I want to have the contract with the wedding planners/funeral homes in the entire area and have my own personal clients through advertising on Facebook, craigslist, other online advertising websites, my own website, business cards, brochures, CDS (I can get 1 DVD made for $1.00 through a connection of mine), newspapers, bulletin boards, and customers that refer me.

As far as I know, there is 1 average release business in the area and 1 not so good business. But no one ever hears about them. If I give customers a better deal and give them a better experience, I'm sure I can dominate the whole lower mainland BC in releases and not let any competition rise up. It's not personal, its business - Donald Trump

 

Thats exactly what I was thinking in regards to pricing fairly. I want to give a perfect extra touch to their special day and I want them to know that I'm not out to rip them off like most others in the wedding business. I'm not there to make a killing, I'm there to make a difference in their day, and also in someone elses for that dear reason I wish to do this in the first place. I'm not saying that I wouldnt like to make money off of it, but if its only a few bucks and my expenses are covered then thats fine with me. Not growing a globally dominating money hungry greed driven multi billion dollar corporation(WalMart)

 

Hey thanks Jeff, that helps a bunch! How much do those heart baskets usually run? I couldnt really think of any reason I should be there the whole time, other than giving proper handling instructions and maybe a few pictures for my web page. But thanks again!