Gun Dog Forum

I bought some pigeons at an auction a couple months ago. Seller dropped them off and their was no info as to what breed they were, but they are all identical in coloring. If I get a chance I'll post a photo. Anyway, I figured I'd use them on my NAVHDA training days or as kill birds. On May 9th, we had a training day about 40 miles driving distance from home. I grabbed 5 or so birds from the coop, including one or more of my new auction birds. Four plus days later, I have a pigeon sitting on my newer loft's sun cage (no bob door installed yet) and landing around the yard when the dogs get too close. Looks identical to my auction birds, but they were never banded, so I can't be sure. I had never flown these birds since I got them, and I have never had ferals at my rural location before. Might the auction birds be trained homers, and therefore although it took it a little extra time, it was able to find it's way to the 2 month old home that it had never flown from? Or maybe I'm on the flight path to its previous home, and got lucky. We netted it at night and threw it in the loft. What do you think? I would love to keep them for breeding stock, if they are homers. I'm banding them next training day...just for curiositys sake.

You probably got some unflown birds in that batch of auction birds. Band em. That way when they return you know that they are yours. And yes...that bird is a homer that has made your loft his home. BAND HIM NOW so you can tell which one he is and not shoot him on training days. :roll:

And count yourself lucky! Carl had two escapees yesterday when cleaning the pen and they haven't come back yet....
Kristi

Sounds like a homer to me. I would be careful keeping the other ferals with your known homers if you don't know what they are. You might bend up with who knows what pigeons. I have 5 in my coop now that are loft flying pretty well, but I lost 3 last week for who knows what reason. They circled the house for about 2 hours and then just up and left. I have a feeling a hawk had something to do with it.

Can't tell till I see them but it sounds like it came back so it doesn't matter if it's a homer or not at this point. Rater unusual circumstances but I too would put a band of some sort on before you use them if you want to know for sure.

There just isn't any way to tell if it's a homer other than look at it. All pigeons home, some just better than others.

Ezzy

There is a very interesting book on pigeons now available at 1/2 Price book stores. Its a good read for anyone even slightly interested in these birds.

http://books.google.com/books?id=TVNuj8 ... =4#PPP1,M1

Go to www.pigeons.biz Don't tell them that you kill them or you may get death threats of your own.

rapid fire wrote:Go to http://www.pigeons.biz Don't tell them that you kill them or you may get death threats of your own.

Ya, and don't tell them you are training dogs or that you know me from here.

Thanks for the info. We were just amazed that a bird we hadn't let out of the loft, was able (or so we think ) to find it's way back. I probably won't keep them as breeders, unless I could really know for sure that the lot of them are homers. Wish I could have tracked the seller down. I have spent a few hours on websites trying to identify the different birds I bought, but I guess I don't have an expert eye to distinguish them out of so many breeds. I have 14 verified homers in one coop right now, and another 30 plus auction birds of unknown heritage in another coop. The goal is to have all homers to sell cheap or give to my dog training friends. But until I can get the homer numbers up......the auction birds are my training (shhhhhh-kill) birds. Here are some photos of the lot of 15 that my return flyer came from. On 2nd look, they aren't identical, but somewhat similar in coloring. Thanks again.

ohiogsp wrote:

rapid fire wrote:Go to http://www.pigeons.biz Don't tell them that you kill them or you may get death threats of your own.

Ya, and don't tell them you are training dogs or that you know me from here.

wems2371 wrote:Thanks for the info. We were just amazed that a bird we hadn't let out of the loft, was able (or so we think ) to find it's way back. I probably won't keep them as breeders, unless I could really know for sure that the lot of them are homers. Wish I could have tracked the seller down. I have spent a few hours on websites trying to identify the different birds I bought, but I guess I don't have an expert eye to distinguish them out of so many breeds. I have 14 verified homers in one coop right now, and another 30 plus auction birds of unknown heritage in another coop. The goal is to have all homers to sell cheap or give to my dog training friends. But until I can get the homer numbers up......the auction birds are my training (shhhhhh-kill) birds. Here are some photos of the lot of 15 that my return flyer came from. On 2nd look, they aren't identical, but somewhat similar in coloring. Thanks again.

These birds you have pictured are not homers. The homer has a straighter head and bill connection with the nose cere being prominent. Yours look like regular barn pigeons from what I can see.

Ezzy

I can't see the pics?? Mabe they are anouther flying breed can you get the pics back? I have had pigeons that returned to a loft they were never out of and it had anouther loft next to it. They picked the right one to go in and from where I released them they could not see the loft at all. I was planning to shoot them all but a couple got away and made it back into the coop.

A tidbit for those that do not know this ferals home ,some years back I was catching ferals at my uncles farm.I was marking them with zip ties so as not to kill my homing birds.Well what I learned was..........ferals home too,because I started re catching birds in the barn that sported fancy black legwear.I was using them 7-10 miles from the farm.

I'd say that a 40 mile first flight from your loft classifies that particular bird as an exceptional homer.

ohiogsp wrote:I can't see the pics?? Mabe they are anouther flying breed can you get the pics back? I have had pigeons that returned to a loft they were never out of and it had anouther loft next to it. They picked the right one to go in and from where I released them they could not see the loft at all. I was planning to shoot them all but a couple got away and made it back into the coop.

Sorry, I got carried away cleaning up my Photobucket account the other day. I'll repost them later tonite.

I think about all pigeons I have had will home, do not have to be 'homers". Homers might do it better or faster, but all the old barn pigeons I have had will come back if kept up awhile.

I have nothing but ferrel pigeons & I can't run them off & breed like rabbits.I don't train far from home so unless a hawk gets them they return.

HEY There Ted, I Sent You A PM .

Same as Ted...barn pigeons have always homed for me...now if we could keep the darn raccoons out of the pigeon loft I'd be much happier. Lost 50+ two nights ago to a raccoon. These were just starting to really home back well, back in March we lost the whole loft to another raccoon.

Sorry I didn't put the photos up when I said. Discovered I'd deleted them off the face of the earth , so I had to go take some more.

Photos below are from the 15 unbanded auction birds.....and yes, they are breeding like rats! All 15 are a variant on the dark gray color.








I have heard, as Ezzy said, that the homers have a flatter transition between head and beak. The grey bird is a guaranteed homer, that practically has a pedigree. The white one was sold to me as a homer from a chapter member, so hopefully it is.



This one is from a pair of squeakers that came in another auction lot. Some birds were banded in the lot, but appear to be different breeds.


Had enough pigeon pictures yet! :roll:

You do have a bunch of barn pigeons there. Some don't look so good (maybe sick esp. the 3rd pic). Anyway, the "whites" home but are not as good as homers. The one above the white, the blue checker is the nicest bird you got IMO. Look like a nice race bird. I would keep it if you were going to keep any. The 2 reds might be homers also can't tell too young. The last pic is probably not a homer but maybe a flying breed and probably is either roller, high flyer, trippler. Don't really know I used to use roller crosses all the time long ago.

Thanks for the info. I have 7 of the blue homers that came from a breeders loft, and 7 white or red homers that came from friends. Everybody is healthy to my knowledge, but I had just fed and watered....some had been bathing and were fluffed out and wet around the face and some had just been regurgitating to chicks. I do have a couple worn out birds not pictured, that are recovering from a severe gnat problem I had a couple weeks ago, that killed 2 adult birds, 6 chicks, and a quail. Anyway, I'll just keep the unknowns for kill birds and work on raising and keeping the homers. Thanks again!

OK here is the best spray to eliminate fleas, flys, gnats, anything that bothers pigeons. One spray under each wing, and one right under the tail (butt). This will stop anything and for a while. Spray them all and see no problems for a month or more depends on where you live. http://www.dog.com/item/adams-water-bas ... tick-mist/

Thanks. I'll have to pick some of that up. It was hard to know what's safe to put on them. This is the 2nd year I've had fatalities, and the gnat problem has made the local news it was that bad. Last year, we didn't figure out until weeks after the fatalities that gnats were the cause. This year we were a day too late for a few birds. I did discover that if I hung a box fan facing into the coop, the constant wind would keep the gnats out. We are over the mass population of gnats now, so everything's good. If you've never had the problem though, you wouldn't believe the kind of damage they cause to the birds and how quickly the gnats can bring death.