Releasing pigeons for first time

[t-setter]

I am new to the pigeon raising business and have a question about releasing birds. I have three pigeons that I acquired as young birds several months ago. I have not yet released any of the birds from their loft and want to begin to do so. Should I release one of them at a time and leave the other two in the loft, release a pair of them together or should I release all three at once? Thanks in advance for any advice.

[ElhewPointer]

I'm no expert in pigeons, but the guy we got our birds from is a NUT. He has hundreds if not thousands and probably has a name for all of them. Anyway, he told me that the young birds need to kind of do it naturally. Open the loft door and let them walk outside on the perch board and explore. They'll go in and out and get comfortable with the outside of the loft. I did this. The first day they walked outside and checked stuff out. That evening I went out and closed the door. Next day, I went out and opened it, and then they flew on top of the loft. Next day they were on the barn. Their confidence grew. Kinda neat actually.

A side note. The man also told me to always do some kind of whistle when feeding them or watering them. Same whistle tone and tune everytime. I never knew why. Well, winter came and I was sick and tired of having to mess with the frozen water in the loft. What I did was stand by my horse waterer in the horse lot. I didn't water the birds for a day or so, went to the horse waterer did my whistle, they flew right over to me and started drinking. Never had to mess with their water again.

[Brittguy]

that is the way to do it. I have a empty coffee can with some pebbles inside.Just shake it and they come running for food.

[DonF]

I'm not sure what you mean by young birds? When I give people birds to start a loft they get birds whose nose band is still not white. They are eating, drinking and flying around inside the loft. Birds like that are pretty easy. Feed and water them a few weeks then open the trap and tie up the bob's. If young means the nose band is white and they have been out some, takes a bit more to settle them. Best to get them on nest's before ever letting them out. If it was feral birds, I'd keep them locked up at min a month them turn them out. Your gonna loes some but what come back will continue to come back.

A thought I have on birds returning is that homers are always fed in a coop. They've grown up looking for handouts and probably can't find food and water on their own. Ferals hatched in the wild however, have been scrounging food and water all their lives. I think the ferals that do come back are maybe not so old. Going in and locking them up a bit, teach's them where to go to find food and water, every time. So rather than fly all over looking for it, they know where it is all the time. I suspect that the ability to find food on their own may be bred in over a thousand years of wild breeding. Lacking the ability was probably also berd in since racing became a sport. The would rather their birds couldn't find food and water on their own.

A lot of people do make the sound when feeding or watering, I just have been to lazy to do it. But I am sure it works. I haqve birds in my homer pen that will come over and eat out of my hand. Yeaqrs ago I gave a brother a few ferals and he taught them to come land on his and his kids hands to eat,,,outside! I don't know how he did that but I'm sure it had something to do with food, pigeons seem to have a bottomless pit for a stomach!

I'd add one more thing while I'm here. I have always had re-entry bob's on my lofts with outside preditor doors. Last few monthes I have left the bobs up 100% of the time and close the preditor door when I don't want them out. But on my homer loft I also have a very big pen with a top cover out the back. That re-entry door has no preditor door and is used to train young birds to push the bobs. When I'm not training yourg birds that door is closed all the time making the birds all go out the out side re-entry out the front of the house. Right now I have a bunch of hawks around, they got several of my homers. So now the front re-entry has the preditor doon shut 100% of the time and the birds are free to come and go in the back pen. I mighr add that the loft is devided in half with a chicken wire screen and has a door in it so I can get to each side to clean. With a re-entry door on each side, I can let older birds on one side out and birds on the other use the outside pen at the same time.