First pigeon loft

[ruffbritt3]

Hi everyone,

I'm working on my first pigeon loft right now and will have young birds in it this time next week. Right now, I understand feeding 1 time a day is the best bet so they get into a routine and will trap easily. I plan to keep the birds in it for 4 weeks before doing any type of flying. I didn't go with the typical bob style traps but rather used the belgium drop trap.

I've heard guys say that you need to make a settling cage for the landing board when training the pigeons to use traps, but I've also heard people say you don't want to scare them while young.

What's worked for you when teaching birds to come back home and enter the loft?

[cjhills]

I always use bobs. with my own young birds, I just let them start going in and out with the bobs up. Then start dropping the Bobs one at a time until they learn to go in and out. If these are young birds you bought from someone else, you may need a cage to get them used to coming back in.
I am not familiar with a Belgium trap............Cj

[ruffbritt3]

I always use bobs. with my own young birds, I just let them start going in and out with the bobs up. Then start dropping the Bobs one at a time until they learn to go in and out. If these are young birds you bought from someone else, you may need a cage to get them used to coming back in.
I am not familiar with a Belgium trap............Cj

Thanks. Sounds like catching them when in the loft wouldn’t be a problem then? Some folks have said not to push them out or scare them but I’ve also seen guys who physically put birds through the traps so just wanting to do my due diligence

[cjhills]

I may have misunderstood.
With young birds I buy, that are flying, I put a crate outside of the bobs so they can go out and look around and come back in. I don't push them out. Once they learn to go out, I start dropping the bobs when they are out so they learn to come in through them.
With my own young birds they learn to leave the loft on their own and come back through the bobs. It helps if they are hungry..........Cj

[RutCrazed]

I put free swinging bobs between my loft and the aviary so they get used to going through them.

[cjhills]

that is a good plan. I always thought of that but never did it.........Cj

[ruffbritt3]

I put free swinging bobs between my loft and the aviary so they get used to going through them.

Good idea. That would require another opening in the wall to the aviary since there’s no way for them to fly out of this type of trap. I figure they’d probably just use the easy way and scrap any attempt at learning the trap if I did that though. I read that the birds learn the Belgium drop traps pretty quickly so that’s why I went this route. First loft though, so I’m learning a lot of things along the way. Already have ideas on what I’d do different for the next one

From what I now understand, catching them and putting them into a settling cage on the landing board to learn the trap won’t have any ill effects. Just don’t want to actually scare them out of the loft before flying

[ruffbritt3]

I'll admit I haven't used a settling cage or done any training but so far I'm 100% on birds returning to the loft. They figured out the drop trap very quickly with no hesitations. If anyone is building a loft, I would really consider this option as it can be easily made out of scrap.