# Feral pigeon experiment--Conditionfreak



## RodSD (Oct 24, 2008)

I finally found a study that answers Conditionfreak's questions about homing ability of ferals as well as their speed.

Here is the link:
http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache...eon+homing+distance&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=21&gl=us

This should shut off any confusion.
"
Approximately 50% of the purebred feral pigeons did not find their way home from distances over 5 kms, and the 40 km distance is so great for them that every pigeon will get lost. In order for a young pigeon to find its way home from a distance of 100 kms, a minimum of 75% homer gene proportion is needed. The flight speed of the populations with a 100-75-50-25% feral pigeon gene proportion does not reach even the half of the purebred homer pigeons’ performance (104 m/min and 215 m/min) within the distance where most of the stocks still find their way home (5 kms).

Considering the mean performance in homing speed attained in the test flights between 50-160 km distances the population having 75% homing pigeon gene proportion was still far behind the purebred homers in flying speed (241 vs. 720 m/min).

At the same time 58% of the former and only 8% of the latter group was lost during the test flights. "

I told you that someone already performed this experiment.

Rod


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## Charis (Feb 11, 2007)

LOL...Well...they are just plain wrong!
Personally, I think some people may want to think of them as inferior because that way...it's easier to eliminate Feral Pigeons.


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## spirit wings (Mar 29, 2008)

I don't know KM's.... 5 km? is that what, 4 miles?.....anyway, I don't think of them as inferior, they are just wild pigeons and not domestic homers, it's like comparing apples and oranges. I would hope that people that keep homers are not so far removed that they can't appreciate feral pigeons....I have not seen that with keepers of homers........yet


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## george simon (Feb 28, 2006)

* First I feel that this experment was not meant to picture the feral as inferior but rather to find out if wild pigeons have racing and homing abilty. We here often become defensive for our feral friends and rightly so.Try to find some thing good in this experment. The thing that I see from this experment is when we release a feral that has been rehabed we must release as close to where the bird was pick up in the first place. I know that many rehabers do this already,but there many kind people that would releace these birds that they helped miles away thus hindering the bird in trying to find its mate/nest or even their young. Just think about this there is another side here. We all know that when a race bird is lost they have a differecult time in the wild as they are not street wise like our feral birds so you see there are two sides to this experment even if only one side is shown*GEORGE


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## Pegasus (Feb 6, 2007)

*Tsk Tsk Tsk...*

RodSD, why did you start this again LOL ...Do I have to conclude my thoughts about this one...You are making me laugh...Man oh man, sometimes too much educations make ME dumb...


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## feralpigeon (Feb 14, 2005)

*not enough information!*

It's difficult to take this article seriously and trust that a person who hasn't taken the time to check their spelling and grammar has taken the time to follow
true clinical/scientific procedures for collecting and collating pertinent data.
Even the concept of a "purebred" feral boggles the mind....it's like discussing a pure bred mongrel dog, lol.

Without the author detailing control methods for the experiment that was
performed, there is no way of evaluating the legitimacy of what claims are
being made for the results of said "study". It is just an individual making assertions and claims that remain unsubstantiated scientifically.

I can say w/certainty that I know of a feral pigeon that flew approximately 40.2325km after a Vet released the pigeon from rehab in order to return to their home.

fp


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## Guest (Dec 23, 2008)

this thread makes my head hurt


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## RodSD (Oct 24, 2008)

You guys are funny! If you read the paper there was no intention of putting down the abilities of ferals, but rather to figure out their maximum homing abilities as well as their flight speed. This paper is a dissertation to get PhD. Getting one is hard. It will take another 4 years of study after college just to get one and that professors will decide whether to give you one.

Going back to the experiment, the controls are real homing pigeons which he got from real champion breeders who actually race. He did not just compare the ferals against homer, but also against crossbreed where he mated ferals and homers together. I read that article 3 times and the more you read you will understand better. He collected his ferals among roof houses or attics. He intentionally decided not to do any selection, but just get any there that he found.

He also concluded that young birds don't have the same homing abilities and speed compared to older birds. Older birds (1 year older and greater) have greater homing ability and faster. He found more data like inbreeding reduces performance at certain distance. I believe this was a 3 year experiment. That kind of makes sense assuming that he got his degree in 4 years.

His studies are convincing because his results supported other scientists' previous results. The problem I can think of is that some data are missing. It has missing tables and graphs, etc. He used statistics to compare results. I am not defending him obviously, but usually professors will not give you PhD or MS degree if your experiments are not convincing. I know this because I worked with PhD candidate as well as with 2 MS candidate before. There was an incident where a Master candidate killed his 3 professors because they wont give him his MS. His professors don't find his experiment/claims convincing so he went haywire.

I believe the paper was from Hungrary. It could have been translated to English so that others can read. Unfortunately there was not that good editing.

I opened this can of worm not start a useless argument again. I rather have claims that have facts to back it up. I also like university studies partly because reputation is very important in that field. Usually you are dealing with people that are smarter than you and can pinpoint right away if you know what you are talking about. And yes they use statistics to eliminate any exceptions to the rule.

I am nerd. Haven't you guys discovered that one yet?


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## Grimaldy (Feb 25, 2007)

Hi RodS,

Actually the paper proves the obvious, but it lays to rest the anecdotal evidence, that is for sure.

Feral must devote every waking hour to survival, foraging for food, shelter, avoiding predators, humans, and trying to mate and reproduce. Of necessity that requires that they pool their efforts in forming flocks which cooperate in varying degrees and stay relatively close to food, shelter and safety. Domestics on the other hand have none of those problems to deal with. They are given highly nutritious food, vitamins, clean warm shelter, medical care whether they like it or not, healthy controlled exercise, etc. About all that is left for them to do is reproduce, and that is manipulated to teach them to find home. After several generations of breeding of that kind you would expect to get a sort of an avian athlete. In a feral on the other hand you would expect to get a gritty down to earth survivor.

If the dissertation author wanted to make his comparisons fair, he should release some domestics into a few feral flocks and see how many of them survive the first week, month and year. But all in all, not a bad paper. It was obviously written in Hungarian and badly translated. When he talks of "pure bred ferals" he is trying to distinguish the ferals which have interbred with the domestics from those which have not.

Conditionfreak on the other hand was talking about behavior, not breeding, as the factor he was curious about. Personally I can't imagine any pigeon breeder that is going to allow his birds anywhere near ferals for any purpose, much less testing them in some sort of a half-baked experiment. Which leads me to the conclusion his article was all smoke.


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## RodSD (Oct 24, 2008)

I think the paper did not try to answer the hardiness of pigeons. So he didn't do that kind of experiment. He was, I believe, trying to answer 4 questions.

I do agree that the paper proves the obvious. It is just more believable because he did the experiments and used statistics. And I suppose it was refereed work as well.

Homers that we have is a human breed. So their selection process is different. Because we release them at far distance and breed those that make it, we created a bird that is like a "marathon in the sky."

I think Conditionfreak wanted to know the homing ability and speed of ferals compared to homers. The paper points him into a right direction. He also wanted to know the hardiness of ferals and homers. The paper didn't answer that question. The paper, however, pointed out that inbreeding causes more loss of baby birds compared to cross-breeds one.

I hope this thread will continue civil so that it wont get locked.


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## TAWhatley (Mar 6, 2001)

I appreciate the posting of the link to this dissertation and do also believe that a lot was lost in the translation into English. 

For any serious students of feral pigeons, this is an excellent reference: http://www.amazon.com/Feral-Pigeons-Richard-F-Johnston/dp/0195084098

It's very pricey, but is full of "hard science" about these birds. I was fortunate enough to be given a copy of this book by a member here who is not a frequent or recent poster.

Terry


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## John_D (Jan 24, 2002)

Something I find interesting about the whole homing ability thing is that wild rock doves don't have the kind of lifestyle where they would even need it much. They don't migrate, and they tend to nest, roost and forage within a quite limited area of a few square miles. Ferals, obviously, have the same characteristics, so finding their way back from someplace to where they've been unnaturally removed is bound to be a pretty hit and miss affair.

John


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## Grimaldy (Feb 25, 2007)

One of the peculiarities of the rock dove was and I suppose still is, its ability to find land when out over a body of water. Supposedly, before the magnetic compass was known, sailing ships had to keep in sight of land to avoid being lost. The story is that they always carried a few rock doves on board so that if they lost sight of land they could release a few and watch the direction they took. Assuming the birds just did not fly high enough to gain sight of land and then proceed off in that direction, the story if true suggests that pigeons have some innate ability to orient themselves. As anecdotal evidence it certainly explains the story of Noah and the ark and his releasing doves (rock doves) to find land.

I have noticed when I recover lost homing pigeons and get them back on their feet, at the time of release they will look out at the sun, look around to the south, never the north, back to the sun and then take off in a straight line. That occurs usually after a few days or so in a cage with no exposure to the sun at all and the direction of flight is invariably never in the direction where they were found.


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## Charis (Feb 11, 2007)

http://www.pigeons.biz/forums/f23/how-i-know-feral-pigeons-can-home-32176.html


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## Lovebirds (Sep 6, 2002)

John_D said:


> Something I find interesting about the whole homing ability thing is that wild rock doves don't have the kind of lifestyle where they would even need it much. They don't migrate, and they tend to nest, roost and forage within a quite limited area of a few square miles. Ferals, obviously, have the same characteristics, so finding their way back from someplace to where they've been unnaturally removed is bound to be a pretty hit and miss affair.
> 
> John



It's true that ferals may not really NEED the homing ability, but I think they have it anyway to some extent. Our racing pigeons learn a limited area also when they are babies and first start flying. However, none of us actually "train" them out to the race stations........especially the ones that are 300, 400, 500 or even more miles away. They just "know" how to get home. 
There's also a difference in "migrating" and "homing"..........I can drive from point A to point B and back to point A..........however, if you put me in a box and take me 100 miles from home and drop me off........well, let's just say I'd be a goner I guess..........


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## Charis (Feb 11, 2007)

Lovebirds said:


> It's true that ferals may not really NEED the homing ability, but I think they have it anyway to some extent. Our racing pigeons learn a limited area also when they are babies and first start flying. However, none of us actually "train" them out to the race stations........especially the ones that are 300, 400, 500 or even more miles away. They just "know" how to get home.
> There's also a difference in "migrating" and "homing"..........I can drive from point A to point B and back to point A..........however, if you put me in a box and take me 100 miles from home and drop me off........well, let's just say I'd be a goner I guess..........


You'd need to ask for directions...right? I would.


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## Lovebirds (Sep 6, 2002)

Charis said:


> You'd need to ask for directions...right? I would.


Well, yea.......but birds don't ask for directions.............my point was the migrating isn't the same as homing.......


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## Charis (Feb 11, 2007)

Lovebirds said:


> Well, yea.......but birds don't ask for directions.............my point was the migrating isn't the same as homing.......


No. It sure isn't.


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## feralpigeon (Feb 14, 2005)

No, migrating isn't the same as homing, and yes, the ferals have the same gift
as the homers just not cultivated w/the support of humans...and they don't really need to rely on it w/the life they lead. Anyway, dissertation or not, the 
author will still need to withstand the scrutiny of the scientific community regarding the controls in the experiment....and the conclusions that the author
has arrived at seem in direct conflict w/other scientific data.

fp


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## conditionfreak (Jan 11, 2008)

Grimaldy: "Conditionfreak on the other hand was talking about behavior, not breeding, as the factor he was curious about. Personally I can't imagine any pigeon breeder that is going to allow his birds anywhere near ferals for any purpose, much less testing them in some sort of a half-baked experiment. Which leads me to the conclusion his article was all smoke."

First off. You must not have any imagination at all. Why would I, as a pigeon breeder, be afraid to allow ferals near my homers? Can't they pass each other on a 500 mile race, now and then? Are feral pigeons going to rape or beat up my homers? If I am getting feral eggs (as I stated, and specifically said I did not want baby or adult ferals), and putting those eggs under my homer pumpers to raise, am I going to bring deseases into my loft?

Is the smoke clouding your vision of what I proposed.

As to the Original posters linked article and statements. I thank him for the info and link, and this was the type of thing I originally asked for. Some info as to whether experiments like this had been tried already. But I do not put that much stock in someones college education nor in the professors assessment, if they are not true pigeon people. As anyone knows, if you were in a court of law discussing whatever (DNA, police methods and training, psycological conditions, etc) you can get a college educated, so called expert, to take any side of an argument you want them to take.

The info is interesting and I really do appreciate the link, but the translation is faulty and the conclusions are faulty, in my humble opinion.

Are we to assume that when Noah let loose the doves from the Ark, that he was well within the 40 Kilometers of land. What luck he had. The whole world under water and the Ark was within 40 Kilometers of Mount Ararat.

As I have previously stated, I had a feral come home from 40 miles but not from 50 miles. But I do not know what the reason was for not coming home that day. I have lost racing pigeons from lesser miles. It is a dangerous world flying our skies, for a little dove in a world of predators.

My initial inclination is that if pigeons use the sun or Earths magnetism to find the right direction, then the distance they can come home from is basically only limited by the large expansions of water that they can not cross due to being unable to stop and rest. If they do in fact have a natural homing instinct, why oh why, would it not be good at 2000 miles if it is good at 50 miles? It would just take longer, giving the predators, starvation or bad weather, more chance to prevent them from coming home.


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## bluecheck (Aug 17, 2006)

Rod,
Thank you for the link. That is an extremely interesting article. I'm going to refer a few friends to it as well (BTW - the farthest I've ever had a feral home from was 103 miles. I stopped her after that since I was using her as a mate for one of the cocks i planned to race out to the distance and I didn't want to lose her. Also, she was a great pet that had been hand reared. Of course, this bird was flying as part of a training flock so she may have stayed with the flock on a lot of occasions. Still, she homed. Others over the years didn't do much more than 14 or 20 miles

Frank


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## RodSD (Oct 24, 2008)

Frank, You are welcome! The paper do have missing tables and graphs.

Conditionfreak, I am not going to argue anymore, but you are welcome, too!


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## Grimaldy (Feb 25, 2007)

Frankly conditionfreak, I doubt you raise or breed pigeons at all.


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## spirit wings (Mar 29, 2008)

Grimaldy said:


> Frankly conditionfreak, I doubt you raise or breed pigeons at all.


Not nice.....


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## conditionfreak (Jan 11, 2008)

Grimaldy said:


> Frankly conditionfreak, I doubt you raise or breed pigeons at all.



Yea, Har Har. I just come to this pigeon site everyday, for the great company. I was sitting around one day and thinking how, out of all of the millions (if not billions) of internet subjects and sites I could go to, I will go to the racing pigeon site and pretend I have pigeons.

Hopefully you were making a joke. That is the ONLY explanation for you.


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## Lovebirds (Sep 6, 2002)

Grimaldy said:


> Frankly conditionfreak, I doubt you raise or breed pigeons at all.


This IMO, is uncalled for. Why would you even say such a thing when you have no idea who this person is?


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## Pegasus (Feb 6, 2007)

I smell something personal here now...I won't even bother here anymore...I've read enough stupidity and some good points about this, just can't stress myself over something that is not going to make any changes...


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## Grimaldy (Feb 25, 2007)

To spiritwings,

My apologies to you if you feel I am being needlessly abrasive.


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## RodSD (Oct 24, 2008)

This thread is going to get lock again. Damn it! Behave people. I rather discuss things than argue. Back in college I tried minoring in Philosophy, but all we do is argue about something without facts so I quit and ended up in Biology (although I could have chosen to be physicist or an engineer). Facts people. Let us discuss facts! Everyone has opinions, but facts can put us straight.


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## Grimaldy (Feb 25, 2007)

Amen Brother, amen!


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## conditionfreak (Jan 11, 2008)

Facts are what I was after. Many can say this and that. I want to know for sure, so I proposed (plan) an experiment, where no one nor any bird gets hurt.

Yet, for some reason unknown to me, it became a flame war and "some" were throwing around unfounded accusations that I intended on breeding ferals with homers, putting ferals into club race baskets, and that I was actually a person who didn't even have pigeons (as if they are hard to get and I just don't have the means to do so).

To get back to the discussion at hand, I will re-state what I wrote previously. It seems to me that racers have been honed through breeding and selective breeding, to get the best that man can make, for racing.

But, nature I believe, has produced a wonderful and competitive homing pigeon in its own right. If in fact, homing is related to sun position, smells of the earth or magnetic fields of the earth, then both ferals and pedigreed racers have "it" (the homing ability), and if they have "it", they have "it", period. If they can find their way home from 100 miles, then they can find their way home from 3000 miles. The difference being the amount of obstacles they would encounter on the long route versus the short route. 

On a three thousand mile trip, can you imagine the dangers a lone pigeon would encounter, say coming from California to New York? Can you imagine the health problems? I would think that if a pedigreed racing pigeon and a feral from New York where taken to California and let loose, the racing pigeon would have the better chance of showing up at home, because of its healthier body, and because the feral has always lived in the wild, so he or she is not so "upset" with being out and about everyday. However, the racing pigeon is used to being in his little home and taken care of, therefore he has more incentive to find his way home, and perservere towards that goal. The feral could just hook up with any old flock of ferals and do quite nicely.

That, I believe, is the difference. I am going just by common sense and what little knowledge I have concerning feral pigeons. I have more concerning racing pigeons. It just makes sense to me that if ferals that can find their way home from fifty miles, they can do it from much longer distances, because of the methods we believe they use, to find their way home. How could one who uses the stars or the sun, not be able to use the stars or the sun, from anywhere, at any distance, to find the right direction to go home? The difference being "motivation". If you think that a feral pigeon out in an area it is not familiar with is scared, and wants to get home. Try and picture how much more a racing pigeons, used to being taken care of, wants to get back home. That is the greater motivation to perservere and continue, to get home. Ferals do not have this motivation to that extent, I believe. Sure, they want to get home to their mate, nest, perch or whatever. But it is not imperative for them to accomplish that goal in order for them to survive. On the other hand. A racing pigeon, raised and taken care of by humans, really does not understand living in the wild, and taking care of itself, and therefore, has a much greater motivation and fear instilled "need" to get back home.

I propose that the ability to come back home from long distances is not because of any lack of ability to know what direction to go. But a lack of motivation or the more enherent dangers associated with longer distances. It there are ten dangers a pigeon must deal with on a 100 mile race, then there are 100 dangers a bird must deal with on a 1000 mile race. Odds of not coming home, increase with the length of the flight, because of the many more dangers that are encountered.

These are my common sense opinions. Yours will vary.


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## james fillbrook (Jan 2, 2009)

its funny because a long time a go when i was raceing i had a pair of ferals nesting on are roof i could never undersantd way those two would not go in the pigeon loft but still i went up there to the babies and had an idea why not ring those two and try and race them when they were older i put them in with the other young homers and trained them and 4 2 years they were good they did not win but there came a bout 8 in my loft out of 30 and they were no diffent so i think its the way they are trained at the begaining because a un trained bird is useless


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## feralpigeon (Feb 14, 2005)

An interesting article from Gordon Chalmers:

http://www.ifpigeon.com/IF/update_feb_07/gordon_a_chalmers_navigation.pdf

fp


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## conditionfreak (Jan 11, 2008)

Thank you for the article. I already had read similar stuff, but this article brought to mind something I had not thought of previously, and is now intriguing to me.

This article discussed the genetically inherented migratory ability. Birds just "knowing", without ever having been trained or having participated in migration. knowing when and where to migrate to. Genetic Knowledge passed from previous generations is a facinating yet unbelievable thing, to me.

But, it gave me thought. If racing pigeons are sold or given to people in other parts of the world, other than where they and their ancestors were raised and trained. Does that affect their homing ability?

In other words, if so and so who lives in Belgium and has bred his own pigeons, along with pigeons from his neighbors, for decades and beyond, sends young birds to the U.S., would those birds be at a disadvantage being here (in the U.S.) versus being where their descendants were born, raised and trained? Subsequently, would those now in the U.S. birds, being used as breeders, produce young that would have to a lesser extent that. A disadvantage but not as great as the previous displaced birds.

I don't know if I explained that coherently, but it is a facinating subject that I just thought of.

That, in essence, would mean that all things being equal, racers from birds with a long genetic backgrounds of U.S. breedings, would have a slight advantage over racers whose parentage were of imports, for racing in the U.S.

I wonder if any studies along these lines have been completed. Winners from imported breedings versus winners from American breedings. The numbers would be tilted in favor of the U.S. bred birds, just because of the greater numbers, period. However, I am sure that a formula could be made by someone with better math skills than I.

It would be an interesting calculum, and someone who sells U.S. only bred birds might want to do it. It could be another marketing tool, if it proves out.


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## Grimaldy (Feb 25, 2007)

It is stranger still that Dr. Chalmers does not discuss the well known fact of iron metabolism, a process used by every living mammal on this planet. Generally every human being possesses about 3-5 grams of iron in the body which is necessary to sustain the process of life. Yet no human has been observed to have any innate ability to "align" themselves or guide themselves according to the earth's magnetic field.

Recent DNA studies show that when sections of DNA are removed from a genetically engineered mammal, the DNA continues to express proteins which should not be available to that mammal. The result is that certain habits and traits which would be thought to be learned and not genetic keep popping up which ensure the survival of the mammal. See: "The Making of the Fittest", Sean Caroll.


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## RodSD (Oct 24, 2008)

I can "home" on the kitchen by smelling someone's cooking. I can "home" when someone gives me direction. I can "home" when I use mapquest, google, and yahoo map. I can also use magnetic field to navigate, too, using a compass and a map. It is not guaranteed that I will make it though. (I am all joking, OK!)


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## Grimaldy (Feb 25, 2007)

I suspect pigeons use the same combination of skills as well.


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## conditionfreak (Jan 11, 2008)

Yea Rod. I understand you are joking. But it is not guaranteed that any pigeon, be it a purebred racing pigeon of the highest training and quality, or a lowly feral pigeon with a little training.

It is also not guaranteed that a person using a compass and a map can "home". Most people can not actually. I would guess that 80% of the women in the world could not, and maybe 40% of the men could not.

(I am joking also) (just a little though)


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## Guest (Jan 7, 2009)

again I think it would be more interesting to find out where all those racing homers go that never make it home from races and even training toses and how well they are fairing out there in the wild


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## TAWhatley (Mar 6, 2001)

LokotaLoft said:


> again I think it would be more interesting to find out where all those racing homers go that never make it home from races and even training toses and how well they are fairing out there in the wild


Well, a goodly number of them in Southern California find kindly people who contact me, and the birds end up at my place. The banded pigeons that I see in with the feral flock at the local duck pond are typically with that flock for a few days to a few weeks, and then I never see them again. Hopefully they go on home, but I don't really know what happens to them.

Based upon my time with 911 Pigeon Alert, I would have to say that most racing pigeons or show pigeons that are spotted and reported need help in getting home, and if they don't get that help, then they probably perish within a fairly short period of time.

Terry


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## george simon (Feb 28, 2006)

*I would like to point out that most race and show birds are over meditated and their immune system is weak,thus when lost they are in danger of comming down with an illness that the weak immune system can not fight off.* GEORGE


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## RodSD (Oct 24, 2008)

Not only that, but we are helping create drug-resistant bacteria when we kept on over medicating our birds. Those race birds are probably not taught to forage on the ground for food as well. I let my birds forage on the ground from time to time. This lesson may have saved 2 birds of mine when I found them foraging on the ground eating grass seeds when they got lost for 1 week. They were still very skinny, but lives!


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## Guest (Jan 8, 2009)

my point was not really how they fair but as to where the hundreds go when they have a smash race ... like do they stick together , spread out or what they do when there are say 500 birds that just dont make it home all in one race ..that to me would be interesting info ..if only they all had tracking devices on them ,I think that would be something pretty awesome to observe as to the where they really go and why


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## TAWhatley (Mar 6, 2001)

LokotaLoft said:


> my point was not really how they fair but as to where the hundreds go when they have a smash race ... like do they stick together , spread out or what they do when there are say 500 birds that just dont make it home all in one race ..that to me would be interesting info ..if only they all had tracking devices on them ,I think that would be something pretty awesome to observe as to the where they really go and why


We had a situation on 911 Pigeon Alert where in one weekend about 200 birds were reported as being lost by the owners .. this happened in Ohio or Iowa .. don't remember for sure. Truly a couple of hundred birds lost, and I don't think a single one was reported as found. Nobody knows what happened to all these birds .. alien abduction perhaps .. but they just pretty much disappeared off the face of the planet.

Terry


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## Charis (Feb 11, 2007)

LokotaLoft said:


> my point was not really how they fair but as to where the hundreds go when they have a smash race ... like do they stick together , spread out or what they do when there are say 500 birds that just dont make it home all in one race ..that to me would be interesting info ..if only they all had tracking devices on them ,I think that would be something pretty awesome to observe as to the where they really go and why


Four of them have been dining at my house since September.


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## Pegasus (Feb 6, 2007)

TAWhatley said:


> We had a situation on 911 Pigeon Alert where in one weekend about 200 birds were reported as being lost by the owners .. this happened in Ohio or Iowa .. don't remember for sure. Truly a couple of hundred birds lost, and I don't think a single one was reported as found. Nobody knows what happened to all these birds .. alien abduction perhaps .. but they just pretty much disappeared off the face of the planet.
> 
> Terry





I've read something like this too but it happened in Europe, this time not just hundreds but more than a thousand racing pigeons and no one knows why...Let me find that site again...


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## Guest (Jan 9, 2009)

wouldnt it be funny if you were out flying your flock and they brought back a flock of 200 pigeons with them lol that would be awesomeeee


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## RodSD (Oct 24, 2008)

I've read that in those Taiwan racing birds that got lost actually were found dead in the ocean drowned. Apparently the birds got tired or thirsty, but they can't land in the ocean and drowns.


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## conditionfreak (Jan 11, 2008)

Found a long winded but interesting "study" on the homing ability of pigeons. How they do what they do. Here is a link. One of the more interesting parts is about the "hour shift" and how it "may" influence a pigeons homing ability. This information contained on this link is not really anything new, but there are a couple of interesting points that someone who is really, really, really into racing, may be able to put to good use. I admit it is just too complicated for me to use to influence my racers.

http://www.racingbirds.com/homing.html


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## RodSD (Oct 24, 2008)

Nice find conditionfreak. I think pigeons use their multi-ability to navigate. That sounds good to me.


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## Jay3 (May 4, 2008)

Charis said:


> LOL...Well...they are just plain wrong!
> Personally, I think some people may want to think of them as inferior because that way...it's easier to eliminate Feral Pigeons.


Not to mention that it justifies the price of a good homer!


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