# Can we band pet pigeons?



## Girl (Mar 3, 2005)

Hi Everyone,

I have a pet pigeon called Sweets which I rescued from a crow a couple of months ago - posted two threads on Sweets' development in other areas on this site. I intend to eventually buy an aviary for Sweets and hopefully let her out during the day to stretch her wings and lock up the aviary at night. I thought banding her might help if she got lost or hurt. There might be a greater chance that someone may contact me if she was banded.

Q1.Do only "show"/"fancy" pigeons get banded or can normal pet pigeons can banded?
Q2.Can we band a pigeon when she is already approx. 4 months old? The pigeons I saw which are banded are normally banded when they are young.

Any advice is welcome! Thanks.


----------



## Jiggs (Apr 1, 2005)

Yip. You can buy bands that snap on.

I know some people that do that with any sort of bird and put their names and phone numbers on it thus not having to go through a club etc like with homers and show pigeons

Hope it helps

J.


----------



## Victor (Dec 18, 2004)

This banding topic was discussed very recently. They are available at most pigeon supply houses and they come in different colors as well. As Jiggs stated, they can put names and phone numbers on the bands. Adjustable bands are also available.


----------



## ZigZagMarquis (Aug 31, 2004)

Girl,

Yes, you can band pet pigeons as folks have already pointed out. As I'm sure you know, pigeons are usually banded with a permanet, seamless, band at about 5 to 7 days old; after that, their foot / toes get too big to slip the band on. If you want to band a bird that is older, pretty much your only choice is to use a snap band or wrap around band. Mostly these are just colors or patterns to help you tell different birds apart... i.e. blue for boys, pink for girls, Race Team A vs. Race Team B, etc. You can surf to places like Jedds or Global and do a search on "bands". I found at Global where you can purchase personalized wrap around bands:

http://www.globalpigeon.com/gps.php?action=showprod&id=20050142&catalogno=400-000#400-000

... scroll to the bottom of the link I posted... or just go to www.globalpigeon.com and search on "bands", you may wish to try the same at www.jedds.com.

I'm guessing that you wish to band your pet bird just incase it ever gets out and someone finds it hurt or captures it so it may have a chance of finding its way back to you. Really the only chance of that, in your case, is if you can get a personalized band with your name and phone number on it. I know such things are out there.


----------

