# moving my birds....advice please.



## beausmammy (Nov 12, 2006)

Hi all, 
I would like some advice please, The majority of my birds are free fliers, let out at 7am and are presently roosting (and locked up) by 8pm, they are extremely lazy and apart from eating and bathing they generally just hang out on the roof of my house. I do however have 12 in a small aviary along with my other birds, my aim this summer is to move 8 of these and join them with the main flock. ( the reason I am doing this is because the aviary is quite confined, it gets dirty very quickly and apart from anything they look a little miserable!) The problem is, some of them were hatched in the aviary and have never free flown. Also from where the aviary is they can't actually see their surroundings, (The aviary has been part covered over the winter)
how do I go about letting them out? will they join the other birds automatically? will they go in with the other birds at roost time?
all advice greatly appreciated.......as always!
many thanks
Jayne x


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## Pigeonpal2002 (Jul 27, 2002)

beausmammy said:


> Hi all,
> I do however have 12 in a small aviary along with my other birds, my aim this summer is to move 8 of these and join them with the main flock. The problem is, some of them were hatched in the aviary and have never free flown. Also from where the aviary is they can't actually see their surroundings, (The aviary has been part covered over the winter)
> 
> Jayne x


Hello Jayne, 

I'm not quite sure I understand your setup. Do you have this aviary attached to a loft of some kind or are they two separate enclosures in different areas of your backyard? 

I think it might be beneficial to introduce these 8 birds you want to move to your other free flying flock first. Can you put them in with these birds for awhile in lock down? Maybe after some time getting used to each other, once released, they will follow and stick around with the others.

I'm sorry, I remember you, but not your situation or setup. Hopefully you will clarify a bit more or maybe some one else will have a better suggestion.


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## jbangelfish (Mar 22, 2008)

*Brad is right*

They'll have to be confined to the new loft for awhile, maybe 3 or 4 weeks or so. It works best if they have a nest with eggs or young to return to but not totally necessary.

Make sure when you move them to their new loft that there is plenty of roost space for everyone as they will be fighting over roost space. It might take a few days to sort out who gets to be where.

If you turned all of them loose with the old birds and let them fly, probably many of them would fly away.

Also, what breed of pigeon are they? Anything but homing pigeons can be treated as mentioned above and by Brad but homing pigeons that were not raised by you cannot normally be released ever.

Bill


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