# Re-homing homing pigeons



## lyndajackson68 (May 20, 2011)

Hi, Im a new member, and I was wondering if someone could answer this question: I was given 2 pair of homing pidgeons, abt a month ago. How long before I can let them out of their cage, like for the day, or will they always leave and return to where I got them from? Pls help...


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## spirit wings (Mar 29, 2008)

lyndajackson68 said:


> Hi, Im a new member, and I was wondering if someone could answer this question: I was given 2 pair of homing pidgeons, abt a month ago. How long before I can let them out of their cage, like for the day, or will they always leave and return to where I got them from? Pls help...


if they are over 40 days old..they may fly back home.. that is why the call them homing pigeons.. usually older birds are kept as prisoners and you can fly their babies.


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## lyndajackson68 (May 20, 2011)

thank you very much..


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## Comriest (May 16, 2011)

We had and Irish hen come into our racing loft last year (obviously lost on an overseas race) we took her in and fed her up with our racers and she's flown out with them ever since and always comes back. Guess you never know unless you've had them since babies. I wont take the risk with bought in stock birds as too valuable. I guess if your prepared to take the chance of them taking off and never coming then let them out. My dad once sold one of our combine winning race birds (retired to stock and hadn't been out exercising in several years) the gentleman who bought him lived 400 + miles away accidentally let him out one day and he was back on our loft overnight. My dad did send him back but it proves the homing power, fit or not .


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## shadowoak (Mar 19, 2011)

*re homing*

im a new guy into pigeons too . but i have a friend who says sometime they can be re homed if you keep then in a very long . but most of the time they will return to there first home . when iwas a kid we re homed some but they were living on house a roof where there loft was torm down and there owner had moved away .and they were not getting fed at that site any more ,plus we set there new home up just about a mile away too. but please let us know what happens ?


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## napcinco05 (May 10, 2011)

I did have pigeons before which I got from my friend way back in highschool. Some of them had been raced already and I kept it as my breeders. before I used to pluck their primaries. and just let them out of my cage. Of course they just walk instead of fly. But after their primaries had regrown they did consider my loft their home. It probably took 1 month i guess for it to regrow. However I got 1 pigeon which still got away. You could try that i guess.


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## whytwings (Feb 12, 2011)

I saved 10 homers that were dumped in a cardboard box out front of a fodder store , my new loft only completed 2 hours before bringing them home ...they were kept 1 day shy of 2 weeks ......I decided to open the trap and whoever stayed was welcome to stay . I kinda held my breath thinking the worse , but to my amazement evry single one of them returned . The last one to return at dusk was a pure white who spent the whole day in a pine tree in the park across the road . 

I can't say why they all came back ...but I still have 8 of the original 10 today


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## boneyrajan.k (Jul 15, 2010)

Don't even think of re-homing an 'Adult already flown' homers,and if you are able to successfully re-home an adult homer........Then its not a good quality bird .A good quality homers are always expected to go back to their old loft ........,otherwise whats the fun in having a homer


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## PigeonVilla (Dec 8, 2010)

boneyrajan.k said:


> Don't even think of re-homing an 'Adult already flown' homers,and if you are able to successfully re-home an adult homer........Then its not a good quality bird .A good quality homers are always expected to go back to their old loft ........,otherwise whats the fun in having a homer


 Werent you the one saying that you could rehome homing pigeons not that long ago when you got your first homing pigeons


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## RodSD (Oct 24, 2008)

It is possible to rehome older birds. It is just that it is not guaranteed!

Keep the pairs as breeders for now and fly the young. Once you gained experience with pigeons, then if you want to take risk of rehoming the older birds, do so when they have babies.

In my experience the longer the bird is a prisoner, the more it wants to leave away which is the opposite of what I expected. When I intend to rehome mine I usually do it in month period. If I keep them longer than that they seem to hate the place and will leave. I usually will not recommend this technique, however, because I am not a beginner. I have developed this "feel" about pigeons when they are ready. Just follow my first advice above instead.


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## boneyrajan.k (Jul 15, 2010)

PigeonVilla said:


> Werent you the one saying that you could rehome homing pigeons not that long ago when you got your first homing pigeons


Yeah,i am the same guy........but i never recommended Re-Homing *Adult previously flown homers .*


Here are my words from my old thread....
*
"Good news guys,i was successfully able to re-home my first pair of homers in about 10 days...by gods grace!!!
The factors which favored me are :
1.The fact that these pigeons were young and they were not flown from the previous loft.
2.Attitude of the birds,they have a very friendly attitude towards humans,they are not at all afraid of us.
3.The presence of old birds in my loft,who knows very well about geography of our land
4.They just love food,so it was easy to train them...
I got the confidence to release them,when they started taking feeds from my hands without any hesitation,i knew it was a risk,but i took a chance.....!!!but if it was an older bird,which has been flow earlier,then i guess the whole story would have been different "*

I hope there is no confusion now....


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## PigeonVilla (Dec 8, 2010)

boneyrajan.k said:


> Yeah,i am the same guy........but i never recommended Re-Homing *Adult previously flown homers .*
> 
> 
> Here are my words from my old thread....
> ...


 ok I just like people knowing where their information is coming from and that we were on the same page  
cool beans my good dude


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## boneyrajan.k (Jul 15, 2010)

PigeonVilla said:


> ok I just like people knowing where their information is coming from and that we were on the same page
> cool beans my good dude


  .....!!!


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## E.W.S. Lofts (Jun 15, 2021)

lyndajackson68 said:


> Hi, Im a new member, and I was wondering if someone could answer this question: I was given 2 pair of homing pidgeons, abt a month ago. How long before I can let them out of their cage, like for the day, or will they always leave and return to where I got them from? Pls help...


I have had success re-homing many birds.
This Includes both my own birds from moving homes and stock birds I got from others.

I was only 12 back then.

I had 100 + birds, in that time i only lost 2 birds, but was probably due to hawks, our new home then had lots of hawks.

Thing is they need lots of time, took rougly 6 weeks to 2 months, some older birds took nearly 6 months before i was confident to let them out for a fly aftwr their flights grew back.

I Had to clip every birds Flights off and let them roam every day. Them them naturaly moult out their clipped flights and repeat if not confident yet.

Its not safe for the birds but i was there with them everyday watching them like a hawk for 2 -3 hours at a time. DAILY let them out every day for a few hours at a time.

Also the loft was on stilts so they can hide under the loft when they feel unsafe.
And the loft main doors should be open for them to go in and out whenever they like. Make sure they can get up with a caged ramp.

You can trap train them again later once they have re homed. Treat them like young birds again. But with alot more patience.

Let them bath, let them roam, and never scare them in any way, call them wirt good old food when time to come in, be very slow and gentle with them very very important, they need to become very tame around you, even sit with them and feed them out of you hand, let them walk on you, they have to feel very safe with you, i even started to call them by name outside the loft and they would fly up to my hand looking for treats after the whole process was complete, their jittery level became very low and treated me like one of them, they would even coo on my legs and and shoulders while sitting with them.

Also let all of the birds mix, dont seperate them
Cocks and hens young birds and old birds alike let them pair up to whom ever they like, place lots of nest bowles everywhere. Just destroy the eggs if you dont want them to breed, then rinse and repeat. I found that caged birds are unhappy and will fly away the moment they escape.

If a bird is very comfortable and happy and has a nest bowl to come to and a mate they will stay.

I can promise you the birds will stay.
I rehomed every one of my flyers and old stock birds that i purchased when i moved to a new home. All 113 of them, only lost 2, 1 was a young bird the other was an old bird.

I can promise you after lots of time and patience it works very well.

Very important you treat them like they are your favourite puppy, let them out to walk for hours everyday for a couple hours at a time.

When my birds became very tame and happy like this i also saw a huge improvement in their racing as well. I could even get them to land in my hands after a race and trap them quicker with my clock before they got near the loft.

Once all this i done and they have rehomed then you can seperate your birds back to how you like.

I even took 2nd place on my first race in my club and many top places after that with just a few months of racing $hit i was so stoked. I never lost a bird from racing. Only to hawks.
Thing is i started highschool soon and life happened, and i had to give my birds away.

Now heres the funny part, after giving my birds away, the new owner could never re home any of them, they always came back even after many years he had to keep fetching them.

I eventually kept my one favourite bird after many years of returning, to me. we ended up moving again, i treated him the same way i did to my 113 birds and managed to rehome him again.

Homing pigeons are very intelligent and know when their enviroment is $hit or not.

Its not the birds, its the owner.
Happy birds turn into champions.


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