# Three Smart Birds, Seven Stupid Birds



## ptras (Jun 29, 2010)

Today, I let ten young Birmingham Rollers out to fly for the first time. They have been in my loft since July, and have had access to a landing cage and the loft roof since September. I have been whistle training when I feed since I got them. They all hung out on the roof for a few minutes, and then all took off in a group. They flew in a loose kit for about ten minutes, and then started separating and landing in different locations. I had a few on my roof, a few on my neighbor's roof and more in the trees down back.

I left them, figuring that when it was feeding time, I would whistle and they would all come back. At 5:00pm (their usual feeding time), I filled the feeder and whistled. One came in immediately, and two others flew from my roof to the loft roof. They hung out there for about fifteen minutes, and then both entered the loft via the front door (which I had open while working on the loft), rather than through the trap into the kit area. I shooed them into the kit area where they immediately fell to eating.

The remaining seven birds hung out on my roof, and kept doing circles and going back to the roof. A couple of them stayed on my neighbor's roof. I whistled for them to come in a couple more times, but they just hung on the roof. I came inside for dinner, leaving them on the roof (what else could I do...they're three stories up!) When I went out after dinner, it was almost dark, and it had started to rain. Now, (9:30pm) there are five birds huddled together on the roof of my house in a soaking rain and thirty-nine degree temperature. Who knows where the other two are. I left the light on and the front door propped open on the loft, but I think those birds are too stupid to fly the 100 foot - straight line - downhill, distance from my roof to the loft. The other three birds are warm, fat and stupid in the nice dry loft.

Not much I can do other than leave the light on for them. Maybe when this Northeaster Storm we are supposed to be getting hits, it'll wake up enough of their brain cells to prompt them to go inside. I'll let you know how it looks in the morning!

Peter


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## ThePoultryFarm (Oct 1, 2010)

I would fly them a lot hungrier next time. I would do no feed the day before you fly them, to make them want to come home a little better. Do you use a trap? Were they all well trap trained?


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## ptras (Jun 29, 2010)

arherp said:


> I would fly them a lot hungrier next time. I would do no feed the day before you fly them, to make them want to come home a little better. Do you use a trap? Were they all well trap trained?


They get fed daily at 5:00pm when I get home from work, and I leave the food in for no more than 20 minutes. They were all trap trained and have to come through the trap every day in order to get fed. I have the landing cage open, so any of them that come back can trap in. I'm also leaving the front door of the loft open a bit so they can enter that way if they wish. If they do that, my wife will shoo them into the kit area.


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## yvannava (Jul 10, 2010)

man i starve mine for 2 days and they just dont come in even when i call them it just makes your blood boil so bad. like why even bother giving them the feed call. i'm just going to spend more time on the feed call. just leave the trap open and they might just come in.


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## RodSD (Oct 24, 2008)

Some birds are like that. They all have varying intelligence. At my place those birds that stayed out would have been hawk food already especially the hawk comes back at sunset. Your birds will probably come down to eat when they are really hungry.


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## diwaj (Aug 7, 2008)

Hi,

Let them starve and they will come, also dont fly those 3 good birds with the others, until they learn to come to loft faster, if not those 3 will learn to land outside and irritate you more.


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## ptras (Jun 29, 2010)

Well...this morning, there were still five birds on my roof, and two who knows where!

I whistled again, but they were more interested in being miserable in the driving rain and thirty-nine degree weather. Three are huddled together at a corner of the roof, and the other two are sitting inside my gutter. They all must be miserable up there, as they are completely unprotected from the weather.

Trap is open, and front door ajar. Hopefully they'll smarten up!


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## spirit wings (Mar 29, 2008)

ptras said:


> Well...this morning, there were still five birds on my roof, and two who knows where!
> 
> I whistled again, but they were more interested in being miserable in the driving rain and thirty-nine degree weather. Three are huddled together at a corner of the roof, and the other two are sitting inside my gutter. They all must be miserable up there, as they are completely unprotected from the weather.
> 
> Trap is open, and front door ajar. Hopefully they'll smarten up!


too bad homers don't roll, I would say get some of those..lol.. never had a problem getting them back in..well take that back..non have spent the night outside of the loft..they always have come in at some point right at dark.. when they get hungry enough they will catch on..


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## NewHopePoultry (Feb 7, 2010)

My rollers are being stupid too,lol. I cant get them to go back in, they just land on the roof.


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## ThePoultryFarm (Oct 1, 2010)

I would shoo them off the roof and see if, when they fly back to the loft area, they will trap for you.


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## RodSD (Oct 24, 2008)

If they just stayed put either they don't know how to trap or they haven't associated with feed call or they are still not hungry. Release the birds that trap and hopefully they will teach those slackers how to trap. It worked on some of my birds--new trainee.


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## yvannava (Jul 10, 2010)

i always send my silver red bar to get my pigeons in when i real get frustrated. my roller will fly all day and not even want to land. even though there is hawks out they still stay out and dont come in til 2 days but i'm not letting mine out for nothing right now they on time out. lol


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## ezemaxima (Jan 12, 2008)

ptras said:


> Today, I let ten young Birmingham Rollers out to fly for the first time.
> 
> Peter


Your first sentence is the key to your problem. It's like being free the first time!!! They will come home when they get hungry and will continue doing the same thing (hangout on trees, roof, etc...) the next few times you let them out until they get the hang of it. They key to getting them trained to trapping now is to be consistent (feed in the loft before calling them in either by whistling, shaking a can, etc....). Keeping them hungry would help too. No need to leave the front door open as it will attract predators in entering your loft. If you feel your trap door is safe to leave open overnight then do so but if you have your doubt then close it at night and open again in the morning. Be patient with them...


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## ptras (Jun 29, 2010)

arherp said:


> I would shoo them off the roof and see if, when they fly back to the loft area, they will trap for you.


No can do. They're three stories up!


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## ptras (Jun 29, 2010)

ezemaxima said:


> Your first sentence is the key to your problem. It's like being free the first time!!! They will come home when they get hungry and will continue doing the same thing (hangout on trees, roof, etc...) the next few times you let them out until they get the hang of it. They key to getting them trained to trapping now is to be consistent (feed in the loft before calling them in either by whistling, shaking a can, etc....). Keeping them hungry would help too. No need to leave the front door open as it will attract predators in entering your loft. If you feel your trap door is safe to leave open overnight then do so but if you have your doubt then close it at night and open again in the morning. Be patient with them...


They've been whistle trained since July, and have been trap trained since August. Every time I feed them, I shoo them all out into the landing cage, drop the bobs on the trap, and then whistle them in for food. I feed them once a day and the feed tray only stays in for twenty minutes tops. When I feed them, they are sure acting as if they are hungry...all flying to the screen and watching me as I fill the feeder. Then, when I open the door to the kit section, they all immediately fly to the flight cage. They know that I won't whistle and put down the food until they are all out there so they have to enter through the trap.

I'm thinking that the next time I fly them, I will leave them unfed the day before. Maybe hungrier is better.


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## sreeshs (Aug 16, 2009)

ptras said:


> No can do. They're three stories up!


May be a tennis ball might help, I can understand how frustrating it is... hope they trap soon, are the other two anywhere near by to be seen ???


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## ptras (Jun 29, 2010)

Here's an update on the birds. My wife called a few minutes ago and told me that three more birds entered the loft via the front door, and that she shooed them into the kit area. She then told me that she counted nine birds in the kit area, meaning that only one is now missing. The ninth bird must have trapped in sometime this morning.

My wife told me that she has seen nothing of the tenth bird.


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## yvannava (Jul 10, 2010)

HAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWKKK. LOL you got to watch out for them. try calling your bird in if you see him he might get in since he is the last one out there.


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## ptras (Jun 29, 2010)

yvannava said:


> HAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWKKK. LOL you got to watch out for them. try calling your bird in if you see him he might get in since he is the last one out there.


There wasn't a hawk in sight when I let the birds out...two days ago!

Actually, we rarely see hawks here. Believe it or not, the Blue Jays chase any hawks away. Never cared much for Blue Jays until I witnessed that.


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## yvannava (Jul 10, 2010)

a blue jay wow that cool never seen a blue jay do that. but today i saw 5 crows beating up a cooper's hawk it was crazy cause the hawk was still going after some small birds while he was fighting. so has that bird came in yet?


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## ptras (Jun 29, 2010)

yvannava said:


> a blue jay wow that cool never seen a blue jay do that. but today i saw 5 crows beating up a cooper's hawk it was crazy cause the hawk was still going after some small birds while he was fighting. so has that bird came in yet?


No sign of it yet. This is its third night out, and we have a northeaster going on...forty mph wind, driving rain and forty degrees out. If it does come back, I'm probably never going to get it out of the loft again!

The blue jays just harass the hawks until they take off. We have red-tail hawks that keep all of the other hawks/falcons out of the area, so the blue jays solve all my problems.


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## yvannava (Jul 10, 2010)

sounds nice. i say that to " i'm not going to take my bird out again" next day i cant stand seeing him/her in the kitbox so i just let them and seems like i dont learn my lesson. but with forty mph winds that bird might take a couple more days to get back if he got lost. the first time i let my birds fly one of my birds took 2 days then came back. hopefully he comes back. are they yb's or ob's?


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## ptras (Jun 29, 2010)

yvannava said:


> sounds nice. i say that to " i'm not going to take my bird out again" next day i cant stand seeing him/her in the kitbox so i just let them and seems like i dont learn my lesson. but with forty mph winds that bird might take a couple more days to get back if he got lost. the first time i let my birds fly one of my birds took 2 days then came back. hopefully he comes back. are they yb's or ob's?


They're young birds...fledged in July.


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## Knoc (Jul 10, 2010)

The crows beat up on any hawks around here too. Its kinda funny to watch. It'll be like 5 crowes and 1 hawk.


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## ptras (Jun 29, 2010)

Here's the latest in the saga:

The missing bird never came back, and we haven't seen anything of it since that first day. This week, I decided that I should fly the birds again this weekend. In preparation, I didn't feed them yesterday afternoon. I usually feed them around 5:00pm, and the feeder stays in for twenty minutes.

By this morning, the birds were all pissed at me. Every time I went in the loft, they all flew to the side of the kit pen and hung on the screening...looking hopefully at me with starving looks on their faces. Around 1:30pm, I shooed them out into the flight cage, and opened the outside door. At first, they all just sat there looking out the open door. Then, a couple brave birds flew down to the ground and started pecking at the grass. When the others saw this, they flew down to the ground also. My son decided that it was time for them to fly, so he walked in the middle of them clapping his hands, and sure enough - they took to the sky.

They flew for about twenty minutes, and then all landed on the roof of my house. I ignored them, figuring (again) that when it was feeding time, they would all come in. I was working on the loft, and had the door propped open. Over the next half hour, three of the birds flew down and entered the loft via the open front door. I decided it was time to call them in, so I loaded the feeder and whistled. At first, it looked like my strategy was working. When I whistled, the five birds on the roof all took wing. However, they just flew around a few times and went back to the roof.

Since they all (except one!) came back last time, I decided not to worry myself over it. I continued working on the loft. Sure enough, over the next hour, all five of the birds flew down and entered the loft via the front door. So...all eight of the birds that flew today returned, but not one of them trapped into the loft. The only thing I can think, is that they're too dumb to realize that the landing cage and trap are on the back of the loft. They all went to the easiest entry, rather than to the trap that was a whole ten feet further away! (Maybe they're not so dumb after all!)

I'm going to fly them again tomorrow, and see how it goes this time. At least we don't have a Northeaster forecast like we did when I flew them two weeks ago!


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## RodSD (Oct 24, 2008)

They were not trap trained properly.

Also their behavior is starving behavior. They won't fly long if they are starving.

You know some of my birds do the same thing about the open door thing. They rather use it if they had the chance. In the beginning of my loft I didn't have a trap so I trained them that way--English style. Most of my birds, however, uses the trap system.

Discipline your birds more. If you call, make sure they use your trap else they will be waiting for you to open the loft door before entering. I had that experience and it was frustrating because as some birds go in some escapes. Good luck!


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## ptras (Jun 29, 2010)

RodSD said:


> They were not trap trained properly.
> 
> Also their behavior is starving behavior. They won't fly long if they are starving.
> 
> ...


You say it is starving behavior, but two weeks ago when I flew them, I had many people tell me they didn't return because they were too well fed. I was advised to not feed them the day before I flew them. Also, I have had many experienced roller fliers tell me that birds that are too well fed will not fly very long.

As to trap training, these birds have been whistle trained since they were fledged, and trap trained for the past two months. Since I started trap training them, they have *never* gotten food unless they are whistled through the trap.

I'm going to chalk this up to the birds being young, with no prior experience outside the loft. This was only the second time they have been out.


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## yvannava (Jul 10, 2010)

there are always reasons why they dont come in or they dont fly. if there are trees in front of your loft then they will most likely land there. always point it in a direction where there is nothing. if they have to much room in the loft to fly then they will not want to fly once they get out. the feed gets them heavy and lazy thats why they dont fly but if you starve them to much then they will fly too high and sometime to long you got to mess around with the feed until you see how much is good for them and what kind of food. it just takes time your not going to get it right the first time you fly.


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## Guest (Nov 14, 2010)

if you have only had them out twice then you really cant expect all that much from them .. time out and on the wing is all they have to go by and two times out of the loft isnt all that much experiance to go by hungry or not


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## RodSD (Oct 24, 2008)

If you open your loft and your pigeons head straight towards the ground, that implies that the pigeons are starving. Their behavior on the side of loft screen indicated that as well. If they land right away and go to the ground or inside the loft, they are also starving unless they are breeding. Unfortunately there is this balance needed. You are also right. They will ignore your commands if they are too full and wont fly if they are full as well. Since you mentioned that this is their second time outside, then, indeed you are correct. You can chalk it up with young, inexperience pigeons. My birds had to follow my commands after 1 week outside else they will be hawk food. On average I get to call them in and trapped in 3 days. I am talking about birds ranging from 1-2 months old. Older birds should learn faster.


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## Lynnwood Lofts (Apr 12, 2010)

> If you open your loft and your pigeons head straight towards the ground, that implies that the pigeons are starving.


Not necessarily...I have some older birds that just simply love to pick at the ground. As soon as I open the aviary, one in particular, drops to the ground and starts eating up clover. He's definitely not starving...guess it's more of a treat for him and a change from spinach. The other birds follow him and I stand over them on hawk watch.

What is it with seven stupid pigeons??? I have some young birds that I let out for the first time last week and seven of them stayed on the roof when I called them in. I tried using a big stick, a tennis ball and clapping to get them down but they all sat there and looked at me like I was a weirdo. I ended up using one of my bh rollers to show them that they can go in and five immediately trapped. The other two spent the night outside and acted like they were ready to go in first thing in the morning, but instead sat atop the loft and cleaned themselves. I again used one of my bh rollers and once they heard the trap door clang on the wood, it was like they realized "Oh, it's open!" Bunch of dummies!! I know they know how to trap, because they've done it many times but sometimes I guess they just need to be lemmings.


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## RodSD (Oct 24, 2008)

Ok. If not starving, then it is hungry. A filled bird will just perch and relax, or fly. If it goes to the ground, they are looking for something to eat. Peanuts or other oily seeds might be a treat. I don't know about clover being a treat. I think that is a vegetable supplement. Obviously we may have different conclusions based on their behavior, but I still stand on my opinion. Having said that I have observed the following. After a long flight, if you give your birds open loft, they will most likely go to the grounds looking for something to eat. I am assuming then that they are hungry because they have used their energy for the flight.


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## RodSD (Oct 24, 2008)

One exception could be that the birds are still new. So when they come out they will land anywhere.


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## Ross Howard (Nov 26, 2009)

If any of my birds land on barn & not on kit box I have a fishing pole rigged up with a small plastic weight & rag tied on end of line which I cast up at them. Works every time & I don't have to chase to retreive can is best answer though if they won't come down something is scaring them or they are over fed. Good Luck.


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## ptras (Jun 29, 2010)

I have received a lot of good advice on this thread - thanks.

I did fly the birds again on Sunday, and again, they flew for a bit and went straight to the roof of the house. As the house is three stories in the back where they perched, I cannot follow some of the advice given...too far up. Even a tennis ball is hit or miss at that height. I've found that the birds will step out of the way as the tennis ball rolls down the roof at them, and otherwise ignore it.

Again, all eight birds that flew Sunday returned. Four returned Sunday when I whistled, through the front door. The other four stayed out overnight, and returned the next day...also through the front door. I've decide that I need to move the trap around to the front of the loft. Only problem, is the front of the loft has two pens for captive birds. The flight pens are in the back. 

I'll have to play around with it and see what I can come up with, because I can't always have the front door open waiting for birds to return!


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## Lynnwood Lofts (Apr 12, 2010)

Ross Howard said:


> If any of my birds land on barn & not on kit box I have a fishing pole rigged up with a small plastic weight & rag tied on end of line which I cast up at them. Works every time & I don't have to chase to retreive can is best answer though if they won't come down something is scaring them or they are over fed. Good Luck.


That is brilliant!! I'm going to try that!!! I have fun tying the tennis ball to my fishing pole to tease the dog, but never thought of using it for the birds!!


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## Lynnwood Lofts (Apr 12, 2010)

ptras said:


> I've decide that I need to move the trap around to the front of the loft.


Is there any way you could extend an entrance to the trap up to the roof of the loft? In other words, maybe a marker or something that they can see from the roof of the house so they know to go to that side of the loft?


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## ptras (Jun 29, 2010)

Lynnwood Lofts said:


> Is there any way you could extend an entrance to the trap up to the roof of the loft? In other words, maybe a marker or something that they can see from the roof of the house so they know to go to that side of the loft?


I actually had plans to add a flight cage above the current landing cage onto the roof of the loft. I just ran out of summer. Maybe I'll give that a try.


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## RodSD (Oct 24, 2008)

Your pigeons seem to like the front door. How is your trap system? They are studying the place from up there so they are staying put. That is one reason why I've always recommended people to put their pigeons on a settling cage on a roof when they are trying to rehome birds. It helps a lot for them to get oriented and protects them from BOP. Your birds are not trap trained properly. Sorry to be harsh. They have associated the door as the trap. You have to retrain them to use your trap.


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