# rehoming pigeons



## fadedracer

does anyone have any advice?
well i got some racing pigeons a while back from a local club. After i got them i decided i did not want prisoners.. so i plucked there flights and let them walk around for a month and now there starting to fly...so i only lost 2 so far and its only been a week....so i think that is good...any advice would be great


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## akbird

Plucking their feathers and then letting them walk around puts them at tremendous danger from predators. I would suggest that if you don't want any prisoners, get young birds that you can settle to your loft. My personal feelings are that it is cruel to pluck a bird's wings and leave them vulnerable.


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## pidgey boy

i have to agree that is very cruel, to any bird


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## abluechipstock

plus you can clip the feathers instead of plucking them, still bad for the poor things


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## SmithFamilyLoft

fadedracer said:


> does anyone have any advice?
> well i got some racing pigeons a while back from a local club. After i got them i decided i did not want prisoners.. so i plucked there flights and let them walk around for a month and now there starting to fly...so i only lost 2 so far and its only been a week....so i think that is good...any advice would be great


 Welcome to Pigeon Talk !

If you didn't want prisoners then why did you take the birds ? Do you have any idea what happened to those birds that were as you say "lost" ? Most likely they died of starvation and/or from the elements. And it's possible to damage a bird from "plucking" not to mention I am sure your method was painful. In time, you may lose the rest of the birds, because they are "Homing" pigeons, any idea why they got that name ? 

My advice would be to return the birds to their previous owners, since you indicated you didn't want prisoners, since in nearly fifty years of studying and reading about homing pigeons, I am not aware of any method or system, which will with 100% success, cause a homing pigeon to re-imprint to a new loft. And those that do, well I always suspected they had a much lower homing ability. In other words, your best birds already left, while those that stay have less homing ability. 

IMHO, you should have asked for advice before you accepted the pigeons, and before you started plucking. But, what is done is done. Hopefully, you will find information on this site which will improve the quality of life for the birds which are under your care. And hopefully, you will find a mentor in that club who can advise you as you move forward.


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## george simon

fadedracer said:


> does anyone have any advice?
> well i got some racing pigeons a while back from a local club. After i got them i decided i did not want prisoners.. so i plucked there flights and let them walk around for a month and now there starting to fly...so i only lost 2 so far and its only been a week....so i think that is good...any advice would be great


* Hi FADEDRACER, I have rehomed race birds.First thing you need to do is keep a record of who you got the birds from, so you will know where they would return to.#2 You must know where you are on the line of flight and where the people that gave you birds are located. I assume that you join a race club. You should have raised at least 2 rounds of young from these birds.The young would be trained and flying before you would even try to rehome the older birds. The reason for knowing where you are on the line of flight is important,When I rehomed all the birds that I rehomed came from one loft and he was 15 miles longer on the line of flight. After I raised 2rounds of young I let the birds lay a third round. On the day that I was ready to let them out I called the guy that I got the birds from and let him know,so that any that returned to his loft should not be fed or given water, and that I would pick them up that day.Well as I recall I had 10 -15 birds from him. first day only 4 birds went back to his loft WHICH I PICKED UP RIGHT AWAY AND BROUGHT HOME.The next day 2 went back and on the third day 1 and on the 4th day none.I raced these birds and even had a club winner fron that group. NOW AFTER AFTER TELLING YOU ALL THIS, HERE IS WHAT I RECOMAND DON,T TRY. as some said in one of the earier posts you have a lot to learn about pigeons. But I do wish you GOOD LUCK what ever you do. *GEORGE


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## blongboy

george simon said:


> * Hi FADEDRACER, I have rehomed race birds.First thing you need to do is keep a record of who you got the birds from, so you will know where they would return to.#2 You must know where you are on the line of flight and where the people that gave you birds are located. I assume that you join a race club. You should have raised at least 2 rounds of young from these birds.The young would be trained and flying before you would even try to rehome the older birds. The reason for knowing where you are on the line of flight is important,When I rehomed all the birds that I rehomed came from one loft and he was 15 miles longer on the line of flight. After I raised 2rounds of young I let the birds lay a third round. On the day that I was ready to let them out I called the guy that I got the birds from and let him know,so that any that returned to his loft should not be fed or given water, and that I would pick them up that day.Well as I recall I had 10 -15 birds from him. first day only 4 birds went back to his loft WHICH I PICKED UP RIGHT AWAY AND BROUGHT HOME.The next day 2 went back and on the third day 1 and on the 4th day none.I raced these birds and even had a club winner fron that group. NOW AFTER AFTER TELLING YOU ALL THIS, HERE IS WHAT I RECOMAND DON,T TRY. as some said in one of the earier posts you have a lot to learn about pigeons. But I do wish you GOOD LUCK what ever you do. *GEORGE


i think that should work ..cause pigeon are smart enough to change home ... but they will never forget their first home
i have bird i sold as ybs ...returning year round, but they don't stay ..they just drop by to say HI to me


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## jeff houghton

Ive tried every method possible to man with little success its like what was mentioned earlier, are the ones that stay really any good. when i relocated 2 years ago i took 50 birds with me and of those 50 all but 15 homed.
Didnt hve much of an option other than cull them when i moved and i wasnt prepared to kill healthy birds.

I like to think the ones i lost dropped into other lofts along the way home and are safe but in reality i know the score.Although im sure some must of carved out a life elsewhere.

I no longer take birds off other people the success rate ive found is too low,.

Also a more humane way as opposed to plucking their feathers which is extreme imo is to soap their wings but dont let them wander out of your sight and into the claws of bop.


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## PigeonVilla

Sometimes it works soemtimes it dont ,how bad do you want your pigeons to stay is what it all comes down to ?


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## boneyrajan.k

i had a post on this,from my experience don't even think of rehomimg an adult previously flown homers......


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## hillfamilyloft

Give them a reason to come home, a mate, eggs, even babies. If you try them with babies in the nest have a place to foster them if the parents fly off. I had one of mine that flew in Co and one of Marks that flew in Michigan come home after they go out the other day. Both had babies in the nest. Strong desire to come home. 
On the other note, I have had birds come home to me three and four years after I sold them to someone else. You never know. I think I will trap train and fly all my birds from here that I put in the breeding loft. That way they will know how to come home if I loose them.


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## sky tx

WOW some so-called pigeon people are cruel plucking flights-cutting them.
what ever happened to just soaping the flights??????????????????????
And you can not rehome a "REAL" homing pigeon.


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## fadedracer

hahahaha funny..okay i only loss 2 out of 10 so far.... and before that i did the same thing and lost 3 out of 6... dont call plucking there feathers cruel.... what you should think of first is letting them go away 500 miles and then losing 2/3 of pigeons by the end of race season...haha i am cruel...thats a first lol.....you people who race loses over 1/2 your birds by the end and call me cruel re think that statement


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## fadedracer

oh yeah locking them up for 6 years is not cruel....thats jail..i rather pluck there wings...how much could that hurt? i geuss some of the people on this site never scraped there knee


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## akbird

Try pulling the hair on your head out one by one and then tell us it didn't hurt. That is essentially what you are doing to your birds. You are just another one that asks for advice and then ignores it. Good luck.


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## spirit wings

why don't you breed some young from them and fly the babies then sell or give away the prisoners for young member to start with. As said any handicapping of the birds make them hawk bait IMO which ever way it is done. If you keep letting them out to fly off you won't be left with very good birds to breed from as the ones that MAY stay for awhile probably are not very good anyway.. and in the future they may just take off at anytime..does not have to be right away..sometimes something clicks and off they go..


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## E.W.S. Lofts

fadedracer said:


> does anyone have any advice?
> well i got some racing pigeons a while back from a local club. After i got them i decided i did not want prisoners.. so i plucked there flights and let them walk around for a month and now there starting to fly...so i only lost 2 so far and its only been a week....so i think that is good...any advice would be great


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

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.

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 when they feel unsafe. 
And the loft main doors should be open for them to go in and out whenever they like.

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.

If a bird is very comfortable 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 everday 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. 

Anyways try it and lemme know


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