Expert: Chrys Meatyard - 11/16/2006

Question
Hello Chrys. My name is Christina, I am from Delaware. My boyfriend and I are interested in housing a couple homing pigeons. We are animal lovers and thought that they might be a fun pet. I was just wondering about the maintenance of the birds. I have read up online about keeping their lofts clean (it said to clean the loft once a month). What their feeding schedules need to be like and other important details that I am missing. How hard is it to train them so that the always come home? I want an expert opinion on how involved we need to be as pet owners. I just want to make sure that we can give them the best home that they can have. We have a wonderful home with over an acre with a beautiful wooded area. Please help me to make the best decision. Thank you for your help!

Answer
Hi, Christina.  Thanks for posting!

You can't keep homing pigeons as pets and fly them, too.  When racing/flying homing pigeons, they are considered "working" animals.  This isn't to say you can't handle them, etc., it's just that you don't want to make tame pets out of pigeons you let out to fly.  They need to retain their "wildness" so they don't become dinner for predators.    

Maintenance of a couple of homing pigeons is fairly simple.  However, if you have a male/female pair, they will likely breed and they are prolific breeders, being able to produce an average of 2 offspring about every 45 days.  Some method of birth control (pulling laid eggs before they hatch) would be in order for sure!  Homing pigeons need to be kept in a "loft" which is just the name of their housing.  This can be a small building, huge cage on legs (up off the ground)...there are many, many different types of lofts for homing pigeons.  Pictures of lofts are all over the internet...enter "pigeon lofts" for the search string in your search engine.  Here's a website you can also refer to for lots of information:  www.pigeon.org

The frequency with which you need to clean pigeon lofts depends on how many birds you keep in the area you have to keep them in.  In other words, if you have a lot of birds in a small area, you would need to clean more often than if you had a few birds in a big area.  There is some amount of cleaning/maintenance you have to do every day, but it isn't overwhelming (depending on the number of birds kept, etc.).  You mainly need to scrape perches free of droppings and keep the floor scraped of droppings, depending on the type of setup you have.  Some lofts are designed with a wire floor where droppings fall through where they can be easily raked up.    

Pigeons are normally fed once in the morning and once in the evening, about 1 ounce of pigeon grain per bird.  Some people only feed once per day.  Clean, fresh water is always required...pigeons drink at least every time they eat (the water helps to soften up the grain they eat).  You also have to provide grit.  

To train them, you have to start out with babies.  You cannot let pigeons out to fly at your home that were not hatched at your home.  In other words, if you purchase (or are given) a pair of adult pigeons, you will not be able to let these birds out to fly.  If you do, they will home to loft where they were trained to home to (if trained at all).  Therefore, you would have to breed a pair of pigeons and train their babies.  

There's a process involved in training pigeons to home.  When youngsters are about 2-3 months old, you would start by letting them outside.  Of course, your loft has to be set up properly with a "trap" of some sort so your birds can go in/out.  They will hang around on the roof of the loft, roof of your house, the neighbor's house (some neighbors don't appreciate this at all and cause much stink about it) at first.  As they get more comfortable being outside, they will venture further and further away.  When the youngsters start circling in the air and start traveling away for short periods of time, you can then start packing them up and taking them "down the road" as it's called and turning them loose at different distances (10, 25, 50, or more miles away) so they learn how to find home.  This is what is done if you want to race them.  If you just enjoy seeing them flying around your neighborhood, you wouldn't have to take them "down the road."  However, they will eventually fly further and further away from home and hopefully return.  Not all birds return home when let out to fly so be aware of this (they don't always return home).  They are also susceptible to predation by hawks and other raptors, people shooting at them, etc., when let out to fly, so some may not return for this reason.  Wooden areas are not good for this, as hawks hide in trees and ambush pigeons (pigeons are their favorite food).

The amount of time you need to spend training homing pigeons depends on whether you just let them out to fly around your home and neighborhood or whether you want to take them down the road and turn them loose.  

I can answer mostly all your questions on this subject, so come back as necessary.  

Chrys