Homing Pigeons

We have raised homing pigeons now for over 20 years. We started out with just one loft, and probably no more than 50 pigeons. We now have 3 fairly large lofts and around 200 birds.

We have a loft for pairs, a loft of youngsters and a loft for old birds.

Most people are surprised at the fact that homing pigeons have to be trained.

Training involves the younger birds and just letting them outside to get used to flying around the loft area for a few days.

They are trained to stay air born by using a flagging system, which is a long pole with a red flag attached to the end of the pole, as long as the flag is up, they are to remain in the air, when the flag is lowered, that signals them to land. We also use drop birds, drop birds are also used on race days, when the birds are seen in the area, the drop birds are then released so that the birds that are coming in, will know that the area is safe from hawks and they will land on the lofts landing board.

The training phase consist of crating them up and taking them a few miles away each day, most birds have really great homing instincts, and will end up back at their loft before we even get home from their drop location. Some birds never make it back, they get lost or something happens to them .

ALL homing pigeons carry a band on their legs, homing pigeons are a pretty friendly bird, when lost, they will land on your house, your garage or even right in your yard when they see you, you will be able to walk right up to them and pick them up.

The band will help to locate the club that the bird flys out of, as well as the owner of the bird.

Example would be that we fly out of the Tarentum PA club, our tags are TAR(number), each bird handler is assigned as many tags as he needs, the tags are recorded. A local vet or even your local police can help you to locate the name of the club and they will in turn help you to locate the birds owner.

A few years ago, we had a really pretty white flight young bird, but his homing instinct just was not what it needed to be. He never made it past the training phase, for the 1st few times, we would get phone calls and then had to go pick him up. But the phone calls stopped coming and he went missing.

There is nothing more beautiful that watching the young birds, they are left out during the early mornings and they are so fascinating to watch.

Their landing board skills are still rusty and some hit the landing boards really hard and it spooks the others up into the air, they soon figure out that they can land with ease and a lot less pain involved...lol

When you walk into the loft area, don't be surprised if you see them flying from the loft and landing on your shoulders or even your head, they will gladly eat right out of your hands and they will make their cute little pigeon sounds, just to tell you that they love you.