THE HOBBY

Maintaining a loft of Racing Homers is a fascinating hobby that provides hours of enjoyment spent in your own backyard. Watching the birds respond to love and care is a pleasure to be had every day, and creates within you an interest in genetics, nutrition, weather, animal husbandry, physical conditioning, veterinary medicine, and woodworking. Because of these many facets, it's a hobby the whole family can participate in and a great opportunity for children to learn about nature and responsibility.

As with any type of animal or pet, pigeon keeping is a daily activity, encompassing 365 days a year. The first and foremost thing you must consider is how much time you have available to put into the hobby. The birds require feed and water every single day. Cleaning your loft will also take a fair amount of time. If you choose to go down the racing path, you will also need the time and resources available to properly train them. This typically involves driving your birds several miles away to release them for the purpose of conditioning and honing their skills. Road training is a vital ingredient in getting your birds prepared for racing, and should be routinely performed in the month prior to the beginning of race season.

If, considering this, you've decided that you do indeed have what it takes to become a pigeon fancier, then the next thing you will want to do is learn as much about the hobby as you can before building a loft or obtaining birds. Visiting someone's loft, talking about the sport, and viewing their birds is by far the best way to experience what's involved. After learning and seeing firsthand how pigeons are raised and trained, then you will want to build a loft in which the birds will live. To be honest, pigeons don't care much about where they live. The loft is more for your own comfort than for the birds. The most important consideration is that a loft needs to dry and free from draft. A loft needs a window from which you can release the birds for exercise, with a "trap," which a one-way device that allows the birds to return to the inside the loft, but not back out again.

Most people use a design similar to a garden shed. Generally, a new loft is constructed from the ground up, but an existing structure can be converted just as well. Plan on about two square feet of floor space for each bird you want to house. There are many variations of loft designs, and the best way to decide what will work best for you is to visit local flyers and observe how they do it.

After your loft is built, you will want to stock it with birds. Don't worry about buying the most expensive birds you can afford. Racing clubs have members who are eager to get new members in the club, and these people will be glad to assist you in stocking your loft with good birds. You're likely to get decent birds with which to get a good start. After you've been flying for a year and you know you can care for them, there are plenty of sources to obtain top quality stock should you consider monetary investment.

You will need to establish a health regime to keep your birds in top condition, and provide your birds only the highest quality feed. Feed can be purchased locally, and supplies such as medications, vitamins, drinking vessels, feeders, etc, can be purchased from any of a number of mail order pigeon supply houses.

Pigeons can breed at about six months of age. The hen lays two eggs that are incubated by both parents for 18 days. Pigeon breeders are careful in selecting birds to pair together so as to continue improving the breed and gain a competitive edge.

The homing pigeon is a variety of domesticated Rock Pigeon (Columba livia) that has been selectively bred to be able to find its way home over extremely long distances. Because any pigeon generally returns to its own nest and its own mate, it was relatively easy to selectively breed the birds that repeatedly found their way home over long distances. Their average flying speed over moderate distances is around 45 miles per hour, but they can achieve bursts of speed up to 60 mph.

RACING

In short, competing birds are taken from their lofts and must race home. The time taken and distance are recorded and the fastest bird (distance/time) is declared the winner. Provided it survives the many hazards associated with racing, a single pigeon could compete from six months of age and still be in competition at ten years of age, although the average racing career rarely exceeds five years.

To compete in a race, the bird must wear a permanent, unique numbered ring or band that is placed on its leg at 5-7 days of age. For a race to be conducted, the competing pigeons must be entered into the event, with everyone’s birds registered at the same time and then transported by a liberator to be released at a predetermined time and location. The distance between the bird's home loft and the racepoint is measured by GPS and the time taken by the bird to return is measured using one of the two acceptable timing methods.

The traditional method of timing racing pigeons involves a rubber ring with a unique serial number being placed on the birds leg before being sent to race. The serial number is recorded and the bird carries the ring home. When the first bird returns, its trainer removes the ring and places it in a specially designed clock. The time that the ring was placed in the clock is recorded as the official time that the competing bird arrived home. The latest development for timing racing pigeons is having the bird carry an electronic chip which instantly records the time when the pigeon arrives from the race.

TRAINING

Racing pigeons are housed together in a specially designed loft. From about five weeks of age until the end of its racing career, the racing loft is the pigeons home and this is where it returns to on race day.

Young pigeons are trained progressively for at least six months before being allowed to compete in a race event. A racing pigeon's initial training involves familiarizing it with the loft and its surroundings and training it to use the various features of its home (entry points). It is also this critical time that the birds learn commands, such as entering the loft when the trainer whistles.

After a couple of weeks of initial training and becoming “settled”, the young birds are allowed outside for the first time. This is usually before they can fly strongly so as to prevent an overzealous pigeon from flying away before it can find its way back home. As the birds grow older, they become stronger and smarter and will begin flying further and further away from their loft. Loft flying familiarizes the birds with their home area and builds fitness. It does not, however, teach them to find their home from long distances away, a fundamental of pigeon racing. As confident flyers, the young pigeons are taken on progressively longer “training tosses”, driven a distance away from their home and released. This is like the format of a real race, however on a much smaller scale. The practice of loft flying and tossing continues throughout a pigeon's career.

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