The pigeon loft has 2 new residence

[mdcrossbow]

Is been a busy year. My son and his wife have a new little girl 8 weeks old. Moved into a new home in the Va. Countryside and I helped Jarrod build a loft for our breeding pair of birds at the shop.
So the 1st 2 are at there new home and settled in. Soon to be let out to fly.

 

[mdcrossbow]

My son Jarrod is getting ready to do the 1st releases. I'm still new at this myself. SO I contacted a friend in SC who raises pigeons and he has put together a reply ;

hi Jared, I get this question a lot on how to trap train young Pigeons so I wrote up this to send to people that have the same question as you just asked. I hope it helps. Good luck.



Trap training pigeons is a way of conditioning your young racing pigeons to respond to your call for food. Hunger is used to peak your pigeons interested in coming when called. Through repetition you can condition the young pigeons to come when called.
Step 1) The trap training for my young racing team starts as soon as the pigeons are put into the weaning loft (this pigeon loft is the first holding area for young pigeons). They are fed 2 to 3 times a day as being young pigeons they need to develop and gain their strength. Before feeding you call to the pigeons. What call you use isn't important as long as you are consistent when using it. The call could be a whistle, shaking a can of seeds briskly, both of those or some other distinctive sound. The point is that after a week or so they will expect food after hearing the call.
Step 2) Now that the young ones are gaining strength and are responding to your call you can have them enter through their trap to access the food. This will be most effective if done in the racing pigeon loft that they will be flying daily from For this you will need to set up a "trap" that the pigeons can enter but will be unable to exit after eating. There are a few types of traps you can use. My favorite is the "Drop trap" or "Spudnick trap", another popular pigeon trap is “bobs” or “bob wires”. I take the youngsters out onto the landing bard with an aviary set up so they can see their surroundings and leave them their for an hour or two each day before calling them for food. They all have to enter through the trap when you call or they won't get much feed that day! After a few days they will enter when called and some will enter as soon as they see you.
Step 3) (First release) For this step you must be confident that your pigeons understand your call and what it means! They absolutely must be hungry, I skip an entire day of feed before the first release and also worth mentioning is you don't want to wait until the birds are at full strength before your first release because they could become excited and fly to strong which could cause them to become lost for a while. I like to get them out before their first and second flight feathers are fully grown in but they still fly well. If you can, I would let them out in the morning just so they can hang around the loft for 2 - 3 hours and start to move around freely before you start to call them in for food. They will be kind of still or stiff at first because things look different but will slowly start to loosen up. When you call they will be very interested and respond well.

 

[mdcrossbow]

Training Squeekers

Hello everyone, we have an update for the pigeons, booster and nightwing. Check it out! #pigeon #pigeons #pigeonsofinstagram #pigeonloft #hawksnation #birdlife #birds | Hawk's Nation

Hello everyone, we have an update for the pigeons, booster and nightwing. Check it out! #pigeon #pigeons #pigeonsofinstagram #pigeonloft #hawksnation #birdlife #birds.

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[fleabagmatt]

I just started building my first pigeon loft. I have a pair of shooter pigeons that I bought a while back for working with my dogs, but they are currently residing in a dog crate much like the one in your video. Will pick up a few squeakers to join them in the new house once it's complete.

My wife thinks I'm crazy, but I am looking forward to training them to home from distances. And eventually using them for bird dog training.