In this section of our web page "Pigeon Ponderings" we will be including articles about the hobby. In the future this page will be set up a little differently. There will be a separate page for each article. If you would like to submit articles for consideration, please send them to our webmaster. Articles may be any subject as long as they relate to pigeons: Health, Genetics, Conditioning, Racing, Showing, Tips, Humorous Stories, Profiles of Fanciers, Lofts, etc. If we use your article, it will be featured in our monthly newsletter & posted on our website. As a thank you token we will send you 5 leg bands in your size of choice.

Some Tips & Tricks For the Breeding Season From Our Members

Use a disposable nest to aid in cleaning.

Medicate birds before breeding starts, for Canker & worms.

Use shower curtain clips on breeding cages, so bands are there & ready to go on squabs when needed. ~ Glen Hogg

Something that has been very productive for me is a simple block of wood added to the breeder pens or loft floor. I cut 4x4 blocks about 6-8 inch's long and make them available to the birds. This gives the bird his or her individual space and has greatly increased the fertility in my Indians. The extra height allows the cock bird extra elevation so he can wrap around and under the female with out obstruction. ~ Steve Shaw

I have some special breeders in individual pens in order to be very sure of the parentage. I already use the wire snap shower curtain clipped to those pens. I want to raise at least 3 rounds of youngsters out of each pair. I put 6 bands on each of the rings. My record keeping is quite simple for me but maybe not for others. I carry a pocket notebook almost at all times. When I band youngsters I enter them in this notebook. Each pair has a number and I write the band numbers next to said pair number. Since I have them in my notebook I can enter them in my breeder book when I have the time or take the time to do so. I also from there enter the info in a program on my computer. ~ Gary Miller

The tail feathers should be cut quite short. The flights should be trimmed maybe 1 1/2 inches or so. And the vent feathers should be trimmed or cut short. All of this should be done to both sexes for a larger fertile percentage. ~ Phil McQuistion

If you’re in cold areas, you may want to bring that 1st egg in, till the second one comes, so it doesn't get too chilled .Keep it in a cool room, fat end up. ~ Brandee Barr-Brown

In the heat of the summer with the low humidity, often times the chick will dry out before it gets fully hatched, stick to the shell and die. On day 15 I'll drop the eggs in a bucket of lukewarm water for a few seconds and problem solved. Here is something else to watch for when you dunk an egg that will confirm a live baby. Place the egg in the water so you don't get ripples. If the egg is live it will start to bounce in just a few seconds. Then it is time to take it out. ~ Steve Shaw

Since heat of summer was mentioned, I find that summer is the time to let your birds rest. I try to break up my pairs at the end of May and sometimes I go right into July. This gives the birds a break from raising young and nesting. I like to pair them up after I have attended or shown at my last show for the year. If you put some of your old pairs back together, they will get very excited and get right back together and nest right away. When hens and cocks have been separated for a while they seem to mate up very quickly. I try to get 6 young a year from a pair. In areas that get extreme cold they generally don't pair up until the spring. The tradition by a lot of Old Timers is to pair up on Valentines Day, there's some racing people even here in Arizona that still pair up then. ~ Gary Miller

I like to pair up the parents of the Rollers I am going to train and fly that year around Valentine's Day to coincide with the departure of the Hawks once the babies are ready for training. That way I have fresh squeakers ready to start training outside without the bother of being harassed by the predators. ~ Alan Bliven

How to Sex a Pigeon
Written by: Joe Hammons

Brandee has asked me to write about sexing pigeons as I was discussing this topic on a recent visit that the Brown family paid to my lofts. I must tell you that this is or should be a topic and that needs more room to elaborate on than the readers digest version that I will do here.

So where to start? Well I will start with myself and say that I have raised pigeons for over forty years, but my eye opener to sexing pigeon’s came back in the 80s when John Heppner was judging an all breed show for us up in Washington State. We had invited him because of his skills in English Trumpeters, but also because he was a well know all breed judge.

Prior to this show I fancied myself an able body as a pigeon fancier (meaning that I can sex birds, recognize colors and breeds) having been around for ever. I also have experience working within a show committee, and I was assisting Mr. Heppner by doing the Show Secretary end and noting the placing of the birds as he gave them, when I was floored with a comment he made. He simply said “where is the young hen”. We were doing the finals of a color class. There were six birds up there in the judging coops, three each per color, of young, yearling and old. I said” they are all there”. He looked at me and smiled, grabbed the wrong bird, took it out and handed it to me and said, “We need the young hen”. All right I will play along I thought and looked at the band number expecting it to be the same one as the young hen. It was not in fact it was not even in the finals, someone had brought up the wrong bird! John Heppner was nice about it and never mentioned it again that day, but I knew what he was thinking “what are you, new”? What I of course had discovered was that someone who has raised Pigeons all his life and taken his skill and ability to the next level far above the average fancier could teach any body a lot!

Sexing pigeons gets easier if you are paying attention and can look at the pigeon for the individual that it is and not see it as an example of the breed it represents or the color it appears. Watching the bird you can often see it cooing, here is a clue to its sex as a cock will strut around and coo and what ever the breed the cooing is longer than a hen will do. Approving hens will drag their tail and come towards the cock. Many judges and pigeon breeders for that matter can coo at a bird and a surprising number of birds will interact and coo back, a large number of these will be hens. Looking close at a hen that is cooing you can spot a dilation of the iris of the eye, from large to small and back again. For this type of interaction your hens and cocks will need to be split up as a breeding pair will not pay much attention to you. Fancier’s who show their birds and have set breeding season and resting seasons can best show you examples of this behavior.

Another way to sex a pigeon is in the build, cocks are bigger and more powerful than hens. However this has become harder to judge the sex of pigeons by as many breeds are going toward a medium feathered bird, which means that the cocks and hens can look a like. The roller is a great example of this. The old Birmingham Pensom performing rollers that I raised years ago are very hard feathered and by today’s standards would appear skinny and thin in the body, neck and head when compared to the new show roller. What is not common knowledge is that this new look is an illusion caused by feather. A medium feather will give you a more powerful looking bird. Imagine a flying Racing Homer with looser feather and you should be able to see the Show Racer as that was the intent, however the Show Racer now sports a parrot looking beak. From one extreme to the other, it makes it confusing for those of us trying to understand.

So how do you tell the sex of pigeons? Well from cocks to hens their waddles are bigger and hens are more refined, most of the time. Being a roller man I say that you can tell by placing a finger in the vents of birds. This works most of the time as a cock bird will have narrow vent bones and a hens are wider, meaning you can place your finger in between the vent bones of a hen. Juvenile birds can be inconclusive. I like the eye dilation as it works on young maturing hens and it is most effective. I occasionally find a late maturing hen in the cock pens but I have (30 years) yet to find a cock in the hen pen.

Some more tips on sexing pigeons & misc....

James Cotton a graduate student. Area of science: Zoology had to say....

Question: How do I tell males from females?

It's a harder question than you know. Trouble is, it's fairly easy to spot sex differences in homer or roller type birds and a lot harder in some of the fancy show breeds - Basic differences are size; cocks are usually a bit larger and more robust; hens a bit finer, especially in the head. Best differences are behavioral or, occasionally, color, e.g., an ash-red (brick red) bird with any black flecking in the ashy color of the wings or tail is invariably a male. Birds without such black flecking may be either, but about 70% will be female just because of the breeding practices of most guys. Behavioral differences are easy to note once you've gotten to know your birds. Cocks strut, coo and spread their tail into a full half moon shape and often turn a full circle when they do; females will swell their crops with some air but usually stand at a more upright angle (45 degrees or so) when they do it, as opposed to the cock who almost bows to the floor. In mated pairs, cocks sit on the nest from about 10 am to 5 pm; hens the rest of the time. Cocks drink by sticking their beak in the water almost up to their eyes and gulping; hens - except when desperately thirsty usually tend to drink by sticking only the first half of their beak in the water and almost sip it, as opposed to the cock's gulp.

Some of them don't sound very scientific (check out the paperclip idea). It sounds like sexing pigeons isn't easy, particularly if you haven't got any other pigeons for comparison, it also seems to depend on the variety of pigeon you have.

(IN GENERAL) I haven't as yet found anyone that can be exactly sure of sexing youngsters, but I find that I can mostly tell by their behavior when they are over five to six weeks old. Cocks are by far the pushier especially if they are in good health; they are also usually bigger than the hen especially when compared to a sister that's hatched with them. I have been told to look at the head; the cock is much flatter whereas the hen is more rounded. This appears true on several in many insistences but there are many occasions where I have been fooled.

(FOR KING PIGEONS) As far as the sexing goes, experience will show you. When they pair up you can see the difference. Male is a bigger bird with a bigger head, bigger breast.

(FOR FANTAILS) With regard to sexing fantails, we have noticed that the tails of our male birds are held in a more upright position than that of the females. Whether this is a foolproof way of determining sex, I do not know, but in our case it works every time!

(GENERAL) I'll tell you how I sex everything. I take a paper clip and tie it on the end of a piece of feed bag string and hold it about 4 inches over the birds tail end and if it goes in a circle it is a female, if it goes back and forth it is a male, believe it or not it even works on eggs as soon as they are born. Correction, I meant to say, hold the string 4 inches from the clip over the bird, you should touch the bird with the paper clip at the end of the string and lift it about a half an inch real steady and after perhaps 20 to 30 seconds you will see it move in a circle for female and back and forth for male. Try it on a woman or a man around the wrist; you'll see it works on everything, dogs and all, even a freshly laid egg.

How to Ship and Receive Pigeons
By: Brandee Barr-Brown

Shipping is now open to most of the US, thanks to a new contract through the USPS with Fed Ex. It's even safer now because the birds are in climate controlled areas at all times. There are no more closures due to extreme weather conditions. I would like to cover proper shipping & receiving practices for shipping pigeons.

Shipping... first make sure you are only shipping healthy stock. If you have any doubts, please do not ship. Shipping does have its amount of stress on birds. It will only guarantee a sick bird in the end or worse.

First, quarantine the bird(s) you are going to ship 1 to 2 weeks before shipping. If shipping more than one bird, place all birds that will be in the same box, in the same cage. They need to work out the pecking order before they go into the box. If you notice you have one that is extremely aggressive, you can get dividers for the box, to separate birds. You will want to divide that bird off as there is no place to hide, for the one being picked upon.

You want them at their best. Give them unlimited food during this quarantined time frame. I give extra corn & sunflower seed, to add a little more weight. Add vitamins & pro-bios to their water once a week. On the day of shipping make sure they get food & water. Give vitamins in their water again.

During the quarantine time, contact your post office to find out when their truck, for live shipments, leaves daily for delivery. How to prepare the box; First your box must be approved for shipping through the post office, it MUST have filters. Order the right size box for the amount of birds you are shipping. In the proper box add an inch and half of saw dust to the bottom of the box. Put dividers in if needed. Do not add food or water. Food will dehydrate them as they will not have access to water and water will spill. Place the birds in the box just before shipping. Allow at least 45 minutes to get your birds checked in, but not more than 2 hours.

At the post office you will fill out shipping info. You will need a phone number for the person you are shipping to, so the post office is able to contact them upon arrival of the bird(s). Insure the birds for their full amount of worth, including the cost of shipping. Your basic shipping covers up to $100, for a dollar more it covers up to $200. This insurance only covers if the birds get lost or if there is a death & the box has noticeable damage. You will get a tracking number, give this info to the receiver, so they can track their birds.

Now for receiving .You must be available the day your birds come in. Usually you have to pick them up at the post office. The post office will contact you as soon as they get them. Open the box & make sure all is well. If there is a problem deal with it right then & there at the post office. Once you get your birds home quarantine them in their own area away from any other birds or nuisances. They will need to stay there for at least 30 days. This is their recoup time. Remember every loft has their own germs. You don't want to introduce your new birds to anything new, till they have had time to recoup. Also you don't want to bring something into your loft. It is much cheaper to treat 1 bird than your whole loft. First thing you'll want to do is give them a drink. I like to give Gatorade for the first 24 hours. It will give their body an extra boost. Offer food as well, an unlimited amount. Now is the time to observe. If you notice the birds are not drinking, trickle the water into their bowl or just dip their beaks in it. If you received more than 1 bird & one is acting slower to respond, separate it from the rest. The main thing is to get them to eat & drink and give them a quiet place to rest & get acquainted with their new surroundings. Let the person who shipped your bird(s) know they arrived and all is well. If there is any problem discuss it right then, do not wait. Most breeders are experienced & can help you with any problems. Every breeder will have different guarantees. You should ask about guarantees prior to getting your birds. There is a certain amount of risk in shipping, so be reasonable. If you do not agree with their terms, do not buy from them, there are other breeders out there.

A Few Tips on Breeding
Written by Angie Layton

I haven't been into breeding pigeons long, but I have figured out a few things to help all of us save a few eggs and maybe foster a few of them also. I have a very small loft, so I do not separate my birds, cocks from hens. To ease the burden of trying to remember who laid when and having to flip through my breeding book, I try to get all my hens laying on the same schedule. I have a few new breeds I can sell faster than my Bakus, so I use my Bakus to foster those other breeds as well. I usually give one egg from each clutch to separate parents to ease the stress and help the babies grow faster and bigger. If need be then I will leave 2 with the parents. I also use fake eggs to help facilitate the process. I was recently given the advice to pull the eggs after ten days so the parents do not make crop milk and stress their bodies needlessly. If you do leave the eggs with the parents you will get a very long incubation time. Usually this is about a week or two past the normal incubation time frame. So, if you are looking for the long term between the clutches this may be the way to go. Initially you will toss a few eggs to get them all on the same schedule, but once they are, it really helps to remember; when to band, when the babies can hit the floor, who has had canker pills and so on. Sometimes because the eggs are duds or some such you may have a few hens lying when you have others sitting. I usually pull those eggs and give them fakes to sit until they are all ready to lie again. I also do not generally let them sit eggs twice in a row. Not only does this limit loft size, but I feel it is less stressful for the birds. I hope this helps others as much as it did me.

Those Amazing White Pletinckx Pigeons
Written By Nome Middleton

The strain of racing homer that I have chosen to spend most of my life with is the beautiful white Pletinckx, pronounced play-tinks. For nearly forty four years I have raised these birds and kept them pure so as not to destroy their exquisite beauty and performance. You might give the description of a Pletinckx as that of a well built, tight and smooth in feather dynamic flying machine built for fast movement through the air like a jet plane. They are as anxious as race horses at the starting gates when ready to be released and break out of their training baskets exactly like those thoroughbreds at the tracks!

For many years I released my beautiful Pletinckx inSan Diego under the name of: "WHITE FLIGHT" for weddings, grand openings, parade starts, funerals, bank check awards, unveiling of statues, summer festivals and 1984 Issue of LIFE Magazine's tribute to all the people that were killed at the McDonald shoot out in San Diego. I was always booked in advance each summer and other times of the year weather permitting. I must say that when those birds break loose of their release baskets and thrust upwards toward the sky that not one person standing in the crowd can do anything but gasp, clap and go ooooo and aaawwww. It really is a breath taking experience!!

Starting with racing homers is easy if you have any knowledge of raising birds or fowl at all. They are easy to keep and raise and if allowed will choose their own mates and will mate for life! They will start breeding at an early age maybe six months old if allowed and they lay two eggs per nest. Both parents will help in the feeding and care of the young. It is really interesting to watch the pair "change guard" as they will do it at almost the same minute each day. Males sit from about 8:45 am to about 4:45 PM. The hen has the really long guard through the night. The male usually stands guard beside her during this time.

Pigeons only require a clean, well ventilated loft and perches enough for more birds than you have in the loft. These birds unlike so many others will be happiest on flat perches such as 1 inch by 2 inch boards or 1 by 3s. Pigeons do not do well on round perches as do doves and other birds. The best perch of all is a V perch which is custom made and can be bought at any of the pigeon supply places such as Foy's Pigeon Supplies in Pennsylvania. It is an inverted perch just like a V upside down like this: ^ , and can be attached above each other in a line about twelve inches apart on the walls of the loft in such a manner as to keep the pigeons from fighting.

The nest boxes for pigeons are made just like a book case. The dimensions should be 12 inches high by 12 inches deep by 24 inches wide for each compartment or shelf. Each of these can have a nest front also available from Foy's. I recommend the nest fronts for many reasons. It gives the pair more security, keeps the young from falling off the shelf, allows the owner to lockup the pairs for a couple days to insure that they stay together in that particular cubicle and helps in maintaining records. The nest fronts are attached by hinges on one side so that they can be easily opened for cleaning. Next, I use paper pulp nest bowls for each hatch because they are cheap, disposable and help with the nest building. They can be stapled in place in the corner with a wood stapler so they don't slide around. It only requires two staples to hold it in place. The birds will be happiest with long pine needles from pine trees such as Ponderosa, KMX or other pines with very long needles. Just throw a bunch in the loft and the birds will make quick use of them.

Starting with good stock is a must if you want to fly for special events. Find a reputable breeder of the particular type or strain of pigeon that you want. If you want white racing homers of a certain strain such as the Pletinckx I can help you. If you want a fancy breed then you can check on the internet as there are so many breeds of fancy pigeons that I would need many pages to describe or tell you about them all.

If you are near a library you can see if they have the book: THE PIGEON by Wendel M. Levi. Everything that you would ever ask or want to know about pigeons is covered by Mr. Levi in that very wonderful publication and it is available world wide.

Dry is the key to healthy pigeons! That is why ventilation is so important in the loft. Cleaning the loft is easy. Use an old garden hoe that has been bent back to an almost straight tool for the scraping of the floor of the loft. Scraping of any perches can be done with a hand scraper, also available at pigeon supply warehouses or you can purchase a metal scraper that is used in dry wall work.

I advise any person cleaning any indoor pen to use a good mask to keep from breathing all the bloom, which is the powder that comes off all bird's wings and feathers. It is a very fine powdery dust and if too much is inhaled it can cause brochitis or other respiratory problems.

Pigeons LOVE to BATHE so use a metal oil drip pan purchased at Auto supply stores for them to indulge in with their favorite past time!! The pan is about four inches deep and eighteen inches across and is round. I mentioned DRY right? Well if you attach a wire rabbit pen or make a wire cage that is 18 inches high, and 24 inches square with one end open for attaching to your loft window or opening so that the wire pen and water bath are outside, that takes care of all the water that they will be splashing about. Add a handful of 20 Mule Team Borax Laundry powder to each bath and also a speck of Clorox: (Use the lid of the Clorox bottle and only put in that much). If this is done with almost every bath you will never have any problems with lice or mites! And the white pigeons will be gleaming white!!

I feed Purina Pigeon Chow Checkers to all my pigeons. If you choose grain or seed, then expect to lose a lot of it as they will waste it picking out their favorites and leaving the rest. Another reason that I feed the pellets is that they raise much nicer squabs that mature more quickly and are so very healthy because they are getting everything they need, not just what the parents would be picking out if they had seed. Feed all they can eat in about 20 minutes, no more. Don't allow the food to sit in the loft. It can become rancid and also causes vermin problems. The Purina Pigeon Chow Checkers is also cheaper than grain especially so if they are eating it and not throwing some out like they do with grain!

I also allow all my pigeons free choice of Oyster Shell. It is wonderful for them and they love it! You will see it disapear faster during the egg laying as the hens know how valuable it is!! You will never have egg binding if your hens can get to Oyster Shell!! This not only applies to pigeons but most all birds!! You can supply grit also if you wish but I have found Oyster Shell to be the number one thing over grit.

Loft size is decided upon when you know how many pigeons that you are going to be keeping in it. I would say that a 4 foot by 8 foot is fine for 8 or 10 pigeons but if you are going to keep maybe 30 to 50 you will need a lot larger loft. I have two lofts that are 10 by 20 feet. Also one that is a 12 foot Octagon and another that is 12 by 6 feet.

I ship pigeons by way of the Post Office's Express mail and have never ever had any problems with losses of any kind. They get to their destination within two days anywhere in the USA!!! Only once did they go three days but were just fine when they reached their final stop. I use only Horizon Micro Environment shipping containers. I feel that they can not be beat!! I order mostly the 8 bird compartment style as most of my orders are for eight birds at a time. Shipping on such a container with the eight birds in it is usually around $75.00 to anywhere USA. I sell my Pletinckx for $100.00 per pair and only sell youngsters that have not flown unless the customer requests older birds but those will have to be prisoners for life or at least a couple years and even then there is no guarantee that they wont try to fly back to me. I band all my youngsters with IF (International Pigeon Federation) bands for the year that they hatch. These bands are plastic coated seamless metal bands that can only be put on the young racing homer squab at 7 days of age!! Not eight days or you might not get it over the first foot joint! Also, not six days as it just may fall off overnight!!! This way you know your bird's year of hatch. Each year the bands have a different color. This sure makes it nice. At a glance across the loft I can tell you what year each bird was hatched by that color. The IF bands were pink in 2006, grey in 2007 and this year 2008, they are red.

The bands are purchased after December 26th for the following year from a pigeon supply warehouse. I have some really old breeders out there! Some are from the early 80s and still going strong and raising young! Pigeons can live a long life of maybe 35 years or more and will continue to breed for about 15 years or more!!! I love my Pletinckx and will have them in my life for as long as I live. They are so much a part of me.

© Trinisoft & azpigeonclub.org