How do pigeon keepers get their pigeons to come home safely

Whether on TV or in everyday life, we often see pigeons flying around, but these pigeons never get lost or go missing. When their owners release them, they can find their way home again. Why is that? Like many other birds, as soon as the owner lets them out of the cage, they fly away and never come back.

How pigeon keepers get their pigeons to come home

Generally, after being fed for about half a month, a pigeon can find its own way home. The prerequisite is that it must be a young pigeon; old pigeons generally cannot be trained to come home, taking at least 1 year, or at most several years. Pigeons sense the Earth's magnetic field, so once you have trained them to be attached to home, they generally will not run off. Even if you lose a pigeon you have kept for several years, it will still come back. The prerequisite is that the pigeon must be good. How do you tell good from bad? Look at the texture in the pigeon's eye; the more granular the texture, the better.

Why pigeons carry messages  

That is because carrier pigeons themselves possess a distinctive special ability, and it is precisely this ability that lets them find their way home accurately. Between the two eyes of a carrier pigeon there is a raised area, and this area has a special function: it can detect changes in the Earth's magnetic field, and thereby determine the direction home.  

Carrier pigeons can fly very long distances, and their flying speed is very fast. Their memory and eyesight are both very good. Carrier pigeons also have a very home-loving trait, called attachment to the nest. No matter how far they fly, they want to return to their own nest. It is precisely because of their speed, strong sense of direction, and nest-loving habit that carrier pigeons have become people's first choice as messengers for delivering messages.

Specific methods for training carrier pigeons  

1. Basic training  

The purpose is to cultivate the carrier pigeon's obedience to its keeper and a strong homing instinct. It includes: drinking water, bonding, becoming familiar with the loft, and becoming familiar with signals.  

When a young pigeon has just hatched, not eating for a day or two does it no great harm, but it cannot go without water. At first they do not know that there is clean water to drink in the drinker, so you must teach them where to drink. The method is to gently hold the pigeon with one hand and bring its beak into contact with the water surface in the drinker; when it is thirsty, it will naturally drink in big gulps. Teach them one by one in turn in this way, until all the young pigeons have drunk water. Repeat this training several times, and they will quickly understand to stand beside the drinker and put their heads in to drink.  

2. Bonding training  

Young pigeons that have left the mother pigeon are afraid of people, do not dare to come close to the keeper, and do not dare to peck at food boldly. Therefore, before training begins, young pigeons must bond with the keeper. Only in this way can the carrier pigeon's fear of its owner be removed, avoiding the phenomenon of “flying away”, and cultivating its obedient nature toward the keeper, so that it accepts training docilely.  

The method of bonding training is to use food as a lure to make the pigeons actively follow and approach the keeper, and the keeper also uses the pigeons' desire for food to get close to the young pigeons. Young pigeons can be fed 23 times a day, and only the last feeding should let them eat their fill, to ensure health. In the earlier feedings, the pigeons absolutely must not eat their fill; once full, they will not listen to calls, and training becomes impossible. Controlling food is a powerful weapon for controlling young pigeons. At first, young pigeons are always afraid of strangers. When the keeper enters the loft to feed, accompanied by calling or whistling, scatter the food so that all the pigeons can get some, but not too much. Then gradually scatter the food near the keeper. At this point, if any pigeon actively approaches the keeper, reward it, encouraging the other pigeons to actively compete to approach the keeper.  

3. Training to become familiar with the loft  

Training to become familiar with the loft mainly includes training in the indoor environment, the outdoor environment, and going in and out of the loft door. The training steps follow the order of indoors, going in and out of the loft door, and the outdoor environment.  

Indoors: let the pigeons become familiar with one another inside the loft, live as a group, remember the indoor environment, and become familiar with the positions of the nest boxes, drinker, feed trough, mineral box, exercise platform, and their own nests. When the pigeons are calm inside the loft, not alarmed, and fly up and down freely, showing a happy expression, it means they have become familiar with the loft. This process generally takes 3-5 days.  

Going in and out of the loft door: that is, letting the pigeons understand how to enter the loft through the entrance and leave through the exit. After the indoor familiarization training is finished, carry out the training for going in and out of the loft door. If conditions permit, you can set up a training net outside the loft from the landing platform to the loft roof cover; if these conditions are not available, you can use adhesive tape to stick down the pigeon's ten primary feathers. The purpose of both is to keep the pigeons from flying off. The keeper uses small-grain feed as a lure and whistles outside the loft as a signal to entice the pigeons from the exit door to the outside.

How many clutches do pigeons breed in a year  

Pigeons generally breed 5 clutches a year. The molting period for pigeons each year is from the end of August to the end of October, about 45 days. During this period they lay fewer eggs, so of course they breed less. Their incubation period is 17~18 days!  

But there are also 7-8 clutches. First, make sure you have enough foster pigeons. Then adjust the laying time; it is best to choose laying times that differ by 1-2 days. Hand over the eggs you consider to be from good pigeons to foster pigeons for incubation, and then your good pigeons can gestate the next clutch of eggs. Generally, young breeding pigeons can continuously lay 2 clutches of eggs to be given to foster pigeons for incubation, but the 3rd clutch must be incubated by the breeding pigeons themselves. By the 4th clutch, it can again be given to foster pigeons for incubation, and then separate the pairs in time. Having said this, I advise you to put an end to this year's chick-rearing task, let the breeding pigeons rest well, and continue next year.

In fact, if you want pigeons to be able to find their own home, the most important method is for the owner to train them constantly, because this ability of pigeons is not innate, but is formed through the pigeon keeper's constant training. But it must begin when they are still young pigeons.