Pigeon Trap is Out

[golfandhunter]

Gregg,

I am in the process of building my coop right now. Going to be 12x6x7tall and 2 outside flight areas for sun shine and about 20 breeding boxes. What do you have your birds on for feed? Right now I have mine on half and half of wild bird seed/15% protein chicken crumble. Seems to be working good. Are you planning to vaccinate your breeders???

I am feeding cracked corn and have a pan of sand.
I have a guy that works for me that races pigeons and feeds pigeon pellets
in a 50lb bag for $18.00. I will get a bag next week at the feed store where I buy dog food.
All my birds are bridge birds, I have not thought about meds for them, do I need vacs?
I have noticed some birds are bigger and more aggresive, I think they are males.
My guy tells me they need 3 weeks or so to start pairing, right now they are from 2 bridges so they might know
each other. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Gregg Leonard

[savage25xtreme]

Gregg,

I honestly don't know about the vacsinations. I was hoping you could tell me. I was reading on a pigeon forum and they vacs their birds. I guess there are some viruses that can wipe out a group in a matter of weeks. Not too big of a deal when trapping them is half the fun, but I would hate to get all set up and lose my birds.

They will pair up extremely fast. Give them a nest box with a 10 inch bowl and some nest building material and they will take care of the rest. A good pair will produce 2 babies every 2 months with proper care!

I have not seen pigeon pellets around here. All I have seen is 34 dollar 30 lbs sack of racing pigeon food, no thanks. With the wild bird foods and chicken crumbles I get 85 lbs of food for about 26 dollars.

[golfandhunter]

Gavin, thanks for the info., I think some of my Dollar Tree nest bowls are to small.
I will ditch them tomorrow and get 3 more of the larger bowls, I have 18 nest boxes in the coop.

I will ask my guy about meds at work today, if easy and cheap I'll do it.
If not the only vacs i'll be administering will be 12 gauge.
He did tell me not to mix the bridge birds and racing birds, but he also lets all of his birds
out daily and they come back in acouple hours. He keeps the prized $500.00 Belgian breeders
in the coop all the time, because they may not come back. However, when the racers have babies
they take the chicks away from the racer family and put them in a separate coop with bridge birds
that just had chicks. The bridge bird chicks are culled and the bridge birds adopt the racer chicks.
Reason, the bridge bird momma's milk is better than the racer momma's milk because she is kept lean to fly fast.
Chicks stay with bridge birds for about 3 weeks then put back in racer coop. Interesting to say the least.
These pigeon racer people are as crazy as we are about their sport/hobby.

I am running a 3 trap line and one of my training buddies just put out a trap yesterday, I'll keep ya'll posted.

Gregg Leonard

[TN_LAB]

Gregg,
I am up in Chattanooga, which is a Desert for pigeons. If your supplier has ample quantities I would take a drive for those $3.50 pigeons. Driving would be easier....So far I have over $350 invested and yet to catch 1. ( $50 for trap, $300 for new tire after driving around abandon warehouses). thanks for the help.
Gregg

A member of a retriever club near you, pretty much gave away all of his birds & loft recently. Same fella has supplied me with a handful of birds through the years. Heck, we had a member that used to put out announcements about pigeons.

[gd8]

A member of a retriever club near you, pretty much gave away all of his birds & loft recently. Same fella has supplied me with a handful of birds through the years. Heck, we had a member that used to put out announcements about pigeons.

TN Lab... i have recently moved to Chattanooga and joined East Tn Retriever Club. (their core area seems to be 1-2 hours north of Chattanooga.) Is their another club more local. formal or informal. thanks

[savage25xtreme]

Interesting read... How did you have your nest boxes built Gregg?

http://www.pigeonmania.com/male-pige...al-nest-boxes/

[jpdorman01]

Corn is the best

[golfandhunter]

Interesting read... How did you have your nest boxes built Gregg?

http://www.pigeonmania.com/male-pige...al-nest-boxes/

Very cool read, I do not have doors on the nest boxes.
My boxes are 12"x12" with a 2" front lip and made of OSB.
I maybe need to take all but 3 or 4 males out of the coop, don't have time for all that training.
I've got a few big boys I call the Mack pigeons,they control the food, water and boxes.
My guy is coming over tomorrow to ID boys and girls, I wiil ask about the number of males in the coop.

Send me a pm with phone # and I will text you some pics of traps and coop if you want.

Gregg Leonard

[savage25xtreme]

pigeons mate until one gets taken away. i.e. you need a male for every female if you want breeding pairs.

I sent you a PM. I thought about putting a lip on the front but that would make it hard to scoop poop out?

[TN_LAB]

TN Lab... i have recently moved to Chattanooga and joined East Tn Retriever Club. (their core area seems to be 1-2 hours north of Chattanooga.) Is their another club more local. formal or informal. thanks

ETRC is the one I was referring to. ETRC has a couple things on the calendar, so be sure to sign up for the newsletter.

There are quite a few dog folks in your area. I don't know if the Chattanooga club has organized training days or stuff like that, but they host a field trial at least once a year.