Thoughts on breaking pigeons by Les. J Parkinson
At some point in our lives most pigeon fanciers move to a new house and with it goes all the problems of breaking pigeons to our new location. Is this easy or hard, well that all depends on our patience, which some fanciers have little of, so they are always going to struggle. Most of the following is common sense but at the time we don’t always think of everything up front and end up with a problem or two.
When we moved here, with the permission of the new owner we left one loft standing. The other loft was moved on the Friday and put down the side of the new location. I sent the pigeons to the race on the Friday night. The loft was erected at the new address on the Saturday morning. The pigeons were raced on the Saturday afternoon, finished 4th. All pigeons were moved on the Sunday morning, early. By Tuesday they were all broken and settled. They had one training toss and then they were sent to the race on the following Friday finishing 5th on the Saturday. What did I do to achieve that?
- A lot also depends on whether they are being moved with their existing loft or to a completely new loft altogether.
In most cases the pigeons are being moved with their current loft therefore they are used to the inner surroundings and should be comfortable with them. If they are being moved into a completely new loft, then the smell is different, and this may make them feel insecure. To help them to settle you could have a bucket with some dust from your old loft in it and lightly brush the dust into the new loft so that they have the smell of the old loft which will make them more at ease with the move.
- Another good point being, are the pigeons tame or have they little or no patience with their owner.
How much time do you spend with the pigeons, are they happy with your presence in and around the loft? I have been to some lofts where the pigeons are not at ease and the owners wonder why they are not settled and winning to their loft. It is not the loft, it is down to the way they are treated, time spent with them means a great deal to any animal. The owner very often does not have any patience with the pigeons, so they are not content in their environment. Making the pigeons quiet and happy starts from when they are in the nest. When they are growing, they need to get to know you, they need to know that you are not going to harm them. They need confidence in what you are doing with their life in front of them.
- Are there any lofts still standing at their old location?
When we move, we generally take our lofts with us so have little or no chance of having somewhere for them to go when we try to break them. This is where the help of the owner of your old house can help, that is if they are prepared to do so, in most cases they will help because they don’t want pigeons on their house or in their garden. In this case you need to have a word with them prior to moving out. An agreement that allows you to go around and stand in the garden waving a flag so that they are not settled, they will get the general idea and go back to their new location. It is best if the new owner will do this for you, or a friend, so that you are at your new loft. What you don’t want to do is go around without agreement because that can upset the new owner and set your aim of getting the pigeons settled back days or maybe weeks.
- Do you have the pigeons under control?
This all depends on question 2, but you also need to get them under control while moving, which does not necessarily depend on them being tame. When I moved to this address the boxes were set as they were at the old address, so that the pigeons knew where their boxes were in each section, as in the old loft. So, to control them I put the hen’s in their boxes and left the cocks running free. The loft was put up on the Saturday morning with a great deal of help from fellow club members. We raced at the old address on the Saturday where there were still lofts standing and then moved all the pigeons on the Sunday morning. The hens were moved first and put straight into their boxes. The cocks were then added to the loft and with the set up they knew where their boxes were. However, there is always one who must be awkward, so for a few hours he was locked in with his hen. What I did do to help get him under control was to leave one side of the widowhood box open and with this there were other cocks seeing an opportunity of going into a box that they knew was not theirs, as pigeons do. The chequer cock, whose box it was started to get annoyed because he had intruders in his box, and he could not get at them. I left him like that for a couple of hours and he was really getting annoyed, so I let him out. Never had a problem with him after that, he was now under control, he knew where he should be and stayed there protecting his nest box, his home.
- Show them the main entry point.
The pigeon needs to know the way into their new loft so there is an easy solution, providing you have the patience. What I did next with my move was to lock both cocks and hens in their boxes. Then in turn I took each cock out to the front of the loft, just off the platform, faced him into the loft through the open doors and let him fly off my hand into the loft. When I had done them all I started again, and this time moved another few feet away from the platform. This time one decided to go to the left and went back to the old location. The next move, still on the Sunday, was to have the cocks out in the evening on their own. I locked the hens up and opened the doors to give the cocks freedom. By the end of Sunday, they were settled, did have to make a few trips to the old address, where odd ones were in the loft. The old loft had no boxes or perches and no feed or water so there were sat on the floor with nothing. Monday morning, I started the same system with the hens, but they were not as easy to settle. The last ones were settled by Tuesday evening. They were then trained and sent to the race on the Saturday finishing 5th.
Breaking pigeons can be as easy or hard as you want it to be, depending on your relationship with your pigeons. Nigel Shaw moved to a new house a few weeks ago and settled his pigeons straight away. He had someone at the old address waving a flag and they soon settled to their new location. A few weeks and they were back to winning ways, topping the fed from Portland.
