Kit Flying Vs Flying alone

In Europe, US and most part of Middle East too the races for both Tipplers and Tumblers are held for a kit of birds. The minimum kit size if 3 birds and the flight time is considered as the flight time of the bird which lands first. If a bird fly separately from its kit for more that 1 hour or 30 minutes in some clubs, the bird/whole kit gets disqualified.

In TamilNadu, most of the races are for individual birds and not for kits. In some clubs although the race is for individual birds, they are allowed to fly as a kit. But in Chennai, flying as kit is not allowed. Here if a bird joins with other bird, its considered useless. People put lot of effort to breed birds such that they get the bloodline which can fly alone. These blood lines surprisingly fly alone even if several birds are released from same loft at the same time. All of these keep flying alone for several hours. They fly as a kit but not more than few minutes.

Its surprising to see such varied kind of interest among fanciers. Pigeon fanciers here say that its very easy to have birds which fly as kit but the real challenge is to get birds that can fly alone. I myself have 3 tipplers which are flying now and they are flying for 4-5 hours daily. But they are flying as a kit. I cant participate with them in race as they will get disqualified. The good thing is that if I release just one of them on a day, the bird if flying alone for same 4-5 hours . This is a good sign because many birds wont fly for long hours if they are released alone . I can try to selectively breed them somehow and try to get the "flying alone" capability.

Pigeon homing in Chennai

Chennai is one of the cities in India which has large number of Pigeon fanciers. Kolkatta too is famous for Pigeon homing. You can see hardcore Racing homer enthusiasts as well as Tipplers and Tumblers fanciers. There are 3-4 well established Homer pigeon clubs and they conduct racing ranging from 100+ kms to as long as 1000 kms (Chennai-Bhopal). They have also started having multi-state races where clubs from Tamilnadu, Kerala and Karnataka join together and conduct the long distance races. Homer races are held during December-January time.

When it comes to Tipplers and Tumblers, there are several clubs in Chennai. They have couple of clubs for every 10-15 km area. Tippler racers are conducted in April-May and Tumbler races happen in June.

Chennai is known for its very rigid rules for Tippler and Tumbler races. Tippler pigeons fly maximum of 7-8 hrs a day in Chennai as the climate is hot and humid. At places like Bangalore and Kerala, tipplers fly for 15+ hours due to pleasant weather. Tumblers fly for max 4-5 hrs in Chennai where as at cooler places Tumblers itself fly for 7-8 hours.

I do not have details on possible number of fanciers in Chennai but my guesstimate is there are anywhere between 2000-3000 fanciers in Chennai and its suburbs.