Training Pigeons for flight-What I know

The pigeon training starts 2-3 weeks before the flying season. Its mid April here in Chennai as May is the start of flying season.


It starts with diet food like millets for the birds. They are put in open under sun for 2-3 hours daily along with diet food. The idea is to make them loose extra weight and get them used to the weather.

After the birds loose extra weight (in 2 weeks), they are left to fly. For about a week the flight time would be uneven. Some fly for an hour, some for 30 minutes and some would just fly for 5 minutes.

Those that pick up timing from 2nd weeks are less problematic ones and we dont have to do any special thing for them other than proper feed and care. When birds dont pick up timing initially, it does not mean they are bad fliers. There could be several reasons for it and we need to spend focussed effort to bring the best out of them. Some of the reason I could point for birds not timing right away are:

• They might have health problems. We need to closely watch their activities, food intake, excrete and check for any symptoms. Its best to treat them and not fly them anymore.
• Stress: Pigeons might have stress due to various reasons like over crowding inside loft, they might be in masti condition (mating stage), hawk chase etc,.

When birds are healthy and without any signs of stress(dullness, not picking up enough food etc,.) but still do not fly, I try the following options:

• Make them swim for 5 minutes in a big basket of water. I hold the bird with its legs and allow it to swim. Swimming makes their body fit and we can see improvements.
• I mix turmeric powder in water and feed them.Dont know specific reasons but learnt this from other pigeon fancier friends.
• Feed mix made from dry ginger powder(sukku) and jaggery (vellam).
  

2010 young birds

These are the young ones I have this year for flying. The flying season starts from mid April. The weather here is best for the birds to fly from December to mid March but that is when the hawks are super active here. From April it becomes hot and humid but Hawks are not active during this time of year.

I tried to fly birds in Feb and March but wasnt able to fly for more than couple of days.Hawks were ferocious and I lost 4 birds.

Past 2 months....

Some update on whats happening recently at my loft. I stopped flying birds from mid October as it started raining here and also hawks have arrived. Hawks season will be till mid March here. Have been busy breeding the birds for past 2 months. I currently have around 10 young ones and hope to have atleast few of them perform well next season. The flying season will start from March.

I lost 4 birds recently. It looks like they have been stolen :( . 3 among them were very good tumblers.I got them after lot of effort and lost them before breeding them. Have added more "security measures" for the loft now :) .

Prabhu

My Tumbler Pigeons

Young brown tumbler



















Both these young ones are from same pair.

























Sabja male




















Guldhar male
















Jack male paired with below jack female

















Jack female paired with above jack male

My first homer pair

Yesterday I got a pair of homers. The male is a Grizzle bird and I am not aware of the exact bloodline. The female bird is a sabja (blue bar) and was breed from a Chinese bloodline. They both are kind of scared and dull now. The friend who gave them advised me to handle them very carefully as they take months to get used to the new place. He advised me not to touch them and leave them alone for couple of weeks. I am eager to breed them and check the performance of their young ones.

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.

Tippler races this Year in Chennai

There would be more than 10 clubs for Tipplers and Tumblers in Chennai. The races here are conducted during April-May time frame. I followed couple of Tippler races this year. One was conducted by Mr.Ayya Samy who is a famous person for pigeons in Chennai. He is called as "Pallipataar" among fanciers here as he resides in a place named PalliPattu which is near Tidel Park . I dont know the club name for the other one. Sadly none of the birds won both these races this year. In Pallipattar's club race 18 people participated and of which just 2 birds crossed the 3rd day. Both these birds were eliminated on 4th day as they did not cross the 5 hour mandatory flight timings.

Here are some of the rules for Tippler race in Chennai:

• The bird has to fly a minimum of 5 hours a day from 8AM to 1PM for five continuous days.If it clocks 7 hours a day for first 3 days and clock 4.5 hours alone on 4th day, it is a foul and bird will be eliminated.
  
• The bird has to fly alone and should not fly as a flock with other birds for more than 1 hour continuously. . It has to fly separately even if you have other birds flying from your loft or near by loft. It can join and fly with other birds but not more than 60 minutes continuously.
• While on flight, the birds has to come near your house (may be the area covering 100 to 200 mts radius from your house) once every 30 minutes. Some birds go far from their lofts (more than 5 kms away) while on flight. They have to return back and be spotted within closer proximity to their loft every 30 minutes. If a birds does not come near the loft area for more than 30 minutes it will get eliminated.
• Birds will fly very high and get into the clouds sometime. The temperature at higher altitude will be cool and they love flying high. Sometimes birds go so high that they will not be visible to naked eyes. A bird should not be at such heights for more than 30 minutes. The loft owner should be able to show the bird to the referee once every 30 minutes.
• When the bird goes to higher altitude and disappear, it has to be spotted at higher altitudes within next 30 minutes. Once spotted at higher altitude, the next spotting should be at comparable altitude.If they spot the bird at very low altitude, its a foul. The reason is to avoid situation where the bird flies to long distance, takes rests and then come back.
• Before the race, you can tell the referee two spots near the loft where the bird can land after flight. If the birds lands at any other spot even on your own loft/nearby its a foul.
• The owner has to handover the bird to the referee for inspection after it lands.

These rules are very challenging and its very difficult to train birds to win races. Many birds fly for long hours but they wont fly alone. Birds which fly alone are very few. Some breeds get too high and stay there for more than 30 minutes which will disqualify them. It takes lot of experience to breed birds carefully to get these desired characteristics.