Out with the Old

[sourland]

50' trees on three sides of my yard cause the rollers to bank three or four times before landing. Coopers always strike when they get down to about 20'. My homers would exit the flock and home in separately bombing through the bobs. They were also stronger and faster fliers than the rollers. My rollers were Turner/Marino crosses and were fast and deep but rather infrequent when I first got them. First year breeding produced a hen who was very frequent and not so deep. She really improved my birds, and then the slaughter started about 4 years into my breeding program.

 

[happyfrenchman]

Your setup sounds just like mine.... not good.... too many trees and woods.... They are vermin as far as I am concerned...I have "deterred" 4 or 5 of them so far but it seems not to matter. I can see how homers might do better but it is no fun standing out there on guard. They do not bother my adult chickens.... (they have killed young half sized chickens twice but I do not let them out anymore til full grown. )

 

[sourland]

I know all about standing guard. Birds came to know that when I stood there clapping my hands and yelling 'Come on in.' they had a better chance of making it to safety. I actually had one large hen Coopers who learned to come at the flock from beneath. She would come from the side of the yard furthest from me about two feet off the ground. Attack the flock from beneath and glide into the underbrush surrounding my yard with a bird in her grasp. The day that I quit keeping birds I chased a Coopers carrying one of my favorites across the road to the neighbor's shrubbery where she released my pigeon. As I was walking home cradling 'Big Red' I was talking to him (yeah kind of goofy for an old man) when I noticed the blood gushing through my hands. He looked at me, blinked and died. I mentally said, "I can no longer justify doing this." I came into the house, logged on to BYC, and listed my flock in 'Animals in need of free rehoming'.

Sadly, 'deterring' does not work. There are just too many of them. One day I was watching the birds fly/perform. One young cock was breaking on every round triggering the flock to roll. I had been watching him all summer and again mentally said, "When they come in I am going to stock him even though it is just his first year." The kit came in with a Coopers hot on their tail. It hit 'Mr Bluebar' and together they crashed into a utility shed. As I started over, a second hawk hit the first and a third landed in a nearby Ash tree. I ran over and picked up my dead pigeon. As I did so he slowly opened one eye. He was playing dead and was basically unscathed. He graduated to the stock loft and produced some great birds for me.

I miss my pigeons.

 

[laughingdog]

Try Flying Oriental Roller pigeons.
They are bred to evade hawks fling in sand storms for competitions in middle east.. I have before second tornado took out or off my small flock, except half show fantail (five to six years old and was best evader I have as well as a mixed bloodline male, that makes all but peregrine look completely stoopid. Their young good control, loose or too tight Kitting n rolling young, not touched on even
wing or tail feathers, they stray far and friends miles away call after watching them, n too head strong going feral for week not coming in with rest n or too feed even.
My pure FORs were same and a pain to get feed Tran and hardly listened but best stunts to watch of all acrobat ics. Birms bred out more over to do nothing but roll most from epileptic responses, n when I culled non early best performance birms, they roll as far as can as tight n straight as can across fast yard (I pop heads off
quick kind quiet fast and pain free,then eat never wasting carcass).

 

[sourland]

I tried to locate some FOR, but they are nearly impossible to come by here on the East coast.

 

[happyfrenchman]

Laughingdog...you say you had a half fantail that was your best evader... that is interesting.. I had a line on some Syrian High Flyers just after I got the rollers. I never followed up as I had the rollers.... I wonder if they would do better... get up and go.... But at this point if I find someone that will take the rollers I will use the coop for chickens and be done with it. I had them cause they were my Dads and I felt close to him when I had them but he himself was loath to let them out because of the hawks where he was. (a similar woodsy situation) He didn't fight back as I have, but I cannot say my efforts have made a dent.

 

[laughingdog]

Look on Feb for oriental roller groups or on my fb (stephen dekoning), as "fox creek lofts" n "amirs loft" both have same two guys who raise best FORs for bop evading, n they release forms before birms so that bops don't bother bothering birms, which I thought was my own special solution releasing best evaders etc first then later releasing good rollers after call others in or fly together.
Do you roller fly speratically during day doing different fly call and pred call then just feed call? I cooptrain mine that some calls mean up n some down using broom, as well as left n right. My pred call all animals know what means and is screech of eagle which everything taught to go to cover (pigeons chickens rabbits cats etc, n tells dogs n scovy ducks that a pred needs eating n chasing off if they can't catch). Rollers are highly intelligent n can learn pretty well after week to month of training..

 

[laughingdog]

Or try mixing best rollers with other breeds.. Birms as standard supposed to have any flight skill bred out from except rolling backwards straight down for ten to thirty feet. Breeding worst fliers to stay close not doing too much to move too much around, n not home at all as able then be moved around allot, was what wanted in refining the breed.

 

[happyfrenchman]

Well... I never really had rollers before. I had racing homers and we raced them. We did alright.... But as a boy, my father had had tiplets of some sort... (variety) on the rooftops of Brooklyn NY. When he moved to the suburbs we got the homers. I have not had pigeons for years and I thought the rollers were much better flyers than they have proven. They lounge around. It is not their fault... I am not really interested in training them. I just want them to fly around a bit and most of all survive. You see, my coop is surrounded by a huge oak woods. And the rollers lounging around on the coop or on the roof are under continuous attack from Coopers hawks. So I am thinking maybe I will just give them away to someone that is better situated. If I were in a more open area it would be different. Early on, when the Rollers were flying, it was difficult to even see them with all the trees. I could fly them. And I could breed them. And probably with vigilance, breed enough to keep up with the Hawk predation.... but I just hate the hawks and I love my birds and I don't want them eaten alive by the filthy hawks.

 

[TerryQui]

I feel blessed reading all this. I don't fly my birds except in the very large aviary that they live in. I love walking in there while they are flying around me. It is about 50 by 13 feet and covered entirely with heavy knotted aviary cloth. The fence has a light weight aviary net/ bird netting on it. So the entire area is secure and the aviary out front is 4 x 4 x 6 and I have found hawks sitting on top of it. But they can lick their chops and not touch either my chickens or my pigeons, lol.
I did that all after hawks came down and killed some of my chickens. My silkies. We live right near a hawks nest and can see them flying over head any day or time. They are multiple around here and I am in the city.
One day I went out to my coop and even with all this netting, there was a hole. Well some how a dumb raccoon got in through the hole, now repaired, but I opened up my huge nest box and there that thing was sleeping in there. Why he didn't kill my chickens is going to be forever a mystery. I shut the coop door and locked him in and my chickens out until my husband came home. He dealt with him after that. I consider that a miracle but a coon could still probably make a way in, but not a hawk. lol.
This picture was taken in the winter. It has changed alot since now I have a huge 10 foot by three foot by five foot tall rabbit cage in there at the end that has three divided cages in it. I put the breeders in those if I want to or leave them open for the birds to go in and eat. That way the chickens can't get their food.
The other photo is my aviary out front that has a roof on it now. This is an old photo.