Best flying and friendly pigeon/dove

joe17

Songster
11 Years
Nov 25, 2009
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Louisiana
I am really wanting pigeons but don't know the breed I want yet. I would like to let them fly during the day so they have to be good at flying. I would like them to be decently friendly also. Are homing/racer pigeons fine? I love the fact that once introduced to their surroundings at a young age, they return.
 
Well this is somewhat of a loaded question. All Pigeons will return home, what sets Homers apart is they will return from over a thousand miles.
However if you only plan on 'loft flying', that is flying around your home then there are better breeds.
The thing with Homers is they 'route' which means they will travel miles away from the loft and return a hour or two later.

What we fly our English Tipplers. They were breed for endurance flying and great with evading Hawks. They have been recorded 22:05 hours flying straight (official record). They also DO NOT route. The only time I saw one actually leave the area was flying one young bird. These birds also 'kit or kite' up meaning they fly as a group or flock. Many breeds of tumblers do not fly together along with high flying breeds.
Tipplers do not tumble or roll just fly, fly and fly some more.
They are a little small then Homers but are not what you would call tame. You can not have a 'tame' and a good flying bird. Once you tame them down (usually through hand feeding) they quickly loose their desire to fly.

There are dozens of breeds to choose from of course some are easier then others to find and cheaper. Most Tipplers are $10 a bird while some nice Basrawi Tumblers canl run you $1000+ a bird.
 
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yeah its whatever you want, but if you want them to fly you want a performance breed. tipplers, high flyers, flights, tumblers, and rollers. All depends what you like, homers would also be fine, but they do route, only on a rare occasion does someone how a flock that doesn't route but once they start homing i pretty sure they do. You may seldom see them and you have to get young pretty much. All other breeds can be rehomed even if they are 5 years old.
 
What exactly are tipplers, high flyers, and rollers? What do each do and how much training is required? Do they fly home? Has anyone ever lost a pigeon because they didn't want to come home?
 
What do you mean by home? Any pigeon can be let outside and with basic training will come back in. If you mean home as in box them up and drive them away, tipplers have been trained to home past 75 miles but its not ideal. You will almost always lose birds if your going to be homing them from distance. Many racers may start off with 40 birds and lose 10 or 20 or all birds. But there is no way to guarantee all your birds will come home no matter what breed. oh, also homers only fly for around an hour give or take.

Tipplers- a breed developed in england for endurance flying, has what i consider best homing ability next to homers. They fly right over the loft and they fly for very long period of time when in condition and weather is right. They can fly high or they may fly low, often they will do both going up staying for a period of time then coming down and staying down for a period of time.

High flyers- there are many breeds of high flyers which will fly high, good high flyers unlike tipplers will go straight up into the sky and fly way up high the whole time till they are done flying. A popular high flying breed is the pakistani high flyer, i don't like them. They do not kite up (fly together) so if you let 50 birds out at once they all will fly ever which way, tipplers, rollers, homers, will all fly a kite and stick together. Pakistani's fly for a long time but other breeds may only fly for a few hours.

Flights- New york flying fights and modern ( forgot the name for it) flights are low flying birds and dont fly for very long. They are very beautifully birds which have a very distinct orange beak and blood red cere and they always come with white flights hence the name. They can be crested or non crested.

Rollers- there are two types of rollers, oriental rollers and Birmingham rollers. Birmingham are the main rollers and when some just says rollers they are probably referring to Birminghams. They do back flips they can drop 60 to 80 feet while rolling backwards, someone claimed 100. But most people consider 40 feet really good. Rolling ability depends a lot on the strain and how you train. Roller are the hardest to train to preform well. They drive some people crazy. They generally preform for 30 - 45 mins and they are done. They used to fly longer but were bred to fly shorter because the scoring time for them is a 20 min window.

Tumblers- many breeds of tumbler, they do one or two back flips and thats it. Sometimes they do it over and over again quickly but do not drop height like rollers. Iraqi and turkish are some popular breed.

Then theres other breeds like doneks that dive and other breeds that dive from up high to the loft, sky cutters which make sharp turns and others i cant think of.

Depending on location Homers are the easiest bird to find then probably rollers followed by tipplers or tumblers. If you in new york or new jersey then its pretty much new york flights and tipplers. They are the two biggest breeds there, followed by rollers and homers. Tipplers can be hard same with tumblers and high flyers. Flights are very hard to find outside new york area.

Best looking? well they can have a verity and look very good. Flights may be what i consider best. Tipplers and rollers look very close to the same but tipplers can be larger, color wise they share a lot.
 
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Homers are my favorite. I like being able to take them places and not being able to beat them home. Very calming to watch them loft fly. They don't route as much as people say they do, and they also don't go as far as they claim, especially once they hit breeding age and get a couple years on them.


Every domestic pigeon breed has the homing instinct, meaning if you let them out, they will come back in. However, not all of them have homing ability. Homers are the only dependable ones when it comes to that. Meaning, they can be taken miles away and come home. Most breeds if they get out of sight of the loft or familiar land, they are lost. I remember one of my rollers was in a tree across the street up a ways. I could see it clearly from my driveway but there was a layer of trees blocking its sight of the loft. It looked so confused. I kept trying to get it to fly and go back to the loft but it just had no idea what it was doing. I've also taken a roller and a flight behind our trees and they flew in circles lost. Eventually they landed on a telephone wire and stayed there for a day or two until we went back to the spot and they landed on the car where we could snatch them up. So that is the difference. If they see the loft or know where they are, they are good to go. But they are easily lost.
 
Are we ranting to hard on homers? Homers have enough positive publicity out there IMO. I still think theres arguments to made about tipplers homing dependable... Maybe if people didnt jump them up in miles so quickly like homers they would be a lot better. I don't know, I'm probably going to make a small team next year of just tipplers to home. Im going to do it slowly and wont be making any big jumps. So far i have had a bird return home from 1 mile away when i gave it to friend and he forgot about it and let it out the next day. Theres always mobile flying if you want to go places with them which my brother is going to get going with 3 NY flights.

if loft flying is all you want then in my opinion the english tippler is the best breed for the job. They know home even when out of sight, the can fly fast, the dont ever route, they fly all day, they can evade hawks, and there easy to work with.

Im not saying you must get tipplers. That why i did such a long write up on birds. There is not one end all be all breed. each one has a different purpose and suited for different things. If you want to take you birds out 50 miles then yes get homers. You will most likely lose birds homing them though you have to understand. Even the experts that been doing it for 10s of years lose birds.
 
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If you get some decent homing tipplers I might be interested
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Both the tippler and the homer have common ancestors, so it doesn't surprise me that they can home a bit. If you selectively breed for it, you'll achieve it.

But yes, all I was saying is that homers have always been my favorites. That's just me. Some people prefer rollers, some highfliers, some fancy birds. Homers just give me, personally, a sense of pride that no other breed has. I did enjoy my rollers a lot but the hawks were very hard on them. They were slow and kind of dumb.
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I loved watching my West of England Tumblers fly as well. I've never seen a pigeon fly/dive so fast and sharply, other than homers when they are cutting up. They were very graceful. My show rollers were very entertaining when I let them out. They were chubby, cute little birds and the cockbirds were SO full of themselves. They'd fly up off the roof a few feet, circle back, and continue to show off. There wasn't a flap they made that didn't clap. My nuns were cute and had spunky personalities. They also originated as a flying breed and I would like to see some people put that back into them. I imagine they'd look stunning as a kit up above the trees. Lahores are giant teddy bears, as well as utility kings. Once they got in shape, they were quite powerful fliers, but of course they didn't do much other than go from building to building, or up in a tree occasionally. But you could tell there was a lot of force in those downstrokes. My kings were quite cocky, and the lahores were too, but they were naturally calm. Dedicated mates. I would stand looking through the aviary for the longest time just watching my male Lahore carry material back to the nest for the hen to build with. Indian Fantails are very funny when they fly. That big ole tail hangs straight down and they flap with all their might, going straight up as high as they needed to, then going forward. My figuritas and satinettes are like lions in kitten bodies. Or at least that's what THEY think
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They'll take off for a few laps with the homers but they mostly show off and do what they want.
 
yeah, i only have one german owl now =/ i kinda just keep it out now with the tipplers mostly. Wow can it fly, i mean it surprised me that it was able to kinda join up with more birds. It lagged behind and wouldn't make the sharp turns with the birds but it did fly at a decent height, not into the clouds or anything but a good distance above the tree line. Only for acouple minutes. The person i got them from said they could fly. I might pick up some more, now that my friend has some ash red and blue bars OGO.

I had my first hawk attack yesterday (minus one because my loft was secure enough) well this was actually a falcon not a hawk, An american kestrel i saw 2 days ago and i saw today. After my birds already got inside just at or before sunset i saw under one of the only trees in my yard a bunch of feathers and a couple tail feathers. Noticed it was my silver bar went to go look and sure enough the bird was missing half a tail, no blood of anything. Atleast there was no blood or cuts. I thought it was strange. My peafowl are going out now, they will chase away any hawks which sit around the property, doesn't work with falcons obviously.
 

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