Could our ingenious plan work - what type if Pigeon??

[Morri]

Me and a friend came up with idea of buying ourselves homing pigeons say 1 or 2 each. If you housed them in their pens for 3 months then swapped pigeons and tied notes to their legs and set them free will they come home?? I also have another friend that couold do it - our houses are all 10 km's apart. If it could work what type of pigeons are needed, they have some at the local poultry market (i no the fantailed and meat birds couldnt fly that far - right?) they have little pigeons that arent fancy - just grey and brown pigeons there. So could it work?? Could we buy the plain little pigeons??? Thanks.

They would be used for pets primarily but we thourght it could be fun to send messages like back in the day...

 

[Soph xo]

I'm the friend

I hope it works

 

[bluebird]

You cannot do this if you buy adult homing pigeons that have been flown. They will fly right back to their original owner. You have to buy young birds and keep them confined for a few months. Then you can take them outside in a cage for a few weeks to get them familiar with their surroundings. Release one at a time so it will stay near the others.
Take it slow. Start releasing a couple only a few miles from and gradually increase the distance. Then, yes, I think itwould work. I do not know if this will work with the fancy breeds that do not have homing instinct.

 

[truecolorsloft]

best bet would be to breed them and raise your own babies. We're doing that with our rollers, even though they don't need to be young birds. we feel it'll make handling them much easier as some of my old birds(from other flocks) still act wild around me. It's slower and more effort, but the rewards in the end are worth it. Also make sure you band your birds so you can recover them.

 

[Mary Of Exeter]

The only breed you could do this with is homing pigeons. They'd have to be young when you get them (1-3 months old is best), then trap train and road train them.

 

[truecolorsloft]

we only raise young rollers for the sake of tameness. We know they can't home. We sold out original kit because they were all too wild. so ever since then we've only used "home raised" birds for training

 

[PrinceSandwich]

I think it would probly work ( if you trained them ). Sounds like a really cool idea!