Moving House with Pigeons Qustions...

[jak2002003]

I am due to move house in less than a week... this was very unexpected - I should have had several more weeks!

I will be taking my 14 fancy pigeons with me, and my Japanese Bantams.

I have to stay in a rented house for about 6 months.. then go to my final house. (they are fine with me taking my birds).

How are my pigeons going to cope with the move? I got someone to help me move their coop.

Once in the new place how long until I can let them out? Should I just keep them confined for the 6 months until I go to the final house? Will they be miserable not being able to fly free?

I thought I stopped all breeding in the run up to the move... but today I found one pair has a chick!!!! Its is about 2 weeks old.

How can I go about moving the chick? Will I have to hand rear it?

Thanks in advance for any info.

 

[Hokum Coco]

Quote:

I am due to move house in less than a week.

I will be taking my 14 fancy pigeons with me, and my Japanese Bantams.

I have to stay in a rented house for about 6 months.. then go to my final house.
I got someone to help me move their coop.

Once in the new place how long until I can let them out?
I found one pair has a chick!!!! Its is about 2 weeks old.

I know in World War ll they employed mobile pigeon lofts. I do not know how they went about imprinting the birds to these lofts..

Where your pigeons are fancy birds they should not have much of a homing instinct (there are always exceptions). I would say keep them in for 2 to 3 weeks until they become settled and when you do let them out make sure they are hungry so you have an ace in the hole to draw them back into your coop.

Yours is a unique situation the I have not experienced. I hope everything goes well for you. Someone with more insight maybe able to advise you better..

These mobile lofts were typically moved 25 miles at a time to their new locations. It took seven to eight days to get setup and let the pigeons adapt to their new location. Andy said the military even experimented with night flyers for a time, these were pigeons that would fly through the night.


Check out the link:

http://warjeeps.com/articles/pigeonAndy/index.html

 

[jak2002003]

Thanks for that link! That is amazing about the mobile pigeon lofts. I will let you know how its going.

I have been trying to get the chick used to me.. I keep petting it and picking it up. I want it to get used to me in case I have to hand feed it... that will make it a lot easier if its not scared of me.

 

[Hokum Coco]

Today I found one pair has a chick!!!! Its is about 2 weeks old.

How can I go about moving the chick? I would put as much of the nest as I could in a cage if possible along with it's parents. Will I have to hand rear it? It is possible at least he will have a good chance of surviving..