Stray Pigeon

lizm

4 months ago on a very wet and windy evening a pigeon landed on my wall, i assume its a racing pigeon, it has a red ring on each leg and an orange/yellow on one leg, I can tell the letters GB are on one of the rings. After 3 weeks of it being around and not budging( i hadnt given it any food at this stage) I contacted the RPRA who didnt sem interested in helping, on one hand they said "oh get the numbers on the ring and get back to us" but then ended the email by saying "oh just dont feed it and it'll fly away". I did tell them that i hadnt fed it at this stage and it had been hanging around for the last 3 weeks, but they just insisted that someone maybe a neighbour had and we should stop and leave him to fly away.

Needless to say i was a bit disappointed with their response and the next day i went out and bought some corn and so for the last 3 months i have been feeding it, it's still slightly nervous, although when i go out to the garden it runs up the wall after me looking for food and cooing, he gets on with my german shepherd dog too.

BUT now my dilemma is, the bad weather..............do i build some kind of box for it to shelter in, do i just try to find a local pigeon fancier to take him/her in and would a pigeon fancier even want a pigeon thats been 'out in the wild' for 4 months!!!!!!!!

homerhop

Your best route to securing the return of the racing pigeon to its owner is to search through the names in "CLUBS & CONTACTS", for the person most convenient to you. They have the ways and means of both looking after the racing pigeon and getting her/him back to its home loft.

Email editor@racingpigeon.ie If You Would Like To Find A Club In Your Area
Who will help catch and contact the owner.

lizm

Would i be guaranted that it would be returned to its owner and would a breeder or racer want to take in a pigeon that has been 'wild' for 4 months. Would they not be afraid of mites or diseases being passed on to their own pigeons. At this stage of having it around for so long i would like a guarantee that it would be either taken care of properly by a fancier/breeder or returned to an owner who would want it back for the right reasons.
If i cant get those guarantees i would rather take care of it myself.

homerhop

lizm wrote: »

Would i be guaranted that it would be returned to its owner and would a breeder or racer want to take in a pigeon that has been 'wild' for 4 months. Would they not be afraid of mites or diseases being passed on to their own pigeons. At this stage of having it around for so long i would like a guarantee that it would be either taken care of properly by a fancier/breeder or returned to an owner who would want it back for the right reasons.
If i cant get those guarantees i would rather take care of it myself.

If you contact a racing pigeon club they will contact the owner.
They will not be afraid of mites or disease. Most clubs would advise you to feed it for a few days and let it regain its strength, then catch and release at least 7 miles away to allow it to home in. Most racers are glad to get their birds back even after 4 months. It may have been spooked by a hawke or blown off course in a storm and since it is getting fed it is staying around. The weather wont matter, it will find cover to roost in the same as any bird will. A racing pigeon will not stay alone for long and will either join a ferral flock or another loft

lizm

Thanks for the advice, i kind of got attached to it and i didnt want to just give it to anyone saying they're a breeder or racer and then not have them look after it. The reason i'm worried about it now is that it just sits on the wall outside my window even in the really bad weather and i hate to see it out in the elements like that and the fact that its on it own gets to me too, as regards to me feeding it, i only started doing so 3 weeks after it appeared in my garden as i was hoping that it would leave and find its way home but when after 3 weeks it was still there i got the corn for it, it wont eat anything else .

I've emailed the address you gave me and hopefully i can get a good outcome on this for the pigeon.


Thanks again

homerhop

No worries. A lot of my friends used to keep racing birds and a few still do.

Knine

I had a similar situation and to be honest most fanciers would not want a race pigeon back that got lost:( So if you are really fond of him/her, build a small little pen on to the side of the wall or wherever you can really and encourage him in with food. Leave him in there for a few days and then let him out again and hopefully he will come back in by himself.

I had a renovated extra large rabbit hutch. I then got another pigeon of the same sex and they lived happily ever after for a very long time afterwards.(over 15 years:)) They were two males and they even paired up:eek:

I used pigeon mix rather than just corn on its own.

TooManyDogs

Knine wrote: »

to be honest most fanciers would not want a race pigeon back that got lost

When we tried to return racing pigeons we were told the owner wouldn't want it back and would more than likely wring its neck, and that was from the club. Apparently because if it didnt make it back from race/training in a timely fashion then it's no good so unwanted.

Knine

TooManyDogs wrote: »

When we tried to return racing pigeons we were told the owner wouldn't want it back and would more than likely wring its neck, and that was from the club. Apparently because if it didnt make it back from race/training in a timely fashion then it's no good so unwanted.

Yeah I know lots of people who keep them regularly dispatch surplus birds:(

I reckon the OP has been adopted:D but with the winter looming he would need to make some sort of pen for the pigeon or it could even fall victim to a predator, the pen doesnt even have to be that big if he lets the pigeon out to fly regularly.

lizm

thanks for your input guys, i wouldn't want it to go back and be killed. I dont know if an owner is going to come straight out and say that he doesnt want it, tho as its a GB ring i reckon its northern ireland or the uk and i cant imagine them going through the trouble of getting it back just to ring its neck. So!! i'm slightly confused as what to do.At the moment i'm looking into getting some wood to make a box to hang on the wall near where he roosts and start putting his food in there to encourage him into it, i cant bear to see him outside in the bad wind and rain.He/she is slightly nervous, has been since it arrived tho its ok around my dog, i've often looked out to see the dog sitting at the back door and the pigeon sitting about a foot away with not a bother on the 2 of them.it doesnt go very far, at one stage it would fly onto the roofs of the houses beside me but now it goes no further than my washing line pole wher it sits when the weather is nice and then comes back to the wall, once or twice when i was getting its food it flew onto the back door but it wont let me get too close to him, i think everything is on its terms, its happy to follow me until i feed it but wont let me get close enough to touch it. There are ferrel cats around and i'm worried about it getting caught , once i went out and there were lots of feathers about and it was on my house roof and didnt come down for a day or two, i dont know if it had been scared off by something like a cat, the maggies try to bully it standing there squawking at him but it pays them no attention!!!!:p so maybe for now i'll make the box anyway to keep it safe and warm and then see where to go from there.:D

lizm

Knine wrote: »

Yeah I know lots of people who keep them regularly dispatch surplus birds:(

I reckon the OP has been adopted:D but with the winter looming he would need to make some sort of pen for the pigeon or it could even fall victim to a predator, the pen doesnt even have to be that big if he lets the pigeon out to fly regularly.

The Op is a SHE....hence the name lizm.....thanks for your advice tho!! :D