Pigeons???????????

Question

About pigeons , here is a sinerio

I have a few pairs of Doneks,

Lets say i live on the 12 floor of an apartment building with a nice size balcony and i put my coop in my balcony.

Would i be able to let my birds out and do u think they would be able to come back to thier coop and won't get lost, and find there way back to my balcony????????

Answer 1

No, they wont come back. the only pigeons that do this are the homing pigeons. So don't even risk loosing your birds, it sucks:(

Answer 2

no i would not take a risk i think homing pigeons are better i have a lot and they always come back

Answer 3

keep them locked up in their coop for a few weeks three or four. Then let them out each morning. Make sure at night when they come back you lock them up again. Make sure the coop is cleaned regularly and also have fresh food andcwater out daily. That way they will fell home around you. When they come back count them and mAke sure they are all alright before you lock them up. Also you might want to get to know your neighbourz so they don't get upset with the birds

Answer 4

Keep them penned up for a couple weeks before letting them out,they will come home to roost.The neighbors may note like the trinkets they leave on there balconies and cars though.

Answer 5

If you get homing pigeons or racing pigeons, they're basically the same thing, the will for sure come back if you train them correctly. Some other breeds are able to home and some are not. It would be a chance you'd have to be willing to take. Either way, if your birds had the homing ability most of them wouldn't get lost and would be able to find their way home.

Answer 6

Pigeonboy's answer is right on.   Your largest challenge with the Doneks is going to be other flocks of birds in your area.  When I flew mine, I sometimes lost birds to a flock less than a block away.  Once the Doneks went up, they would stay up till they saw the other birds then they would spin down like rifle bullets.  They would go to the other flock and stay there.    I'm afraid yours will go to some feral (wild) flock and that will be it.  

Have you considered a different breed if you're planning to fly them the way you want?  Oriental Roller, Birminghams, race birds, even maybe Flying Flights, Crested Caps, Wests of Englands, might be less challenging as far as losses are concerned.

(And as an aside - to keep the Spelling correctionists happy, I knew he meant "scenario".)

Answer 7

Up until this past spring I had Donek. It is going to be hard to train them to come to the balcony unless you have a friend on the roof tops near by.

Donek are a sight trained bird. They will come from a 2,000 m to a spot on the ground. I have trained them to dive to a wired cage that was a three foot cube with a hole 10: x 10"  on top. I flew them at the National Young Bird Show here in Louisville two years. The birds of prey got so bad that I could no longer fly the Donek or the Greek Voute that I enjoyed flying so much.

It will be difficult to say the least to train them to come to your balcony. The Donek are not like rollers or homers that you can turn loose and they will come back to a cage on it's own, once trained.

The Donek have a small bit of homing instinct but just a small bit. That is why they are trained to come to the sight of their loft mates on the ground in front of the loft.

When I first got Donek back in the early 80's I tried to fly them like a kit of rollers. Then I tried to flock fly them like homers. Then I was introduced to  a gentleman from Macedonia that flew Donek. He taught me many things about flying these birds.

There are a couple of things that you can do to help your birds find home. The first is to make a wire cage like an aviary on the cage so they can get out and see the outside of the cage. As a rule you can't have an permanent aviary as the Donek won't fly if they see their loft mates in the window or aviary. That is why I said to build a cage to hang on the side of the loft. or on top of the loft? The next thing is to paint it a loud color. I used a Oriental Orange when I first started to fly Donek to a mobile cage. I later switched over to a wire cage. I had to train them to only come down if the fantail was sitting on top of the cage. It took me about six months to get them fully trained. I spent about three hours a day working with them.

The Donek is the one of the most exciting pigeons there is that can be trained to come down in a dive on command. I like the ones that dive straight down with their wings outstretched and spinning much like a pin wheel. Then about every thirty-five or forty yards they would reverse the spin

from left to right and vice versa.

It took the hawks around here about eight years before they started catching them daily. At first they hawks just couldn't fly with them. Then they learned how to chase them and cut them off. The Donek and Coopers Hawk have about the same wing speed, the pigeon has the faster dive speed.

It sounds like from your description that you live in the city. If you do you will have to deal with falcons.

The brought young ones into our area. They brought them to eat the pigeons. The thing is they for some reason go after the domestic pigeons in lieu of feral pigeons.

Good luck with your Donek. I sure wish I could fly them. The hawks are so bad here that I can fly homers about three months a year. The rest of the year the Coopers and Sharp shinned (sp Hawks are so bad that I can't hardly raise babies much less fly any birds. I have open wire fronted lofts because of allergies. The hawks hang on the wire trying to get in so they can eat my birds. This causes them to not sit on their eggs or else they squash the babies. I have gradually re homed almost every pigeon I had. Two years ago I had 150 Greek Voute and 35-40  Donek. That year I bought some white homers and was gifted some great championship blood from a friend in Michigan. I am down to six pair of homers. I can lock them up all year and then they will know where they are when I put them out next spring. The Donek would fly off like they didn't know where they were. You had to handle them like a prisoner and not let them fly the first few times out on the ground. I never fly a bird unless it has been in my loft for at least a week and had been out of the loft on the ground three days.

I hope you find something in all this gibberish that you will draw on at a later time.

Answer 8

Option 1:

IF your Coop (if the front part is made of the wire mesh):

Place the coop in such a position that the pigeons can look outside (so that they are aware of their surroundings). 1 month in the coop should do it. Then follow STEP 2.

IF your coop is fully covered(i.e. the pigeons can't look outside):

STEP2: You need to clip their feathers( put a net or something in your balcony, so they can't fly out). Then you need to take them out for an hour everyday ONLY during their feeding time(once in the morning and once in the evening). Repeat for 1 more month.

Finally after 2 months your all ready to leave your pigeons out from morning to sunset.

Answer 9

Hard to say. Sinerios are tricky.

Answer 10

yes they will most likly come back..they will try atleast to find there way home. but if they dnt they will probablly find a nice place

Answer 11

i live in the country, but i have 8 black and white fantails. i think you first need to keep them in their pen for about a month, and after that, i would say it is safe to let them out. after that long, they will have forgotton where they lived, and will go back to their coop. they consider it home after that long. just make sure you close the door to the coop at dark. normally, during the hot part of the day, they will either stay in the pen or under something if they are outside, so, i would suggest that you open the door in the evening around 2 maybe, but it wouldnt hurt to open it earlier, but that is when i let mine out. good luck with them, and, by the way, they like sunflower seeds...A LOT! :D