My interest in hobby farms and birds probably comes from my great-uncles on my father's side. They had the most interesting set-ups with lots of cages and fences... and somehow I always had an adventure being at their houses. My grandfather on my mother's side also had a dairy farm that gave me the some of the same kinds of adventures.
The rule at our house, now, is that if we have a pet, they have to reproduce; so we've had baby fish, baby canaries, baby finches, baby doves, baby homing pigeons and most recently baby mini rex rabbits. My kids love it and so do I.
A few years ago I was given some pigeons. You can read previous blogs to see what happened to them. More recently I have purchased some white homing pigeons. Last summer, I started training them to fly back home. They are like any athletes -- they need to train. Just like we can't run a 10 km race without running shorter intervals to train. So I start out about 1/2 a kilometer from my house and release them 3 consecutive days at that distance, give them a rest and then double the distance.
This year I am working with 17 birds. I started training them about a month ago and have quickly worked them up to 25 km today. Releasing them at that distance was difficult to do because I wasn't sure that they would come back. They beat me back to the house!! Over the next couple of days I will release them again from 25 km and then 50 km. My goal is to have them fly over 100 km by the end of the summer. I haven't lost a bird yet.
Flying pigeons is like flying a kite. The birds circle for about 5 minutes before they take off towards home and out of sight. It is thrilling to let something go that you have cared for and have it come back.
