![]() "This is like any hobby - you can get as involved as you want to be," Burns said. More information about how to raise pigeons, and about the sport of racing them is available from the American Racing Pigeon Union Web site at It is also available by calling the West Marion Racing Pigeon Club at (352) 528-0520. "Pigeons are not nocturnal, but they will fly at night if there is light outside, but we try to plan these races so they can make it back in the same day," Prohaska said.īetween races, the pigeons live in coops that should have at least one square foot of floor area per pigeon with walls that are 7 to 8 feet tall. "They seem to do that to get their bearings, and then pretty soon they are gone," Dolley said.Īlthough some of the longest races are 600 miles, most are shorter, short enough for the pigeons to return to their roost in a single day. On a practice run earlier this month from a park in Newberry, Dolley and Prohaska released pigeons by flocks, watching as they flew skyward from their transport pens to circle the area once or twice before heading south. "That's something that people don't realize - that these birds can only know one place as their home, so wherever you raise them is where they will keep coming back to," said club member Marty Dolley. Once a pigeon is a month old or so, they begin to imprint their coop on their brains. But if the distance is too far, "sometimes we tell people to just keep that bird and maybe they'll get involved with pigeon racing, too," Burns said.Ī common misconception is that pigeons can learn to make anyplace their home. In some cases, if a bird owner is nearby, they may go pick up a pigeon that got lost. Letters and numbers are used to identify the organization in which birds are registered, the year birds were banded, the clubs the bands are registered to and pigeons' serial numbers or identities in clubs. Leg bands have an international identifying system. When people find pigeons with leg bands, they can use the Internet to figure out where they are from. "I got a call from a guy in Empire, La., which is 70 miles southeast of New Orleans, and he had one of my birds," he said. The high winds accompanying hurricanes that swept across Florida this year were disorienting for some pigeons. "We have this all computerized now, but we still calculate how fast they fly in yards per minute, not miles per hour." ![]() ![]() ![]() "We take them in cages to someplace, like up to Georgia, and if you don't go far enough or drive right back home, they can get back there before you," said club member Bob Prohaska. A computerized chip in their leg bands helps owners determine how quickly each pigeon makes its journey home from the release point. ![]() During the races, pigeons are driven long distances from their coops and then released. ![]()
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