Onorio Catenacci: Pigeons

Breedcentral.com Needs To Learn About How To Foil Spammers

Tue, 06 Jul 2004 01:13:48 GMT

I have a little issue with the person running Breedcentral.com. I've mentioned this to him on the pigeongenetics mailing list but I'm guessing he doesn't actually read the messages posted to the mailing list. I think he just basically mails to the list periodically to promote his website. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, I think he's running breedcentral as a "service to the hobby". So, if he reads this...you need to modify your webpage. Having mailto: links is just making it real easy for spammers to harvest e-mail addresses from your webpage.

I would like to put my contact information on his website--I don't mind helping other fanciers with birds when I can and I certainly don't mind helping novices with their questions either. But I refuse to put my contact information on his website only to have it harvested by spammers.

They Have Two Homes Now

Fri, 28 May 2004 01:28:05 GMT

I have a pair of racing homers that I had borrowed from a fellow fancier in Mount Clemens, Michigan. These birds are excellent parents and they had turned out quite a few healthy youngsters in a few months. However, the male seems to think it's okay to have his own personal harem because he regularly mates with a hen besides the one that he's mated to.

I contacted my friend and told him I planned to return the birds. He said fine--just let them go, they'll come home. That's one great thing about homing pigeons.

So last Wednesday I let them go. And they looked like they took off in the general direction of Mount Clemens so I thought nothing further of it. Then on Sunday they reappeared at my loft. They had decided that my loft was now home. Or perhaps the male likes having two wives. At any rate, I was pretty surprised because I thought surely they were back at their old home in Mount Clemens.

So I talked to my buddy last night and he explained to me that in fact the birds had come back to his loft. Apparently they stayed long enough to eat and rest because they were back there on Saturday and gone on Sunday.

I knew that during World War I and World War II fanciers trained pigeons to fly between multiple lofts. I always wanted to try that myself to see if I could do it. I just never knew that the birds would beat me to it.

Grouse Legged Wild Pigeon

Thu, 27 May 2004 01:40:43 GMT

I work in downtown Detroit, Michigan (in the U. S.).  Today I was walking toward my place of business along Michigan Avenue by Cass Avenue when I saw a wild pigeon with grouse legging.  I wish I had a camera with me.  

I couldn't examine him that closely but it was a blue bar and it looked pretty much like wild type other than the presence of grouse legging.  

I always thought that these sorts of mutations must occur naturally but it was still a bit of a surprise to see a wild pigeon with it.

Draconian Measures Against Pigeon Keepers In Chicago

Wed, 19 May 2004 01:58:06 GMT

You know I understand the rights of others not to be imposed upon by pigeon fanciers. Not everyone likes pigeons and that's their right. However, does the city of Chicago really need to resort to such draconian measures to prevent a few pigeon keepers from abusing the privilege?

Doesn't the city of Chicago have public health ordinances under which they can prosecute people who don't properly care for their pigeons?

I know pigeons have a bad reputation. I just wish civic governments wouldn't treat all pigeon keepers and all pigeons as if they were all the same.

Signs You're Line-Breeding Too Closely

Tue, 27 Apr 2004 01:46:43 GMT

In the interests of helping novice pigeon fanciers who may not be aware of signs that their line-breeding is starting to move to an unhealthy direction, I offer the following list of signs that you may be line-breeding too closely.

You hear "Dueling Banjos" coming from the loft.
You mate a blue bar to a blue bar and all the youngsters have ash-red necks.
The Jerry Springer show calls you to ask if your birds can appear on their show entitled "I Know You're a No-Good Inbred Hen But I Love You Anyway".
The lines on your bird's pedigree chart form a circle.

Birds Do It

Tue, 20 Apr 2004 02:19:28 GMT

So the pigeons are finally starting to really get going. I guess because spring is finally making an appearance in our part of the world, the birds are doing the thing that made them a part of the famous metaphorical "birds and bees".

I've got a lot more to say but not a lot of time to say it right now. So stay tuned...there will be more to read soon.

At Last--Some Baby Birds!

Tue, 25 Nov 2003 23:21:11 GMT

First of all, a big hello to the one person actually reading my blog...you know who you are G. Don't worry; I won't tell anyone your name or where you hold your wand for that matter. :-)

Anyway, good news...after about six or seven years back in the pigeon hobby, I've got two pairs of pigeons who have youngsters. Someone asked me if baby pigeons are cute. I told her that all babies are cute; I think that our creator decided we should all be cute at least one time in our lives.

Another Racing Pigeon Strayed Where It Shouldn't Have

Tue, 15 Jul 2003 20:57:51 GMT

Racing pigeons straying off-course seem to be making the news a lot lately. Here's yet another story about a pigeon straying off-course. As hard as people might find this to believe, this sort of thing goes on quite frequently. This is not to diminish the accuracy of a pigeon's homing instinct; it simply happens a lot that pigeons get thrown off-course.

Another Update on the Bower's School Farm Pigeon Project

Mon, 14 Jul 2003 00:14:59 GMT

I pulled two clear eggs yesterday. For those not familiar with the terminology, a "clear" egg is an infertile egg. It was pretty apparent that the parents had even given up on them. So far, no luck in getting any fertile eggs from the Baldhead Rollers.

The fantails continue to sit on their eggs and I hope to have one young fantail in the loft very soon.

I had to drive over to Detroit today to pick up a pair of stray domesticated pigeons that someone found over there. They are Russian Tumblers (actually pretty decent show specimens) that someone was flying unbanded. I'm so naive sometimes. My father mentioned to me that sometimes people will steal pigeons and cut off the bands. It would have never occurred to me that could be a reason for someone having unbanded birds flying around.

Update On The Pigeon Project At Bowers School Farm.

Sat, 05 Jul 2003 21:25:13 GMT

I guess I've never discussed this topic here before so I guess a little background is in order:

The West Bloomfield School District (in West Bloomfield, Michigan) had a farm donated to them back in the 1960's. Apparently someone on the school board at the time had the foresight not to simply sell off the land; the farm was retained basically intact and it still serves as an educational resource for the school district.

About a year and a half ago, I approached the farm manager about installing a pigeon loft at the farm. He was quite receptive to the idea because pigeons can be an excellent educational tool. They're not very large and from them students can learn about genetics, animal behavior, physiology and a host of other biology related subjects.

Through a long series of small steps forward and many steps back we finally got a loft at the farm and we've got pigeons in the loft. We had three pairs of baldhead show rollers, a pair of fantails and two extra male fantails. This brings me to my update.

One of the male baldheads died this week so I've now got an extra female baldhead roller. Having a spare female in the loft is not as much of a disruption as is having a spare male (go figure!) so it's not imperative that I pair her up or get rid of her. Frankly I had kind of expected the male to die because the last time I was at the loft, his breathing was very labored and I couldn't really do anything for him.

The two remaining pairs of baldheads have clear (i. e. infertile) eggs in their nests. I would have pulled the eggs but even fertile eggs look infertile for about a week after they're laid so I wanted to wait since I'm not completely sure when these eggs were laid.

The fantails, much to my surprise, have finally laid two eggs of their own. And at least one egg is fertile. I hope to soon see a new fantail in their nest.

Pigeon Billboards At Wimbledon

Sat, 05 Jul 2003 15:11:26 GMT

This strikes me as a novel way of advertising. Painting pigeons and having them fly around is certainly out of the norm. I've got to hand it to those "ad wizards". They never sleep.

Man Attempts To Smuggle Pigeons Into Canada

Sat, 05 Jul 2003 07:04:01 GMT

A man tried to smuggle pigeons into Canada. Some people are far too emotionally attached to their birds.

Man Works With City To Find Way To Keep Pigeons

Sat, 04 Jan 2003 02:29:24 GMT

A nice story about a pigeon fancier who is cooperating with his neighbors as well as civic authorities to continue to enjoy a hobby that he's enjoyed most of his life. It's nice to see that not every city is so eager to deprive people of a harmless hobby.

Youngster Wins National Pigeon Race

Sat, 04 Jan 2003 02:25:54 GMT

A nice write up about a young boy enjoying the hobby of racing pigeons.

The Declining Sport of Pigeon Racing...

Tue, 15 Oct 2002 00:09:22 GMT

The Detroit Free Press posted this article concerning the decline of the hobby of racing pigeons in the US. My own experience as a pigeon fancier has mirrored the experience of those folks quoted in this article. That is, most of the fanciers are aging men and there are fewer and fewer young men willing to replace them. I understand that the hobby is even starting to decline in Belgium where it was born.

White Pigeon Release Goes Tragically Wrong

Tue, 24 Sep 2002 00:54:38 GMT

You know it's really a shame when an animal ends up paying for the ignorance of human beings. I realize that these people at least claim to have had their hearts in the right place but all they needed to do was to ask any experienced pigeon fancier and he or she could have told them what they found out for themselves. That is, there's a good reason that people release white homing pigeons at ceremonies.

Contrary to popular belief not all pigeons have strong instincts or skills to find their way home from a strange place. Part of a pigeon's ability to find its way home is learned behavior. And I know I've heard a few times of some truly stupid people insisting on having white doves (as opposed to white homing pigeons) released at their ceremonies. They might just as well wring the necks of those poor doves; they'll either up starving to death, dying of thirst or maybe as hawk food. They simply don't have the survival instincts and skills of their wild cousins.

At any rate, if you're reading this and you're thinking of having a white dove release, please get white homing pigeons from a reputable person who takes proper care of his or her animals.

Using Pigeons To Educate Students

Tue, 24 Sep 2002 00:21:42 GMT

Here's an example of some educators using a little bit of creativity to teach children--with pigeons. In spite of the poor reputation that pigeons have garnered in this country in the last half-century there is a lot that students can learn from pigeons. These educators are using pigeons to teach children about math and life-sciences in a very practical hands-on way. If the students were a little older they could also be taught about genetics and biochemistry; two areas of knowledge where the study of pigeons has played a key role in advancing mankind's knowledge. Maybe these students will even find out for themselves what fascinating creatures pigeons really are.