Help! Homing Pigeon walked into our kitchen!

emermc

Hi,

We need some help. Our cat was 'playing' with a pigeon which has a band on its leg. So I am assuming it is a homing pigeon. We got the cat away from him & he then walked into our kitchen & into the dog's basket. He seems quite tame.

We have put him into the laundry room and put in a dish of water & some dry porridge.

Would anyone know what we can do to find his owners or where to bring him? He is kind of in danger with us as we have 2 cats & a dog!

Thanks,
Emer

Alun

This has come up before a few times. If you can get close enough to see the writing on his leg ring then take a look here ... http://www.racingpigeon.ie/straypigeonnonmembers.htm

emermc

Thanks Alun! The thing now is to try & pick it up, yikes!!

Whispered

Oh oh be careful! I heard somewhere that a homing pigeon who doesn't make it home is considered useless and killed. Might be a nasty rumour that is completly untrue though. Does anyone know?

doctor evil

I'd be wary giving it dried porridge as it will swell in its stomach.

Refeul it and release it. Are there any pigeon fanciers near you?

FunkyMissMonkey

My mum found a lost homing pigeon once, she called the relevant people, they said to feed it on a liquid glucose thing (this was a fairly long time ago mind), let it rest a while, then take it to a quiet park and release it again.

Apparently they find their bearings again and set off home.

emermc

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. I found a website with contacts in dublin for pigeon fanciers & I phoned a man in Skerries who came over & took the bird. He said the bird was from the UK. He had a UK band. Anyway hopefully he'll have a new home

My laundry room is covered in green bird poo however!!

Run_to_da_hills

Don't dare contact its owners, Pidgeon fanciers keep these birds one reason only, i.e. race them, win competitions and make money. They will only take it away and then wring its neck, a common practice with dud birds that go AWOL. Try to remove its band and put it in a box and release it outside the Central bank or in St Stephens green where he/she will make new friends

Rory123

emermc wrote: »

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. I found a website with contacts in dublin for pigeon fanciers & I phoned a man in Skerries who came over & took the bird. He said the bird was from the UK. He had a UK band. Anyway hopefully he'll have a new home

My laundry room is covered in green bird poo however!!

I bet he was rubbing his hands together.... racing pigeons can go for thousands!

doctor evil

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

Don't dare contact its owners, Pidgeon fanciers keep these birds one reason only, i.e. race them, win competitions and make money. They will only take it away and then wring its neck, a common practice with dud birds that go AWOL. Try to remove its band and put it in a box and release it outside the Central bank or in St Stephens green where he/she will make new friends

No one here knows its course so whose to say it went AWOL? Last week and beginning of this week was unusually warm which could have caused dehydration causing the bird to land.

As for releasing the bird into town, do you really think it would survive after being reared and fed by humans. Pigeons in town are not the picture of health!

Run_to_da_hills

doctor evil wrote: »

No one here knows its course so whose to say it went AWOL? Last week and beginning of this week was unusually warm which could have caused dehydration causing the bird to land.

As for releasing the bird into town, do you really think it would survive after being reared and fed by humans. Pigeons in town are not the picture of health!

Maybe when its replenished It will fly home from outside the Central Bank or the green and then everyone will be happy.

stevoman

helena.ryan wrote: »

Oh oh be careful! I heard somewhere that a homing pigeon who doesn't make it home is considered useless and killed. Might be a nasty rumour that is completly untrue though. Does anyone know?

If the homing pigeon does'snt make it home, then how does it trainer manage to kill it?

Alun

stevoman wrote: »

If the homing pigeon doesn't make it home, then how does it trainer manage to kill it?

Exactly. I'm also confused as to why the owner would go to all the trouble of driving to pick it up from where it was found, just to wring it's neck when he got it home? Doesn't make sense to me.

Run_to_da_hills

Alun wrote: »

Exactly. I'm also confused as to why the owner would go to all the trouble of driving to pick it up from where it was found, just to wring it's neck when he got it home? Doesn't make sense to me.

THere would be several reasons for the owner to want to get his hands on that bird. As a gesture to the person that found it if the owner was not too far away and to collect any data or tagging from the pigeon.

There could also be a fear that this dud pigeon could eventually make its way back to the loft and hide itself among the hundreds of others and being a nuisance and just another waste of a mouth to feed.

The owner would keep a log of each bird and would know soon enough which ones are bad.

whitser

did you take a lot of acid as a teenager? seriously were do you come up with this sh1t.
a pigeon fancier will know every pigeon in his loft by name. you telling me a lad going to drive all the way to pick up a bird to kill it?
stop coming out with this stuff. opening bins for foxes...releasing racing pigeons so their owners wont drive all the way over to pick it up and ring its neck.....dud pigeons hiding out incognito among hundreds of others.....

Run_to_da_hills

whitser wrote: »

did you take a lot of acid as a teenager? seriously were do you come up with this sh1t.
a pigeon fancier will know every pigeon in his loft by name. you telling me a lad going to drive all the way to pick up a bird to kill it?
stop coming out with this stuff. opening bins for foxes...releasing racing pigeons so their owners wont drive all the way over to pick it up and ring its neck.....dud pigeons hiding out incognito among hundreds of others.....

Not to mention greyhounds......also "known by names" :rolleyes:

emermc

Forgot to say, the pigeon fancier who came and took the pigeon away said the bird was not a racing pigeon. He also seemed geniunely fond of pigeons!!!

I have his name, address & I know where he works so I really don't think his motives were suspect

whitser

excatly. why would he bother his arse driving over to you other wise. dont mind run to hills.

stevoman

whitser wrote: »

excatly. why would he bother his arse driving over to you other wise. dont mind run to hills.

more gobble de gook i think

togster

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

Don't dare contact its owners, Pidgeon fanciers keep these birds one reason only, i.e. race them, win competitions and make money.

I have read alot of your posts at this stage and tbh i'm kinda sick of the un-informed nature of them. Do you know any pigeon ownere? What website did you use to find the little nugget of crap above?

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

They will only take it away and then wring its neck, a common practice with dud birds that go AWOL.

Again: Something you read online or heard from a mate is NOT always true. See how i didn't generalise there

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

Try to remove its band and put it in a box and release it outside the Central bank or in St Stephens green where he/she will make new friends

You seem to have lost your own sense of direction here. Do you honestly think that a bird kept and fed by humans would survive as a pigeon in a city?

I'm sick of people hearing something somewhere and then spouting it as fact.

Run_to_da_hills

togster wrote: »

I have read allot of your posts at this stage and the I’m kind of sick of the un-informed nature of them. Do you know any pigeon owner? What website did you use to find the little nugget of crap above?

I Knew plenty in my child hood, not so many now, and just like the greyhound industry a lid is kept on much of the inhumane treatment by some pigeon breeders, not all as there are many genuine fanciers out there. Another reason birds can be put down after collection is that it could be suspected illness and could possibly contaminate the loft.

togster wrote: »

Again: Something you read online or heard from a mate is NOT always [/Untrue. See how I didn't generalise there .

I heard this back years long before "On Line" was available, and it was also mentioned by another poster. Just like a dud greyhound that takes up space and valuable food a dud bird will do much the same, it gets fat and sits on its h^le and is good for nothing. Most pidgeon breeders breed birds for competition, if they can't achieve this they may as well be breeding crows or magpies :rolleyes:

togster wrote: »

You seem to have lost your own sense of direction here. Do you honestly think that a bird kept and fed by humans would survive as a pigeon in a city?

I'm sick of people hearing something somewhere and then spouting it as fact.

If the bird was any good it would do what it is trained to do, i.e. GO HOME, get it, "homing pigeon", :rolleyes:

gversey

The pigeon is probably belonged to a northern ireland fancier who lost it last week, lots of pigeons were lost due to the change of weather, they were racing from pilmore beach near cork.I would suggest contacting the racing pigeon union, a link was supplied earlier in thread.And no, the fancier will not kill the bird as at this time it probably has chicks or eggs to get home to, he will be glad to get that bird back as he has probably lost half his team of birds this weekend.Mr S. Lehane would be the man to speak with if you wish to report the bird, his number should be supplied in the link above, if not just release it, dont feed it porridge as this swells in the stomach and can prevent the bird from flying.

gversey

sorry, just seen the other posts about the bird gone... took me a while to type mine.,, darn, just wasted ten mins typing.

emermc

I have got some bad news everyone! Poor old Jason (the racin'pigeon) died during the night.

I decided to text the guy who collected him to ask how he was and he texted me back that Jason had died during the night. He didn't eat or drink all day so that was a bad sign.

I can only assume our cat did more damage than we thought, or put him into shock? He was hanging around for the whole day however, so maybe there was something else wrong.

Stupidly, I feel very sad. I thought I'd 'saved' him. I'm glad it didn't happen on my watch as I know I'd have blamed myself. The poor little critter.

Run_to_da_hills

R.I.P racing pidgeon

LisaO

That's a shame - but you did your best for him. There's plenty that wouldnt bother.

meathstevie

Racing pigeons can be worth a few bob allright but these are the exception more than the rule. When you're talking about pigeons or their offspring who won races from let's say northern Spain to Belgium ( pigeon racing is huge there ) a few years in a row you're talking thousands but for most pigeon fanciers it's a passtime that costs money and doesn't earn them anything.
Sometimes disaster can strike, unexpected bad weather being the main cause, and hundreds of pigeons never make it back to their loft.