Beginners Guide

 

Beginners Guide to Racing Pigeons

This is an excellent guide for beginners to our great sport and for anyone else that is interested in more information about it.  The introduction is below and for the complete guide go to:

Beginners Guide - pdf format

 

INTRODUCTION

This book is meant to offer information and advice to those starting out in the sport, or hobby, of racing pigeons in Canada in the 21st century. There are circumstances which occur in Canada which are not addressed in most pigeon literature aimed at the novice. I grew up in, what was then, a small town called Oakville in Southern Ontario, Canada. In the 50s and 60s pigeon lofts were quite common in town, but as time passed, bylaws were introduced to ban pigeons from Oakville as well as many other towns and cities throughout Ontario and the rest of the country. As a result, the once common practice of raising pigeons as a pastime is a rarity and the knowledge has also gone by the wayside. As cities sprawl and pave over farm land, society has become removed from practices common forty or fifty years ago. While maintaining a small loft of pigeons is fairly straight forward, and the pigeon predictable, the how to’s and whys astonish and baffle the novice as they often do the seasoned veteran. These mysteries you can ponder during our long winter nights. The practices outlined in this book have been followed successfully by novices in my area, as well as others, and are merely a starting program to get your birds up and running through your first young bird season. You will undoubtedly get advice from many different sources with many differing views. Hopefully you will have many years to try many different techniques, but the age old methods described in this book will give you a good start.