Exhibition Tipplers? / Pigeon Penney Intro

Right ok always wanted tipplers since i was a kid and a teenager , i had fantails , Birmingham rollers and racers (but have NEVER RACED)
I have recently bought my first house and my fiancee talked me into chickens so we built a chicken coop and went off to the local farmers market . The first thing i spotted was some tipplers and actually caught the guy putting them in the lots. The ones i wanted i was out bid on but i got my second choice 2 pairs of 06 Exhibiton / Show Tipplers (to be honest the only thing different i can see is there heads are bigger) i bought them and then suddenly panicked even though i had a spare shed i had no boxes in my empty shed so from there (i knew what i was doing all along i had elimars number in my pocket ready) said to the missus right well have to get some frontsso we did on the way home. Got some widowhood fronts from Elimar and was impressed with the place for those who havent been theyve got everything and ALOT MORE than i can think of for pigeons.
I wont show them or fly them as im going to build a flight on the shed for the fancy breeds . My friend has some nice looking racers for me waiting but im going to set up proper before i get them but then i will take these out for flying and may keep back a couple of tipplers if i breed any . I do have the birds of prey in the garden but its a big garden and my raptors now ignore the pigeons and chickens as they soon get accustomed to domestic animals, some people will frown on me for this and probably for not showing or racing but i just want pigeons to enjoy like i had done for so many years in my garden and always said i would when i got my own place.

the main thing about pigeon keeping p/p is that we enjoy them, all the members who race on this site enjoy their birds...........this is the most important thing to me as it means more to me to get them all home from race than winning

i dont keep any fancy birds myself but do know some of the rollers/tipplers are a sight to see when out flying tumbling and tippling around the sky....some pigeons ive heard of will fly all day very high up in the sky, these are a fancy breed but cant remember what they are called.

Yes very true and thats what its about for me , i have had a ten year gap but otherwise literally my earliest memories are of pigeons my mum has pictures of me barely able to walk but i have my pigeon in my hands lol im glad to have them back . Ive got some pics on my phone so will get them up in the next few days of the tipplers but theyre stunners

i have a freind that keeps tipplers ,feather legs and tumblers and prints to but he does show them .tipplers are quite rare now and even rarer you see them in flight due to the raptor problem,i to kept pigeons for years without racing them and got great pleasure from it and will do again one day no doubt but i wanted to have a go at racing but like you david they are my pets more so than a object to gain glory and i am happy for them to just come home our favorite is a red pied hen and she is always last to come home

im certainly going to try it . There is a pair of peregrines not too far from my house (im semi rural) but to the pigeons advantage i have a huge family of buzzards (one of which i successfully rescued the other day) these tend to keep the peregrines on the other side of the farmland as the buzzards greatly outnumber them and intimaidate them . The buzzards are far too slow to catch even the slowest of pigeons , well see how it goes . These exhibition Tipplers have never benn let out according to the man at the auction so i am in the process of sorting a flight for them .

tipplers can fly up to 16 hours and even a bit more i believe thing is thats a long time to be a target as they dont move out of position and they are quite alot smaller than a racing pigeon

oooooooooooooooo no stop know.
not buzzard;s as well.
i won;t sleep tonight.

i have a coupleof what i think are kites, they are massive big birds which circle around my loft most days........to be honest they are no threat to the pigeons and i think they are more of a scsavinger which lives on mice and small dead anomals.......maybe wrong ??? ive also heard rooks nearby to a pigeon loft are good to have as they too keep hawks etc away.......???

stormqueen wrote:

oooooooooooooooo no stop know.
not buzzard;s as well.
i won;t sleep tonight.

you big tart stormy...........

yes they dont like the sparrow hawk on their patch david but having said that it dont seem to deter our local sparrowhawk that much it slammed into the mesh door on the loft on the last raceday of the season when the crows were perched in the tree at the end of the garden

david i have just about got over the peregrines.
know he has a lot of buzzer;s.
i will have nightmares to night.

stormqueen wrote:

david i have just about got over the peregrines.
know he has a lot of buzzer;s.
i will have nightmares to night.

fill your mind with nice things stormy, go through your pairings.........youll soon doze off.

long legs and big chest.
i should be so lucky.

stormqueen wrote:

long legs and big chest.
i should be so lucky.

soft feathers, nice in the hand...........

To be fair youd be unlucky if you were a mouse kille by a kite very lazy but they too will mob birds of prey . Just a word of warning though (all corvids eg maggies crows etc ) will attack pigeons but usually only if they are unwell / lame .

i have a lot of magpies round my loft p/p. and to be honest ive never had them try attack my pigeons.....sometimes when they let out a certain screech the pigeons will be alarmed but not too distraugh.

i have know magpies to snatch the small babies from the smaller birds tho`

yes they are oppertunists , id be suprised if a magpie attacked a healthy adult racer but maybe a more vulnerable fancy type would be on the cards . Ive seen them attack sick street peckers before and Crows ive seen pull woodpigeons even off a branch and then a whole murder came in and attacked .

I used to know a fancier with a pet crow, he found it as a fledgeling, it was a funny bird. It used to sit on his head. One thing about it used to chase off hawks, and others in vicinity used to join in.

strange how the crows bunch togeather and chase the hawks away isnt it, when in reality a hawk could easily kill a single crow on its own.....its funny how they feel safety in numbers..........

aslong has you enjoy your birds thats the main thing p/p

SOZ POSTED IN WRONG PLACE MOVED IT NOW

thats ok steve, some fantastic pigeons amoung them............

thanks steve b .
David a hawk can kill a crow but at the same time theyre feisty customers and fight back! Plus they see attack as the best form of defense .

have heard a seagul has a razor sharp beak, this is its defence against hawks etc, dont know if this is right tho`..............

David wrote:

have heard a seagul has a razor sharp beak, this is its defence against hawks etc, dont know if this is right tho`..............

i have heard of them fighting falcons that have caught them