How did you start with pigeons........?

seen this on other sites in the past and found it interesting as to how some fanciers got into keeping/racing pigeons.........ill start with how i got involved with them.


first remember watching my older brothers birds when i was approx 10 years old, would look through the dowels and was mezmerised how they would fly around cooing and chasing the hens, when i got to about 15 years old i had a share in an allotement with a friend and as usual i started with some fantails and strays like most fanciers do.......when i was 16 years old i moved them to my mothers house where i lived and kept them for a few years before joining a local club and raced them with little or no success until i went into partnership with my older brother and bought birds from louella which won for us almost staright away.....after a few years racing i packed in racing and were out of the hoby/sport for 20 years but came back into it two years ago, now im going to race my first yb season and am looking forward to it...........


anyone else want to let us know how they got into pigeons........?

my dad had birds from the mid 60s till the early 80s i remember my mum takin his dinner to him he used to put me in the wheelbarrow and take me down to the loft remeber wen he told me to go and feed the birds cos he had to do something wen he came back the pigeons didnt have any tails he never asked me to feed em again dont know why tho i started racing again a few years ago not much success but hopin to do better this time

hi same here mate my dad raced in 70s but he worked away so it was down to me at 11 years old to see to them i still remember certain birds , remember timing in second club with a silver cheq cock ,i was proud as punch, this is why i have come back to them some twenty eight years later ,its in my blood

cousin in south shields first started me off with pigeons in 1964

My Farther had birds so I thought I would build a loft, so over the fence was a council yard I managed to get some old doors bits of coragated iron and built my new loft, i was quite proud of it till the wind blouw that night and low and behold it was laying on the ground the next morning, so back i went and built it back up better than what it was befor so out i went on my bike with no tyers on and started catching strays and ferals, and soon had my 8 birds in my hotel of 4 by 6 by 5 by3 and half or something like that and rest is history in 1952

i first got into pigeons when a friend got one homed to a rabbit hutch.i was mesmerized that you could let a bird out to fly and it would come back into the back yard once its had its fly.i found this amazing and wanted one.off we went to a local disused bakery and broke in through a window.all the ferals were nesting on the top floor and we helped ourselves to several squeekers and put them in an empty coal bunker.we fed then for a few days and let them out.they flew around the scheme and none came back.then i bought a red cheq racer hen but that flew away.it took me about 5 months before i could talk my mum and dad into having a small pigeon loft but i eventually managed to steel all the wood from a building site and my dad built it for me.i had a pair of tumbler crosses and managed to home them.i had the hut for about 2years then packed it in about 15 years old for other types of birds.i only gort back into pigeons 4 years ago but i wouldnt be without them now.i spend most night in the pigeon loft when eastenders or corry is on.i cant be bothered with the telly now and this is something better and more productive.i think if i never got into pigeons as a kid then i wouldnt have giving pigeon keeping a thought in adulthood.this is why we should try and get kids an interest in pigeons as its a dying hobby and that is very sad.when you think about it all we need is one generation not to keep pigeons and the hobby is lost.all those different fancy breeds will all be gone.

eirst time i got into pigeons was by my uncal he been raceing for years and then give me his old loft wich was a old porter toilet striped and boared out ... and then i got 4 birds from him ... when i was 5 year old then lost intrest at 12 for meself but still use to help him out race days and night after school ,, then like most lads intrested in the girls now back to pigoens as little philip is intrested too ....

my dad had them in the early 70s and ive been involved with them since i was 11 years old
in them early days in the street i lived in yorkshire they were 7 flyers in a space of a few hundred yards
and race days were a laugh a minute with these old timers about every one of them looked after me like there own son . we never won much but we always got to prize table every season , all the old timers are
gone now ive moved down here in somerset with my own family but i will always have the memorys of the best years of my child hood .

When I was 6 there was a man who lived close to my grandparents, he had facy pigeons. I remember going to the circus and he offered me a pair of black nuns. The next day I went to his house to collect them, and I kept them at my grandads place, that was my first birds.

Got interested when my dad got the first loft in 1970's, i was 5 and my dad always allowed me to go down the loft to look at the pigeons which i loved, so you can say i have been apart of this wounderful sport for over 30 years