This weeks discussion of the week is…
What do you think the current state of pigeon racing is?
For example do you think pigeon racing is growing or dying and why, express your views and share with others your opinions on the current state of pigeon racing by placing your vote in the poll below then posting a comment in the comment section below this post.
Loading ...Click here to post your thoughts on the current state of pigeon racing.
Dear friends in sport,
There is a question, where is our sport and where it is going. I am from Slovakia, the 5 mil. residents country with approx. 3800 pigeon racers. I am also a small retail store with all goods for pigeons and I speak on daily basis with fanciers. Problem is, that our market is shrinking as well as the sport. Prices of medications, vitamins, minerals, special feeds etc. are very high. Basketing prices are high as well. Just for example, 65% of all racers in Slovakia are retired people, with average pension of approx. 350€ a month. To basket 1 pigeon to let say to race from Germany cost you 1€. To get basket for a season for older pigeons cost 150€ (1 basket = 30 pigeons), basket for youngsters is additional. If one wants to race 60 pigeons (older categories) and let say 150 youngsters, its a simple math. With few pigeons, especially youngsters, your selection is very limited and so on. Times, when racers used wheet, barley, corn, sunflower and some peas as a all year mixture and mostly from their own fields are far gone. I am not even touching purchases of breeders from western Europe.
Anyway, we have still fun and if we find the way, how to put more prize money to motivate more racers, will be even more fun.
Good luck and best regards,
Bob.
4 me pigeon means business, a hobby that i earn a little amount of money. “buy and sell” i do not have a regular job so i need to be resourceful to support myself even my hobby w/c is pigeonracing.me and my bestfriend finance to buy dozens of pigeons who lost in race at taiwan. we have a contact(tribes people) who lives in a northern part of the philippines the “bataan island” a small island near in taiwan(60kms distance from taiwan) on their last lap of race pigeons must pass through in this island. many stops here because of hard rain, strong winds and storm that their encountered in the middle of the sea.we all know that the competiton in taiwan is very tough, the race must go-on even on a disaster wheather. u know guys i luv the taiwanline, let me share this to you if u dont mind. by 2007 me and my partner try to use taiwanline, so we entry only 2birds on 2008. the lastlap derby race is very tough, birds encountered strong storm and hardrain over six hundred birds have been released but suddenly only “1”bird has arrived luckily its mine its our bird. by 2008, another batch of pigeon delivered to us came from “bataan island” i select a couple of bird to breed again. after i produce a pair of youngster we sell it all again. lastyear, is the judgment day for my (2)two new youngsters, i entry and i race again. on our first lap of derby race a (250km)race another bad situation happens, birds encounter a storm and hardrain on their way.. over two(2) thousand birds have been released and only four birds has arrived on that day. again, the first bird who was arrive is mine, its our pigeon. we became lap championagain.. u know my best secret is “i always beliv for what im seeing” im talking about the external qualities of the bird. if u will see the birds that i luv to choose does have good and clear eyes(pearl eye) mad face, medium strain,short neck bec.of broad shoulders and VERY THICK SHOULDER WING. thats why strong winds doesnt throw them out on the track race and even rains wont fail down in race bec of this qualities. its a pleasure to me to share this to you, and thats the main reason why i luv this sports. “i luv winning and sharing” thank you!
hi Chris.
I am brand new to your web site.I live in Christchurch New Zealand.Age 56 years, I have owned pigeons since I was 11.Would have owned them earlier but my father wouldnt let me keep any until I sneaked a pair home.
Pigeon racing in Christchurch is quite strong but like many sports today it is quite a struggle to get the young people interested.
The other factor is the expense and the animal husbandry expertise required.
Of course there is the age old problem of the older fanciers not wanting to help new fanciers for fear of being beaten.
The main thing I dislike about pigeon racing is culling, in fact I hate it.
As I have improved my birds over many years the young bird return percentages have gone up markedly,especially this season with about 95% returned from races.
So with our breeding season beginning in August some sacrifices will have to be made to make way for the new youngsters.
Will have to try and keep the new team very small this year.
Our federation is quite strong and owns it’s own trucks.NZ pigeons have to be quite tough as NZ has some quite fickle weather,probably one of the few countries in the world where you can quite literally get all four seasons in one day.
Christchurch is normally cold and wet in the winter with the odd snow storm down to sea level,spring is also normally cool.Christchurch summers can also be fairly cool until February/March when temperatures can reach into the high 90’s.Autum/fall can be quite warm and mild too.
Most lofts are generally well closed in due to the unpredicatable weather paterns.
Most proliffic strain down here are Janseen or Janseen crosses.
I don’t race many Janseen/crosses myself,have my own NZ blue chequer middle distance strain which can do quite well in most weather conditions/occasionally they have won sprint races when our seaside location is favoured by the wind.
Take care.
Regards from Jeff.
I am new to pigeon racing. I found out about this sport after buying 4 pigeons from my local feedstore and no one there could tell me anything about how to take care of them..so I did research on the internet and found out how to properly house and take care of pigeons and in the process discovered this sport. For me being new the biggest obstacle to pigeon racing is the cost. I am “hooked” and will overcome the the huge costs but it is a burden. A unikon clock is $1000..club fees, AU membership,cost of feed, cost of medicines,cost to ship birds for races,cost of materials for building a loft, on top of supporting a family and a mortgage in a down turned economy adds up. No worries though..I love my birds and plan to keep taking it one day at a time.
As far as the future of pigeon racing I believe if they ever develop the technology to race pigeons with micro gps leg bands in realtime then the popularity of the sport will boom. People could then watch online anywhere in the world via the internet and web enabled cell phones pigeon races…It would be better then Nascar, Horse racing & Greyhound racing combined. Everyone anywhere could access the bio and history of thier favorite bird online and wagers and odds could be placed in Vegas and Atlantic City..it could be bigger then its ever been before. Once these kids realize raising a champion bird can bring in the money they’ll loose interest in xboxes & playstations and they will pick up the training basket. People said online gambling would never work…and the creators of those sites are multi-millionaires now. Once pigeon races are broadcast live online in realtime and you can track the weather conditions and any birds flight path, past performances, heredity then I believe this old sport will be reborn into the “Main Stream”. Prize money has a way of opening peoples minds past bad stereo types of “flying rats” to the more accurate “Thoroughbreds of The Skies”..and in a pigeon race your odds of winning are better then in any lottery.
Hi Jack,
I think you have a valid point and I also forsee a future where hi-tech equipment will play a major role in our sport. Imagine you can see your bird fly with the pack and imagine the exitement of the final stretch to home and imagine the fear and drama expierianced by those watching the race on a monitor when the pack are under attack by falcons etc. It is mind boggling to even immagen this but I think it is closer than we think. I agree with you that the pigeon racing sport will become a multi million dollar buisiness if this can be achieved. There are no jockeys or reverees to cook the results so people will bed freely and the action will be mind blowing.
I think this sport is growing in areas where the local fanciers are interested in seeing it grow. If your local club and combine is not growing, then all you need to do is start doing something about it. The challenge is, that many people would rather sit back and whine about how their club or combine sport is in decline, rather then get out of their chair and do something about it.
As far as some of the posts claiming the sport has gotten “Too Expensive”…I think the reality is, many people who are currently in the sport and claiming it costs too much, simply do not make enough money. Odds are, they could not afford to play a few rounds of golf a week either. I suspect that such folks would be whining that the sport of golf has gotten “Too Expensive ” as well.
Hi Chris
I agree with most people that our sport is dying off because, it is becoming to expensive.
The realy good flyers ask for to much money when bying pigeons for stock.
Pigeon racing should be a hobby not a full time job,as a lot of pigeon flyers are.
A new flyer once told me he tryed to bye pigeons from different flyers and it started to get to expebsive so he gave up.
I beleve that the older generation of pigeon flyers need to help the new generation,on how to race pigeons,the art of racing pigeons can be very hard
Every bit of information is costley ie books,videos, etc.
Back in the sixtees when I was a kid of 8,the only information you could get was talking to older flyers and so on.
Now a days we get information on the net,so we are cutting out the older generation
with all there fast amount of knowledge,there is nothing like arranging to go and see another pigeon flyer at his place and talking to him on the art of pigeon racing,and seeing how he races his pigeons,how the loft is set up etc,seeing is beleving.
Lets get back to pigeon racing being a hobby not a full time job.And help all new flyers as much as possible with goos solid information.
its gettin bigger and larger here in the philippines. we have 65 clubs raising and rising.. next week our training toss will start so hope to see you guys again in raceday even on finals. gudluck and “mabuhay”!!
Hi Chris, We in Indonesia play different types of racing. It is encouraging to witness that more and more young people are involved in the game. Racing pigeon as we commonly known (homing) is not that popular.
The way we race is unique and I think can not be found in other parts of the world.
Depents on which part of the world,I am sure that in countries like Bulgaria and the countries next to it, our sport is growing.Ironicly I can;t say the same when I talk about my country Malta.One of my happiest season was last year 2009,we started a new pigeon racing club in my erea and since we have no money to buy the premises I allowed my garage to be used for basketing and clock setting.By the end of the season the police came to stop us from doing this,they say we have no permision.All was invain telling the autorities that we where doing nothing wrong,they wanted us to stop so we had to stop.With difficulty we encouraged some lads to take pigeon racing instead of doing drugs,we gave them pigeons,material for the lofts and nearly everything they needed,we nearly made it with them but even this it’s nothing for the autorities.How, may I ask ,can someone encourage new blood to this hobby.Since here we don’t have back gardens nearly all our lofts are kept on the roofs(we have flat roofs)Again the autorities wants us to apply for a permission,when they know that no one can get a permission to keep pigeons on the roof!!!!It’s so complicated here that you don’t need a lot of thinking to conclude that our hobby is dying,or beeing killed!!!!
Yes, I’m afraid the sport in my area Swansea, U.K is slowly but surely dying.
Very few youngsters seem to be taking up the sport. I only know of two new members starting up in the area over the last couple of seasons. There were several clubs in the area in the 70s that had large membership, but for various reasons, retiring from the sport I believe being the biggest example they have all dwindled down to clubs running with just over the bare amount to keep the club running. Any movement of membership would result in the club having to fold. I don’t know if the cost of setting up with the weekly subs that holds them back or there is no general interest in the sport. Very few youngsters these days ask about the Racing pigeons (where are you sending them ? or how long does it take for them to home etc ??) Although most clubs in my area have received various grants for new equipment clocks, panniers etc they have not I believe used some of the cash to try and recruit new members to the sport. i.e Advertising Free membership and reduced fees, help with birds etc
yours in sport
Rob