Found a young dove tonight

[werdnal]

Originally Posted by thecafeguy

Some interesting stories guys, well the owner who actualy lived a mile away in the same town came and collected it last night, he checked her over and she did have a mite on her and there was a couple of very small blood spots on the tail tips but other than that we couldnt see any damage at all anywhere else, i asked him what happened and he told me he accidently knocked a large length of wood over that was propped up while tending them and it startled them, about 8 birds flew off and around the house but 3 never came back, now theres just 2 missing, i hope he didnt ring its neck cos i would of kept it.

So a happy ending, thanks to the internet this bird found its home, thanks for the advice and tips guys, you know i always thought it was a strange hobby but since i found this bird ive realised it can be very rewarding, the guy told me this particular bird can do backflips and stuff, i was amazed at some of the stuff and i can see now why its such a popular hobby.

All the best.

If it does "back-flips" then its either a Birmingham Roller, a Tippler or a Tumbler. We used to have Rollers ourselves, but they fly very high to do their "tricks" and having a resident pair of perergrines in a local quarry, we lost several pigeons to them, so gave the rest away to a fellow keeper, in exchange for some of his white doves which stay low and therefore not so much at risk of becoming perergrine food!

This type of pigeon are kept as pets, not racers, so I doubt he would have wrung its neck. Their homing instinct is not good, so if it flew off in a panic it just got lost and didn't know where home was. When we first got our Rollers, one of them ended up on a neighbour's roof about a quarter of a mile away - we could see her with binoculars, but she didn't seem to know where home was. She came back the following day when we let the others out and she saw them.

Its great having pigeons and doves as pets, although we are lucky not to have any near neighbours as they might not approve. We have bred different colours together over the years and got a lovely mix of different ones now. They are easy and cheap to keep, but I wouldn't recommend a dove cote as they don't really give them enough room or protection from the weather. They also breed all year round, so we have to take their eggs away, otherwise we'd be overrun with them.

Pleased you had a happy outcome for your little friend!

[Ladywell]

This reminds me of an experience I had with an exhausted racing pigeon which I arrived where I worked just before a Bank Holiday - this was avery tired and emaciated bird which was going to take time to recover. I contacted the owner, who lived in Bedford,(I live in Derbyshire) who asked me to put it on train and he would refund my costs. I refused on 3 counts - thought it would die in transit, our nearest station was 25 miles away and I didn't know if I would get the cost back (quite expensive). I brought it home and fed it over the weekend and released it from home when I felt I that it was fit enough - low and behold it appeared back at work three days later , stayed a couple of days and then disappeared. About 3 weeks later I got a call from the owner to say it had just arrived back - fit and well!! Clever birds!!