Raising Pigeons

My dad grew up with chickens. Raising laying hens and processing the eggs was a major part of the economy of his family. For a short time he continued that heritage on a smaller scale with his children. I remember having a coop full of chickens – nowhere near the number my dad attended to when he was growing up, but plenty of them. Caring for the chickens, collecting and processing the eggs and periodically harvesting the hens for the pot are some of my childhood experiences.

In addition to a few years of keeping chickens, we always had horses, a dog, often times a calf to care for, and even rabbits. At least one year my older siblings raised turkeys as a 4-H project, but that is another story. Just as many in our community do, in the summer we grew a garden and stored its produce for the winter months. There was plenty to be done on our little “farm” in the rural community we called home. Then there were the pigeons.

Speaking to my older brothers, they aren’t exactly sure of the reason why they had decided to keep pigeons, but the pigeon project started when they were young, and continued into my teenage years. A conveniently available piano box became the first pen. Nesting areas were built, and with access doors and chicken wire in place, it was time to add the birds. Living where we do there was - and is - a surplus of farm buildings teeming with wild pigeons willing to help themselves to the grain meant for livestock. Some of these were the pigeons that began our backyard flock.

Years later, even though we had a well established group of pigeons, from time to time my dad would arrange with a neighbor and we would go out in the evening to locate one or two more of these wild birds to add to our loft. It was a treat to go on one of these after dark pigeon hunts. A large fishing net was placed on a long pole and we would quietly enter the barn to locate our quarry. If everything went well we would have avoided meeting any skunks along the way, and added another bird to our pen. If we were really successful, we would have a brown colored bird to introduce to the others.

The first birds that were brought by my dad and brothers to our pen were kept inside until they had hatched a nest of young. These offspring would know no other home, and their homing instinct would allow us to open the pen often and let them stretch their wings, or whatever else they chose to do, and then close the pen when they were all in for the night. Times are different now in the age of electronics, but as a young boy I remember how fun it was to watch them take flight on their circular route around the backyard.

As our flock grew we added another pen, and several generations of pigeons were raised over the years. Taking care of any animal is an exercise in fate, and it was the same with these pigeons. The occasional run in with their sworn enemy the cat, or worse, a skunk would find a way to get into the pen and reduce the numbers. Near the end of the pigeon raising years, my brother remembers that dad set up a live trap hoping to catch a particularly pesky cat, but netted a skunk instead. These kinds of dangers (to man and pigeon alike) as well as the diverse interests brought on by age as my brothers and I grew up, signaled that it was time to relocate our little flock.

For years afterwards, the pens stood empty, and then they were removed as the space was needed for a new garden plot and for hay storage to feed the bulls or heifers that my brother sends over each winter. I have searched through old albums a bit for a photo that documents this part of my youth, and so far have located only one picture and my older brother found one as well. But even better than a photo, I have these memories of raising pigeons, and am grateful for the moments of reflection that spark such remembrances of my childhood.

This photo courtesy my brother Kent.