United Pigeons Association

	United Pigeons Association is a centre of one of its kind which caters to the different breeds of Pigeons, essentially there are two major breeds of pigeons in India distinguished as High Flying Pigeons and Low flying pigeons. Cities like Delhi, Banaras, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Rampur, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Tonk, Vadodara Surat, Mumbai and other major cities and villages in India have a large number of pigeon keepers. Since the medieval (Mughal Period) times and before that as well there is a mention in the history that India has been a home for flying pigeon breeders. Pigeon flying and breeding was taken up as a hobby by the Nawabs in India post the Mughal rule. Presently too pigeons flying and breeding is a hobby in various parts of India. The unique feature of the pigeons in India is that they are extremely beautiful, And breeds like Lal chhapka, Kasni kanak, White Kagdi, Neelam Kaathwa, Jeera and Sabja are exclusively found in India.
	Largely there are two basic Pigeons breeder in India (a) Highflying Pigeon Breeder (b) Low flying Pigeons breeders. Majority of them are High flyer Pigeon breeders. Gerebaaj is very well known High flying pigeon breed, there are sub breeds in this species like Kalsera, Lalsera, Lal Chhapka, Kala Chhapka, Jeera, Haara, Neelam Kathwa, White Kagdi, Kasni Kanak, Bhathiyara, Udaa, Napta, Bajra, Seluna, Masaal. Taamda etc species are very popular breeds in India.There are unique physical features of these pigeons to distinguish them like eye color i.e. white, yellow, black and dark yellow and legs which are pink and Siyaah panja. Two breeds are very popular in India i.e. Banaras in U.P. and second is the Rajasthani breed. A tournament for pigeons is organized in winter in India between November and January every year and in summers too there is a competition for pigeons. During winter the flying competition takes place between 6 to 7 am, and in summer 5 to 6am, approximately 23 pigeons are made to fly and timings for 20 pigeons is officiated. As per the rule if the pigeons return before 12 in the noon then it is disqualified from the competition. There are two expert adjudicators in place for this competition. The record highest time of pigeon flying has been 200 hours. In certain cities the pigeons which fly till late are considered winners. MISSION :- It aims at strengthening individual and institutional capacity in pigeon conservation and through widespread education and awareness about pigeon. Roughly there are around 386 different breeds of pigeons in India and the credit for keeping all these breeds alive goes to the pigeon breeding community of India. The motto of the United pigeons association is to provide good network and information, advise and financial support for pigeon breeding and health. The idea is to keep the various species from getting extinct and keep the interests of people’s hobby of flying and breeding pigeons alive. To provide platform and organize events and conferences for all pigeon lovers so that they can interact and learn more about the pigeons and share important information about pigeons.

Racing Pigeons

Racing Pigeons -- I didn't know there was such a thing when I was given my first pigeons. As a kid, my first pigeons were given to me by a man named Dale who was working at a bicycle shop. I don't know where he got them but I was more than happy to bottle feed the two week old baby pigeons. That's right, they were bottle fed. To be more precise, I used a pop bottle with plastic over the end and poked a hole in it for them to stick there beaks in to drink. The little pigeons would eat so much they couldn't move. They were spoiled little pigeons! Now, more than 40 years later, I still keep pigeons or should I say Racing Pigeons.

I started my first young bird season in 1983 with a bang.
(First Place 1430 Racing Pigeons)

What makes our family of racing pigeons unique is that for years, like many racing pigeon fanciers, we had pigeons from across the United States, England, Belgium, and Holland. Then, in the early 90’s, I decided to breed only from the six best pair of racing pigeons.

Some of the foundation racing pigeons that made an impact:

85 LOLF 588 BB was from Ed Hinterlong. I met Ed in 1983 while shipping my first pigeon race. The pigeon clock I took to the club was an antique and could not be used, so Ed loaned me a pigeon clock.

Cattrysse racing pigeons from the loft of Kaspers - Van Driel.
General Champion AFD. Amsterdam over 1000 lofts 1974 and 1984.
87 NL 1774569 BC WF SPL 87 NL 2730696 BC WF
87 NL 2730700

A super racing pigeon off John Blindu's "Snow Pair"
88 ESM 7269 BB SPL WF

Racing pigeons from the loft of Marty Ladin
84 FRC 2310 BC
89 FVC 1047 BB
95 FVC 1364 BB

Racing Pigeon 90 Belg 6129259 Originally from Michel Delen and the only dark check pigeon in my loft. I mention this pigeon not only because he produced generations of winning racing pigeons, but this pigeon was also responsible for slowly changing all the blue bars and blue checkers to the current dominate dark check racing pigeon family.

I once received a phone call from an excited pigeon fancier who had gotten racing pigeons from me. He called to tell me that Henry Sadewater, had graded his racing pigeons, and that when Henry graded the racing pigeons that he had gotten from me that Henry asked where he had gotten them and that they were speed pigeons.
Hence Speed Pigeon .com

I hope you enjoy our Racing Pigeon website!
If you have any questions please feel FREE to drop me a note:

All The Best,
Randy Enburg

BB

High flying pigeons

High flying pigeons

High flying pigeon is tradition of our city, Lahore. People are keeping and flying pigeons since long.Very few fanciers keep fancy pigeons, majority keep and breed high flying pigeons (tipplers). The history of high flying pigeons goes back to Mughal era. Its time consuming and tough job to do in the hottest month of the year. According to a rough survey there are about 300,000 high flying pigeon fanciers in my own city, Lahore, which has a population of about 8 million people. You can see lot of pigeon lofts on the roof tops. The cages are built by bricks and normally have flying pen on top of the cage, which has a entrance below. There are few organized clubs which caters the need of competitions among the high flying pigeons. Every year in the month of May and June and again in September and October pigeons competitions are held through out the country. Every club and city have own methods and ways of competitions laid down by them. The high flying pigeons from the city of Lahore, Kasur, Sialkot are popular and known for their flying abilities and performances. Every pigeon flyers developed his own strains, names are so many and color patterns are also so many. Local herbs are being used to enhance the performance of flying tippler. Every flying pigeon fancier normally get guidance and works under the supervision of his teacher known as Ustad. The teacher is normally an aged and experienced flying person who normally won many flying competitions in the past.

Pigeon flown in Kits

There are very few pigeon fanciers found who keep and breed pigeon flown in kits. It is very hard job to train pigeon for kit flying, have own rules and few cities where this sport is very popular. How to train and fly pigeons could be find in some other article on this web site. But every flying pigeon could be trained in the kit.

Racing Pigeons

Homer (pigeon racing) was introduced about a decade. There were three proper clubs were formed in the city of Lahore only. A few pigeon races of about 300 KM and 400 Km were conducted but it could not get popularity here. The reasons being many, mainly the pigeon fanciers get difficult to do tosses to their pigeons, it is more expensive for the pigeon fanciers in Pakistan, this problem could only be solved if the club mange to hold such tosses, whichunfortunately could not happens and this sport has lost popularity. Many new fanciers who turns to be very good pigeon racers have lost interest within one or two years of time. The weather also plays very important role, as our summer seasons starts from mid march till mid October, so very few months have left for the races. The other main problem is that knowledge of good flying homer is very scare, since sport has started about 10 years ago, it takes lot of time and efforts to enjoy this beautiful sport. One of the main problem was calculation of distance also arose and it could not be properly handled. These were the few problems that is why this sport could not get popularity in Pakistan.

Fancy Pigeons

There is only one club which deals with fancy pigeons and it is also not very active these days. There were two fancy pigeon shows held by this club, one in 1998 and second in 2000 (please note that those were the two organized pigeon shows held since we got independence since 1947). All the pigeon shown in the show were mostly imported birds, unfortunately pigeon rings are not made in Pakistan so the spirit of wining is not very much there. I wish some day we are able to organize contest of fancy pigeons produced by our self, wearing the rings of made by Pakistan and are according to the international standards. I am the founder member of the club and was the first general secretary of the club (PAKISTAN RACING AND SHOW PIGEONS ASSOCAITION). The first president of the club is Mr. Akhlaq Ahmed Khan who tried his level best to organize and run the club. I think his efforts are appreciable. Mr. Khan is also very well known in high flying pigeon people. His efforts in promoting the hobby of high flying pigeons are commendable.

The popular breeds of fancy pigeons are modena, king, different types of pouters, trumpeter, runt, fantails, Indian fantails, short face tumblers and racing homers. The popular cities are Karachi, Lahore, Hyderabad, Rawalpindi and Faisalabad. Every city have their own likes and dislikes about specific breeds, but overall pigeon fanciers usually like to keep and breed heavy breeds of pigeons, like runt, heavy breeds of pouters, trumpeter etc.

It is a pity that pigeon fanciers in Pakistan don’t have access to proper medicines for pigeons, mostly rely upon the medicines as we use for poultry. As regard pigeon vaccine for PMV-I we use ND vaccine available for poultry. Although few related medicines are available as they are imported from Australia (VetaFarm). But buyers are very few, pigeon fanciers in Pakistan would buy a pair worth about US$ 300 (which is very high price for Pakistan) but they don’t believe in buying imported medicines for the prevention and diseases of pigeons.

Mostly pigeon were imported from Holland, England and know from neighboring gulf countries like sharjah, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia. We got very good breeds like Indian fantails, Jacobins, budapaset tumbler and homers from sharjah.

Which is the most favorite breed of pigeon in Pakistan, No doubts about the Pouters. The breeds like Pomeranians, Hana (mainly black color and more expensive and favorite is spangle) saxon (only black color, I don’t know why but it is the highly price paid of pigeon in Pakistan these days), german magpie pouter and English pouters are kept by majority of pigeon fanciers. In the summer seasons (in Lahore, where I live temperature goes up to 48 C to 50 C) heavy breeds of pouters have sour/hanging crop problems. Pigeon fanciers usually give them medicated water made of local herbs to keep thebirds cool. I give grip water (given to human babies when they have stomach problems) found very effective against that, but I think if we catch the pigeon from very early stages then it is effective, other wise mortality rates are very high. I think heavy breeds of pouters are very sensitive in the hottest month of the years, because they don’t get the same problem in cooler or moderate months.

A few years back the most popular breed in Pakistan was king, and as it all happened to other kings in the world it went down after three years time. Pakistani as a nation is very inconsistent in every way of life and it also happens in pigeon keeping too. A breed which is very popular one year, the next year it would be hard to find.

The sale of fancy pigeons in Pakistan is very poor. The role of shop keepers who deals in fancy pigeons is very negative in Pakistan. They sells pigeon at very high rates and repurchase them at a very very low rates. They mostly at the time of buying pigeons don’t pay cash to the customers and never gives money on the due date. Since there are very few shops who deals in fancy pigeons, they usually exploit the situations and at a result many fanciers disheartens and leave the pigeon fancy. This situation only improve if there are lot of fancy pigeon clubs, frequent pigeon shows, awareness to general public. Since many educated people are coming to this hobby, I hope the future are very bright.

I am thankful to internet, as it gives me lot of information and knowledge about many fancy breeds kept over the years. I also believe in sharing the knowledge with other fanciers and passed what ever I gain from internet and many fancy pigeon breeders throughout the world.

I have observed that one should specialize in a particular breed. We in our country tries to keep all the breeds and colors at the same time. Result of breeding is poor as the requirements and cares of every breed normally differs with others. Golden rule of successful breeding, keep only limited number of pigeons so you can take care of . I always got very good result by keeping 10 pairs and always bad when I keep more than that, as I could not manage it.

Since we have pigeon shows very rare, so it is also very difficult to find good quality of birds too, majority of pigeon keepers don’t know the exact standard of what he is keeping. It’s a pity that such clubs are not very active. I think we are just keepers of pigeons and don’t concentrate on improving the pigeon we keep. Very few pigeon keepers have good knowledge and command over the standards of breeds, normally old myths and sayings are repeated year after years. Pigeon fanciers normally don’t accept new techniques, latest research and even latest breeds. Things are improving but pace is very slow.

I am hopeful that the future of fancy pigeon keeping is bright. Best of luck to all the pigeon fanciers in Pakistan and in the world.