As I've worked with novice pigeon fanciers, it's constantly brought to my attention how much knowledge more experienced fanciers assume is obvious that is not all that obvious. For many of us our only experience with novice fanciers will be working with our children or with children that are related to us. That doesn't relieve us of the responsibility for helping other novice fanciers that may not be related to us.
Do you give your birds nest bowls? I provide nest bowls for my birds. In fact, I don't think I know an experienced pigeon fancier who does not. Think about it though; why do we all do this? I mean, pigeons will normally build a nest themselves out of straw. All we really need to provide them with is a shelf and some straw and their instincts would lead them to the rest. We're making it easier for the birds by providing them with nest bowls but there's no reason that a person who'd never kept pigeons before would have any way of knowing that giving a nest bowl is a good idea.
What about feeding your birds? I feed my pigeons pelleted feed; I know lots of folks who feed a seed diet. But to a novice there's nothing to tell them what to feed their birds let alone where to get the feed. This is one of the most common questions put to me by novices: what should I feed my pigeons? Where can I get it? I have known people who buy dove seed 1 lb. at a time and they pay $5 for that pound. That probably seems outrageously expensive to many of you. But put yourself in the place of a novice. If they don't know any better what else would make sense for them to feed their birds? By the way, I do try to make sure that the folks I've been mentoring know where to find good feed at a decent price.
Can you remember the first time you banded a pigeon? I can't. However, I'll wager that for most of us we had an adult standing by to help us through the process. Probably most of us were afraid of hurting the baby pigeon in our hand. I doubt any of us just immediately slipped the band on with one quick motion and then put the bird back into the nest.
You're probably thinking to yourself, "Why is he pointing all these things out?"
First of all, there are times when the constant stream of questions from novices can tire the patience of an experienced fancier. Goodness knows I've gotten to that point myself and I have to confess that I sometimes let my mouth go before my brain has time to stop it. If you get to the point where you feel like telling a novice “Buy The Pigeon, start reading, and stop bothering me!”--stop. Think about the people who taught you. Think about the fact that they put up with all of your questions. Think about how many of those questions you asked so long ago might seem dumb now if someone else asked you.
Secondly, novices should be aware that there are a lot of questions that arise in raising pigeons which have no simple, well-defined answer. There is more than one answer to the question of "What should I feed my pigeons?"; in fact depending on your point of view, there is more than one right answer too. If someone asked me this, I'd advise them to feed pellets if they can afford to and seed otherwise. The main problem with seed . . . well, that's another article for another time. The point that novice fanciers should take away from this is that sometimes if more experienced fanciers give you different answers to the same questions, they're not necessarily trying to confuse you or mislead you. Sometimes there's just more than one right answer. And sometimes if a more experienced fancier won't give you an answer it may be because you're asking a question that they don't know the answer to themselves. Patience is a good thing for both the novice and the mentor.
Third, if you can help a novice to get good birds in whichever breed they're interested in then help them. It's hard enough for an experienced fancier with a network of friends to get decent birds without spending a small fortune; imagine the situation of a novice fancier who has to trust everyone to be fair with him or her. Helping a novice to get into your breed will pay you dividends down the road either way. If nothing else there will be one more fancier in the world who likes your breed as much as you do.
The opposite is true for novices; don't expect people to give you (or even sell you) great birds to start with. Most fanciers that have excellent pigeons have worked years on developing bloodlines; it's a bit unreasonable to expect someone just to hand over their years of hard work just because you want to be immediately competitive. We did have a novice fancier a few years ago that spent a lot of money and was competitive pretty quickly. However, he was pretty well set financially and so for him money wasn't really an obstacle. I doubt any novice will regard this as wisdom but there is something to be said for making novice mistakes with birds that are not top-dollar, best-quality pigeons. If I paid $10 dollars for a pigeon and then had it die a week after I got it home because I didn't know how to settle it into a new loft, I'd be disappointed. But if I paid $300 for that pigeon--well what I'd feel would be considerably worse than disappointment.
If you can work with a fancier who has experience with the breed you want to get then great. Again, though, remember that people don't start keeping pigeons to become unpaid consultants. Be careful not to abuse the privilege of getting help from an experienced fancier.
Mostly, bear in mind that raising pigeons successfully is far from being a simple endeavor. If a novice asks you for assistance, you're doing yourself and the rest of the hobby a favor by helping him (or her). Most fanciers I know are quite willing to help a novice--it's not usually the first favor asked that bothers an experienced fancier. If you find that a novice is starting to irritate you, grit your teeth and try to remember how green you were when you started.
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