RACING PIGEONS EAT HEMP

An article by Susan McFarland which appeared on 17 January notes that racing pigeons in the US eat hemp...sterilised of course! Hemp is what Capt. Levi recommended in his book The Pigeon.


Scot and Susie Lindsey’s ride home from the Stock Show is a little less crowded than on the way there.
After their show pigeons were judged on health and appearance Saturday, the Lake Worth couple released more than a dozen birds out of the back of the poultry barn. Four were first-place winners.
Away the pigeons flew, homeward bound.
"They’ll be home when we get there," Susie Lindsey said. "I count them when we get home."
So is the life of a racing homing pigeon family.
The couple have been racing pigeons for more than 20 years. For nine years, Scot Lindsey has been the superintendent of the poultry barn at the Stock Show. That makes him the person who oversees the operation.
The trick is to raise the pigeons to know where to call home, so they always return no matter the miles.
How do they do that?
Training begins at three months, and consists of releasing the birds daily outside so they learn to fly on their own.
Eventually, the birds learn that when playtime is over, the ritual begins to call them home.
"We whistle, shake a can and talk to them . . . 'Come on boys!’ " Scot Lindsey said Sunday.
When they hear the call, down they come back, zooming back to their loft for the night, he said.
How far do they fly?
Once their home has been established, the pigeons are driven a little farther and released, progressively flying from 100 to 600 miles.
When released, they go up, circle a few minutes to get their bearings and then head home, Scot Lindsey said.
"The good ones go straight home," he said. "Some take longer than others."
How fast do they go?
A pigeon flight is measured in yards per minute. Winners can fly 1,200 to 1,300 yards per minute, which equals about 40-45 mph, Scot Lindsey said.
"Some have been clocked traveling more than 90 mph," he said.
Lindsey recalled one 324-mile flight of a pigeon taken to Conway, Ark. The bird was released at 6:50 a.m. and got home at 10:05 p.m., he said.
How are competition times calculated?
Today’s tech-savvy world makes things much easier than when Scot Lindsey began showing pigeons in 1989.
A chip is attached to the pigeons and scanned into a system upon takeoff.
When the pigeons get home, another scanner at the entrance of their loft enters the data as they fly by.
"Kind of like the scanner at the grocery store," Scot Lindsey said.
If the pigeon is taking too much time doing victory laps in the air over the house, a fancy pigeon (known as a dropper) is used as a decoy to bring the bird home.
"They follow the dropper," he said. "It lures the race birds in."
What kind of care is involved?
The Lindsey family owns about 300 pigeons. The lofts they are housed in are cleaned and disinfected daily.
Every day, the birds are fed twice and given fresh water. They eat a mix of corn, wheat, safflower, Canadian peas, maple peas, buckwheat rice and sterilized hemp seed.

SHOOTING THE BIRD

As pigeons are fond of hemp, it is no surprise that hemp farmers have their run ins with these birds on occasion. A recent posting on Pigeon Watch Forums is from a hunter who has been asked to shoot at pigeons who are bothering a field newly sown with hemp in the UK.

I might suggest an alternative to shooting, that is use birds of prey. A US gov report recommends one hawk for 200 acres. Most hawsk however are not good at taking pigeons, the falcons are a bit more adept at this, but some hawks do well. In London, a Harris Hawk is employed in Trafalgar Square, and Red-tailed Hawks are famous for this in New York City, though these raptores more usually take large rodents, along with the occasional snake.

POISONING PIGEONS IN THE PARK

Long after Tom Lehrer sang about this practice, it seems about to be implemented in London, where the mayor, Ken Livingstone, is red with rage towards the 'rats with wings' that are so much a part of Trafalgar Square. Current debate on the issue fills papers, with those opposed and those in support all making a noise. Those opposed, short of actually poisoning them, have used a Harris Hawk named Nelson to tackle the problem. This verminator is probably enjoying a meal of squab braised in port wine at this very moment.
His victims, if they were to dine fine, would choose hemp seed, and I admit, I have fed this to them within yards of Nelson's column...on one occasion, after gluttonously feeding on my stash of Cannabis sativa, one flew up directly above. I looked up expecting thanks, and he returned my gaze, and with it, a stream of mute. Splat. No wonder Leonardo da Vinci writes that they are ungrateful creatures.
Nonetheless, I would rather see them in the square. They have squatters' rights and it is wrong to evict them. I say let them eat hemp!

HEMP FOR THE BIRDS

Right and left are images of Carduelis cannabina (adult male). As its name implies, it eats hemp, which is in fact one of the most sought after seeds by graminivorous birds, including finches, buntings, sparrows, quail, crows, pigeons, doves, woodpeckers, thrushes and larks. The Linnet is Palearctic, so you may not see it in North America unless it is a rare migrant, in which case the twitchers well flock like hummingbirds (OK, that's not ornithologically correct, but rather a line stolen from Bernie Taupin, and if one is going to steal a line, it might as well be from Bernie). For those who want to demonstrate their ornithological aptitude, bring some hemp along to the sighting. Hemp is given to birds worldwide, a longstanding practice of which I write in Hemp for Victory.

You might want to show some sartorial eloquence as well; if so, wear hemp threads. Companies such as Minawear in the US and THTC in the UK are now producing T shirts with bird designs.