Pigeon Fancier? Old Frills are the Best! The Flying Dolls of Fancy Pigeons
Got kids bugging you to get them pigeons? Or do you want pigeons but aren't dedicated enough to commit full time to the sport of homing pigeon racing? Planning to set up a loft for your own small flock, but don't want to shell out hard cash for the more expensive homing pigeons?
Fancy pigeons are like the toy dogs of their troupe. Raising fancy pigeons lets you focus on pimping your breed as the PRETTIEST birds for show competitions rather than races. If you like dog shows and such, fancy pigeon show competition is just as entertaining.
Racing homing pigeons does require some commitment, personal focus time and more resources than you might be willing to spend.
Old Frills or the Satinette
Satinette pigeons are really quite adorable and kids will love these amiable birds. If Tweety Bird were not some yellow canary, he would be better off as one handsome Satinette!
They are magnificent as fancy pigeons, roundish, bobbing heads looking curious always, frilled necks and tiny feathers covering their feet like cute socks. Satinettes have very interesting feather colors that make them even more beautiful.
Old frills (satinettes) are one of the oldest pigeon species that man has specifically bred to retain its distinguishing characteristics as a show pet. Close in family to owls and turbits. old frills has white body, gorgeous tri-color shoulders and a bluish black tail with white spot on each feather. It's white head is rather round and the neck has feather frills along the nape and even on the ruff. like Tweety and has a distinctive beak that is too small for comfort but is as kawaii as it looks.
The tiny beak gives the bird a lot of problems in raising and feeding its young because it cannot pick food very well and carry it into the waiting beaks of its newborn young. Some breeders co raise other long beaked fancy pigeons like Capuchins as an accompnying surrogate to help raise the young of the Satinette once they're hatched and Old Frills can't feed the pichons properly.
Satinette pigeon are hardy birds and are not as high maintennance as they seem except for the feeding of their young. They might not be as smart as homing pigeons and might get baited easily by robbers or attacked by predator birds and cats or snakes because of their poor sense of incoming threats but they still make for the best pets if you can manage to breed them and raise them in a safe and secure loft and environment.
A Fancy Pigeon Loft for your Satinette:
Housing for satinette pigeon can be set up as a regular pigeon loft with the usual spacious requirements but less geared as a receiving or landing pad for returning racers. Each bird you raise needs artificial nesting spaces to live in and comfortable nesting materil like soft leaves and grass. Avoid having anything in the loft that might be damaging to your birds feathers if you raise your pigeons for show competition ( like finer chicken wire that may wound birds that bump into them, choose safe material for your birds ). Important too are the usual loft accoutrements such as perches, or natural branches for the birds to roost and be comfortable where they live.
Knowing the Way Home:
You will still want to train the birds to fly home from relatively short distances away like a block or three but since the birds aren't of the homing type, some birds might be lost if the distance to home is too far away.
Oriental Frills Black Laced Blondinette: A variation of the lovable fancy pigeon, Old Frills or Satinette
Feeding Old Frills:
You feed your fancy pigeons in the same manner as homing pigeons, except they are fed to live and not to race. Homing pigeons are fed as racers so there is a feeding regimen that is structured to provide them with energy before races and nutrients and protein to recover after races. If you raise fancy pigeons, you feed them so their proportions fill out according to the best show standards and avoid getting them fat. If you just raise them as amusement, you must still be careful that your birds don't get fat no matter how mesmerizing it is to watch a stout pigeon waddle around. You don't want your Old frills to get murder-raped by predator birds and animals just because they grew too fat and could not fly away from threats.
A good mixture of quality grains is a good choice for feeding your satinette pigeons. One can also provide other natural foods for your satnettes to nosh on like diced or mushed fruits, vegetables, pellets and seeds and corn. Feed them the Good Stuff always.
For your food containers, there are food troughs or feeding bowls depending on how you want the birds to commune during feeding time. Feeders are a useful way of attracting your satinette pigeon to your garden. Pigeon feeders can be of various types, ranging from seed, suet to syrup holders.
Bird Baths for the Best Pet Experience: Watching Old Frills Bathe
Watching pigeons bathe is the best. Like a living cartoon of Bwoidies elbowing each other for space under the water spray or on the bird bath container and just shaking off the water from their featherd round heads. You can buy special bird baths on pedestals but it may be cheaper to have some kind of running water spout into a holding container where you watch your flock rush into at least once every 2 days to indulge in glorious shower and spalsh-waddling in pool; the feather cleaning and grooming coming afterwards, looking all the while like living Toonies--more so because they are satinettes.
Until our next Pigeon Racing
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