How to Train Your Budget Pigeon

I don't feed your bird the day it goes home. That way you can start training right away.

Feed throughout the day instead of all at once. Small amounts let you reward good behavior in small increments as it happens. I usually run training sessions after I wake up or sometime midday. When I'm done, I feed my bird from the salt shaker until they start looking around while eating. That's their cue that they're losing interest, not that they're full. They can still eat, they're just not as motivated.

Once training and feeding are done for the day, I just let them hang out with me. I never ask a full bird to do anything. Training only happens on a hungry stomach, and if your goal is free flying, that rule matters more than anything else here.

From there, reward them wherever you want them to be: a couple bites on your shoulder, on a perch, in their nest. You can also pick your bird up, set them down somewhere, then feed them a few bites. Over time they learn that food follows wherever you put them, and they'll start heading there on their own.

Every day I pick something to work on, usually recall. I like to start the day with diapering and a small feed since it's an easy way to ease into things. Here's the recall process:

• Put your bird somewhere
• Hold your hand out and show or shake the salt shaker so they step onto your hand to eat
• Gradually increase the distance they're comfortable traveling, based on their age

Your bird will already associate the salt shaker with food by the time you bring them home, so this part comes quickly.

• Add a cue: hand first, then salt shaker
• To recall on sound, stack a third cue in front: sound (like "come here"), then hand, then salt shaker. Leave a 1-2 second gap between each so the bird has time to link them together.

Always train while your bird is hungry, and don't recall from the same spot every time. Otherwise your bird just learns to camp out there and wait. Move them to different areas so they learn to come to you no matter the setting.

A budget bird gives you an advantage here: since they can't fly away yet, this is a great age to start training outside. Set them on cars, low walls, chairs, tables, anything, and recall them from each spot. Keep changing the location so your bird doesn't learn to expect a recall the moment you set them down somewhere new.

• Only hand feed, never leave food out
• Feed them on your shoulder
• Feed them right after diapering
• Feed them wherever you want them to perch or settle
• Spend as much time with them as you can. Car rides, parks, errands. Take them everywhere.

If a bird that was listening suddenly stops, it just means they're not hungry anymore. I don't chase that with more recalling. I just head inside, or hang outside with them until they're ready again. If they jump down or fly off to explore, I go get them myself rather than recalling them back. We don't want them learning that wandering off is how they get fed.

The recall always comes from you, never from the bird. I only feed mine after I've placed them somewhere and called them to me.

I open every session the same way: hand near my shoulder, shaker out, recall them onto my hand. That's their signal that we're starting and the rewards are about to begin.

Outside of that, I feed them on my shoulder at random, but never while they're excited or trying to jump off. You want to reinforce calm, not restlessness.

It's normal for a pigeon to dislike your shoulder at first. It's small and hard to balance on, so most jump off early on. That's actually why I make a point of feeding about half their food up there. It builds tolerance over time.

Your bird may also jump down on their own to find grit or water. When we're outside, I bring grit with me so young birds get used to me as the source rather than foraging for it themselves. Feeding them once they've landed also helps them get comfortable being on the ground around you, which is exactly the behavior we want.

None of this is a complete training system, just habits that have worked well for me if you want to try them yourself.

Pigeons are naturally wary of being grabbed, and of people walking around them while they're on the ground. Diapering gets a head start on the first problem, since the bird learns early that being grabbed leads to food.

You can take that a lot further with what I call "boomeranging," something you'll see in a lot of my videos where I toss my birds into the air. The idea is simple: every time they fly away from me, coming back gets them fed. Once that's solid, it's what makes free flying outside safe, because a hungry bird will always choose to fly back to you.

• Start with your pigeon standing on your hand. Toss them up gently, step back a couple feet, then recall and feed the moment they land in front of you.
• Increase the distance gradually. Don't push for more than your bird is ready for, and don't try this at all if they aren't hungry. They'll just fly off somewhere else instead.
• Once you can do this reliably from around 10 feet, start throwing them from a grab instead of just a hand-launch: toss them up, toss them away, doesn't matter. Feed every time they come straight to you. If they land somewhere else first, no food.

Don't get discouraged if it stalls out. Even my most reliable birds won't bother coming back if they're not hungry. They won't fly off in that case either, they'll just sit wherever they land, because in that moment they genuinely don't care.

Boomeranging isn't necessary if you only want a house pet, but it strengthens the bond either way, and it's a fun trick to show off.

The other half of building ground trust is just walking around them. Pigeons love being on the ground but are naturally cautious about people moving nearby. Work on this with food, done randomly so your bird can't predict it:

• Walk up to your pigeon, lean down, and feed them
• Walk up, grab them, then feed them
• Recall them out of nowhere, then feed them

Do this enough and your bird starts to expect food whenever something startles them, so instead of fleeing, they come straight to you.