Wings Over Iowa white racing homing pigeons live in a "loft", the technical term for their home. They need to have a clean, dry, well ventilated home in order to live healthy lives.
Bill custom designed our loft combining the very best ideas from other loft designs throughout the world. Sherri provided design review and listened to hours of "pigeon talk". The main feature of our loft is the use of fiberglass floor grates that allow droppings to fall through the floor onto a bed of lime screenings. The elevated floor grates also allow air to circulate up through the loft and out a ventilation system in the roof top. The loft was specifically designed to accomodate use of these fiberglass floor grates.
Bill constructed the loft with help from family and friends on various stages of the project. Special thanks to everyone who helped. (listed at the bottom of this page).
There are vent windows at the floor level and at the ceiling level on the east side of the loft. These vent windows can be covered with poly-carbonate panels in the winter to reduce drafts, yet allow the loft air to circulate through the elevated floor grates.
There are large aviaries (wire cages on the outside of the loft) that allow the pigeons to be outside and sun themselves, which they love.
The doors that the doves go through from their loft room into the aviary are called "traps" and have 12 inch long CPVC pipes mounted to swing from a copper rod. They are called "bobs" and only swing one way. One trap allows the pigeons to go out into the aviary. The other trap, the "in" trap, is designed to allow the pigeons to just go back into the loft from the aviary. By locking one or the other, we can lock our pigeons in the loft OR in the aviary OR allow them to pass freely in and out of the loft to the aviary. We let the birds out for their daily flight (called loft flying) through a screen door on the aviary screen . When the birds return to the loft, they land on the aviary and enter the loft through a specially designed opening called a "drop traps" that allows the birds to fly down into the loft, but not fly back up and out through the same opening.
We have a large loft to allow adequate space for our pigeons and prevent over crowding.
We mate our pigeons and allow them to nest, hatch their eggs and raise their chicks. Their young are called squeakers because of the sounds they make as small chicks. The nesting process takes place in the loft in a "nesting room" which has twelve nest boxes.
Our white racing pigeon operation utilizes the best facilities, equipment and feed that we can find. We pride ourselves in giving extra special care to our pigeons.
NOTE: Browse through the loft construction photo sequence below to see how the loft was built from start to finish.
