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Iranian Highfliers are one of the easiest breed of pigeon to care for and breed,their simple diet and hardiness makes them an ideal breed of pigeon but unfortunately since they are newcomers to this country ,pigeon fanciers don’t know a lot about them.
To my knowledge the first Iranian highfliers were imported about 12 years ago,the birds I’m talking about here are birds that were imported from Tehran the capital city of Iran where these birds have been kept for hundreds of years and pigeon collections have been handed down from father to son and so on.
These birds have a very simple diet and they perform great on this simple diet ,the birds are fed Millet (white Proso) only and that’s the only type of feed they get all their lives ,I’ve seen some birds well in to their 20’s so I guess they get all they need out of this diet.
Since I started keeping these pigeons in 1996 in Los Angeles ,I tried a few other pigeon mixes but none were good as the millet,since these birds are endurance birds and fly for a long time ,they need a lot of carbs and millet gives them that and more .
I usually keep around 300 birds and they all get millet except when it’s breeding season,once the birds are paired up in their breeding boxes they get a mixtures of 60%Vetch,30%Safflower and 10% Wheat until they are done raising their young .
I start pairing up my birds the end of March and am usually done by the end of June ,two clutches a year are all I get out of my breeders,now don’t forget these birds can live 20 or more years but if they produce a lot of young their life span is reduced because of the stress .
I have some birds that are over 10 years old and they still produce great fliers and I’m sure they will keep doing that for at least another 10 years.
The young are taken out of the breeding boxes when they are about 24 to 25 days,at this time they can eat on their own but still can’t fly and that is the best time to settle them.
I usually designate a coop to the babies and keep all of them together with food and water available at all times,they feel much more secure when there are a lot of them together.
In the morning I let the new babies out in the yard and let them explore their surroundings,at first they are pretty scared and they huddle in one corner but soon they start to walk around and get to know their home.
Since 1996 I’ve bred thousands of babies and all of them were separated at 24 to 25 days and I’ve not lost a single baby due to starvation ,I know a lot of my friends let the young stay with their parents longer than I do but most them lose some of their babies because it’s a lot harder to settle them when they have started to fly .
My young birds are let out for a few hours a day until they start to fly up and down the coop,at first they go for short flights but that is good because not only they are making their muscles stronger ,they are also getting to know their coop and that helps them find their home after flying long hours.
These birds are endurance birds,they are bred to fly long hours in hot and dry weather ,Tehran’s weather is very hot and dry during summer and these birds do great ,I’m lucky to be in Central California since the weather is just like Tehran’s weather in summer time ,some days the temperature can be over 100 degrees but that doesn’t bother these great fliers .
All the competitions in Tehran are held in the hottest month of summer ,if these competition birds are flown any other time of the year ,they fly all day and end up staying up at night and getting lost ,that’s why the good competition birds are usually flown about 2 months out of the year ,one month before the competition to get them in shape and the other month to fly and compete.
Even though keeping these birds is very simple ,training the babies is a whole other story,these birds perform their best when they fly solo so if they are flown in kits when they are young they don’t fly as good as they should.
Iranian Highfliers do not start flying long hours until they master the art of tumbling and even though tumbling is something that’s in their genes they have to practice a lot to get it right so if they are flown in large groups they don’t bother to work on their tumbling instead they concentrate on staying together and that is not good.
When I start flying the young I usually fly 2 or 3 birds and let them fly ,if they climb high I release a few more and if not I wait until the first group lands and then I release the second group ,the first 2 months of training are very important and it could make or break a bird,having great birds is only half the battle ,the other half is the training.
Depending on bloodlines,young birds should start tumbling within the first 2 months of flying ,some might take longer but I usually get rid of the bloodlines that take a long time to tumble ,I have some bloodlines that tumble great within a week of flying so to me it’s not worth wasting a lot of time on birds that take a long time to tumble.
Once the birds learn to tumble they can be let out all at the same time and by then they have learned to fly solo and they start to separate from each other as soon as they are up,if they learn to fly in large groups when they are young ,it takes a lot of hard work to break that habbit and most people will give up before the birds are flying solo.
Good birds are a wonderful sight to see in the air and I’m sure 99% of pigeon fanciers will fall in love with this breed if they see them fly,they fly very soft but don’t get me wrong ,they are not easy targets for the hawks and give the hawks a run for their money .They stay on top of the house no matter how high they climb so if you look up hard enough you’ll be able to find your birds up there,the most interesting part of their flight is their tumbling ,right before they tumble they go in to a vertical climb and once they reach the height they want then they start to tumble ,the vertical climbs could be anywhere from a couple of feet to over 50 feet and the number of tumbles depend on the bloodline and that could be anywhere from one to about 8 times,3 or 4 tumbles after a good vertical climb is desirable.
If you decide to give these great birds a try ,you don’t need a lot birds to start with ,all you need is 2 pairs of real good unrelated birds ,make sure you ask around and talk to a few people before getting your birds,unfortunately there are a lot of garbage birds out there and some are even crossed to other breeds and the crosses are not worth keeping ,if you find a good breeder don’t be shy to ask for references ,if that person has some good birds I’m sure there are some people that would vouch for them.
If you start with bad birds the experience will be very disappointing one and that is not what these birds are about.
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Breeding season is getting close and the excitement is building up,even though I still have about 6 weeks before pairing up the birds but a lot of planning goes in to breeding .
I start breeding my birds around the middle of March and for Central California that is the best time ,I used to pair up the birds January 1st. when I lived in L.A. but this area gets a lot colder than Southern California and first time I bred my birds in January in this area about 90% of the eggs froze so I learned my lesson.
As I said before a lot of planning goes in to breeding good Iranian high fliers ,first and foremost is knowing the birds you are breeding ,you have to know exactly how every bloodline performs and that is how long they fly ,how they tumble and the length of the vertical climb .
There are so many do’s and don’ts involved,the most important thing to stay away from is inbreeding and linebreeding ,these birds are performance birds and when they are inbred performance is the first thing to go .
I have 35 breeding boxes so I’m limited to that number but have over 100 pairs of good breeding stock and that makes the breeding much more difficult.
The ideal breeding pair should produce 2 babies that both will perform ,of course that is easier said than done ,even when 2 good birds are put together they don’t always produce great babies ,sometimes one flies good but the other doesn’t so that is not a good match ,the parents are separated and paired to other bloodlines and the babies are tested and that is a very time consuming task.
This is my fourth year breeding and testing birds in this area and I have about 15 pairs of proven breeders ,these 15 pairs produce babies that will fly long hours,tumble great and have pretty good vertical climbs so they are ideal.
On the average I get about 5 pairs of birds out of 35 pairs that produce babies like these and once a pair has produced great performers they will go together every breeding season.
All the other pairs that didn’t produce the desired babies will get paired up to different bloodlines the next breeding season to be tested again .
The reason I start planning early is because I have to match up pairs according to their abilities,if 2 bloodlines that tumble a lot are put together they will produce babies that tumble too much and that will stop them from flying long hours,I always try to pair up birds that one has longer flying ability with less tumbling and the other flies good and tumbles a lot ,now remember these birds have to be able to fly over 8 hours in 90 degree+ temperatures .
Producing nice looking birds is another fun thing to do but looks are second to performance ,I’ve culled a lot of good looking birds in the past because they didn’t fly good ,in my opinion looks are the icing on the cake .
Most Iranian high flier breeders don’t care about a bird’s looks but they are limited to the available bloodlines so they don’t have a choice ,that’s why every year I try to locate as many good birds as I can and add them to my stock for testing ,I’m lucky to know a lot of Iranian high flying breeders and most will trade their bloodlines with mine and that is a win win situation for everybody.
I visited a friend in L.A. last month and he gave me 5 birds and these 5 birds are from 4 different bloodlines that I didn’t have ,even though I have enough different bloodlines to keep me going for the next 20 years I liked these new birds because of their color ,all are almonds and according to my friend great performers ,almond was the only color I didn’t have in my coops so right now I have just about all the colors and can produce the almond color in the different pattern I have ,my goal for this year is Crested Almond saddles.
My standards are high when it comes to breeding these birds and about 70% of the babies are culled before the year is over ,the goal is to produce long flying birds with great tumbling and vertical climbs also birds that land right on the coops after they are done flying ,any birds that don’t land on the coops are culled immediately ,if they are not culled they will teach the other birds to land where they land and that is not good.
Last year I got a call from a guy that his birds were landing in the trees and he wanted some help with that ,I told him to get rid of all of them and start over again ,it’s really hard to break a bad habbit and an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure.
I usually get 2 clutches a year out of my breeders and that’s about all I need ,getting more than that puts the birds under stress and that shortens their life spans ,if these birds are maintained right they should last over 20 years and right now I have some birds that are well over 10 years and still producing great babies.
One of the best things about this area is the fact that there are no resident Cooper’s hawks or any Falcons but full of Red tailed hawks and these hawks not only don’t bother my birds but they also keep the pigeon eating hawks out of this area ,I’ve lost only 2 birds to hawks in 3 ½ years and that is really good .
I remember when I lived in L.A. the hawks were really a big problem and some days they took 8 birds and the good birds were the first to go since they flew too long and the hawks had more time getting them .
The first year in L.A. I bred about 450 babies and in less than 6 month only 35 birds were left in the coops and those were the smart lazy ones,another friend had 250 babies and in 4 months he had 3 left ,I know a lot of you know what I’m talking about since the hawk problem is so wide spread but unfortunately it’s a part of this great hobby and we can’t do much about it .
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A while back a good friend of mine who is involved in raising and showing Oriental rollers was telling me it would nice to start entering Iranian Highfliers in shows and naturally my answer was a big NO.
First, there is no standard for an Irainan Highflier in a show cage,I have been keeping these birds for 37 years now and I don’t know of anyone that can tell if a bird is good or not by looking at it in a cage,these beautiful birds have been bred for hundreds of years to be shown and judged up in the air against a clear blue sky not in a 16x16 show cage.
Three things make a good Iranian Highflier,first they have to be able to fly long hours ,second is their tumbling ,they have to go in to a vertical climb and follow it by tumbling a few times and third is their homing instinct.
These standards are not something that can be seen in a cage or coop ,the bird has to fly in order to show these standards since a good bird can come in just about any color,it could have a small body or a large one ,the head shape or eye color could be anything.
I have seen a lot of people that think they can spot a good bird in a coop but unless they know the background and bloodline of a bird it’s impossible to tell,I breed a lot of babies each year and I fly most of them and a lot of times they surprise me ,a bird that I think will perform great wouldn’t do much and one that doesn’t look promising does great.
There are a few reason why I don’t want to see these birds as show birds ,first is the inbreeding and linebreeding that happens with most of the show pigeon breeds,Iranian highfliers loose their good qualities by inbreeding and linebreeding,their life span is much shorter,they get sick easily and last but not least they don’t fly good at all.
I have some birds that are well over 10 years old and look great ,they should live another 10 to 15 years without any problems.
Another reason I’m against showing is that the appearance of these birds is going to change as time passes by ,I’m sure all of the show pigeon breeds didn’t look like what we see today 50 or 100 years ago ,some people might enjoy seeing feathers on a pigeon’s foot that are longer than their flight feathers or other features we see in today’s show birds but I guess I must be from the old school and I think we should not ruin a good thing and by changing these birds we are going to throw away all the work the pioneers on this breed of pigeon did .
There are limited number of good bloodlines of Iranian highfliers in United states and they should be preserved ,as far as I know there are no more imported birds from Iran so we have to work with what we have but I still think we can preserve this breed by what we have without line or inbreeding.
In the last 5 years I have tried to collect as many different good bloodlines as I can and every year I try to locate some more by talking to other pigeon fanciers who keep these birds ,some are given to me and some I trade, my goal is to collect and preserve as many different bloodlines as I can .
Every new bird that is added to my collection is bred to one of my proven good birds and the babies are flown and tested up in the air ,if the babies do what they are suppose to do then the bloodline is mixed with my other bloodlines to produce more good bloodlines.
I have found that 90% of the Iranian highfliers in this country to be of bad quality and most of it is because of the lack of knowledge of the people that breed them ,most breeders will breed birds and not test them ,then they breed those babies with other untested birds to produce more junk .
Five years ago I started with about 120 birds from at least 40 different bloodlines and today I’m down to 36 of the original birds,most were not up to standard and were culled but the ones that stayed are the some of the best birds that can be found outside of Iran.
I have found another 10 good birds in the last 5 years that I have added to my collection and will keep looking for more ,I meet and talk to a lot of people that keep this breed of pigeon and unfortunately most are looking for certain colors ,I look for bloodline not color ,good color is something you can get out of your good birds but first and foremost is the good bloodline,since these birds come from a large gene pool you can get just about any color out of them ,all you need is the know how or a friend that does.
All of the knowledgeable people in this hobby are very helpful so all you need is to ask ,I show my birds to lot of friends and fellow pigeon fanciers but I fly the birds so my friends can see what these birds can do up in the air.
I know it’s fun to walk around at a pigeon show and look at all of the different breeds of pigeons but for me it’s more fun sitting around my coop with a few friends trying to find some birds that are thousands of feet up in the air ,I do have a constant neck pain but I can live with that,the joy of watching these birds up in the air outweighs the neck pain.
As far as I know ounce for ounce these birds have more energy to fly that any other breed of pigeon ,I have heard of Tipplers that fly over 16 hours but I have seen Iranian highfliers that can do that when the temperatures are in the high 90’s,these birds do not rest while flying ,they flap their wings from the time they get up until they land ,they don’t ride the wind and they stay on top of their coop the entire time they are flying so let’s keep this breed out of show cages and up in the air where they belong.
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Over the past few years a lot of people have contacted me by either phone or e-mail asking a lot of questions about IH pigeons ,I try to help as much as possible but sometimes I hear things from some of these people that is worth mentioning here.
1- The most common one is diet,a lot of people have told me that they don’t think that plain millet is a good diet and they are afraid that their birds don’t get enough nutrition ,they like the 14 to 16% protein seed mixes.
Fact: Iranian Highfliers have been maintained on plain millet diet for hundreds of years and 20 or 25 year old birds are common ,these birds can also fly long hours some over 10 hours ,if the millet wasn’t good enough how could they do that?
These birds flap their wings over 7000 times an hour and that adds up to over 70,000 for a bird that flies over 10 hours,if the millet didn’t give them enough energy I’m sure they couldn’t do that,I have tried the different seed mixes on my birds and birds that were doing well over 8 hours on plain millet couldn’t even do 4 hours on a 14 % diet and they looked terrible when they landed so don’t change a good thing.
2-The second thing I hear about is breeding for color now you have to remember that this breed is not a show breed and very few people inbreed or linebreed their birds so every IH pigeon could be a result of hundreds of different bloodlines being crossed together ,they have very large gene pools that’s why it’s really hard to predict colors.
Last year I received 2 yellow IH pigeons from 2 different friends and according to another good friend of mine if I paired up these 2 birds together all the babies would be yellow so I did that and got 6 babies out of this pair and not even one baby came out yellow ,I got 4 reds and 2 kites,moral of the story is that you can’t predict colors when breeding these birds without inbreeding or linebreeding so do the best you can and hope for the best.
3-Another thing I hear a lot about is training and flying these birds and that problem is a combination of a lot of things that people do wrong I’ll just mention a few important ones.
Complain #1-I work 6 days a week and am off on Sundays only but my birds don’t want to fly and if they do the duration of the flight is a short one so I only want to keep birds that will fly great if they are let out once a week.
Answer: Good luck finding birds like that and if you do let me know where you found them I would like to get some too. Since these birds are performing birds in order for them to do what they are bred for they have to get a lot of exercise they should fly almost every day to keep in shape, it’s just like keeping a marathon runner cooped up in a small room eating pizza and drinking beer all week and letting him out on Sunday to run the marathon and expect him to win, it does not happen.
Complain #2-I bred a lot of birds this year but they don’t want to fly the way they are suppose to , all they want to do is to fly as a kit.
Answer: Training young birds is the hardest part of keeping these birds and if all the birds are flown together they try to keep up with each other and don’t work on their tumbling and if these birds don’t tumble they don’t fly long.
I always recommend on working with 6 or 8 young birds and fly 2 birds at a time ,if they fly in small numbers they learn not to depend on other birds and soon they’ll be tumbling great and flying long hours.
It’s very hard to break a bad habbit once these birds learn it, make sure the young birds land where they are suppose to ,if they land on a tree or the neighbor’s house get them off as soon as possible or you’ll have a big problem on your hand try to get rid of the birds that land everywhere since they will teach all your other birds to do so.
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I'll add more articles in the near future
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