Non traditional birds for training?
 

Working with the new pup, but I need some birds.....I have some homers, but they aren't adjusted to the area yet, and I don't want to fly them just now.
I used to be able to get pigeons under the roadways....9/11 has changed that, and I don't have the resources to pay $5/bird for pigeons.
Crow season is approaching......any thoughts on using dead crows as a training aid? What about birds such as starlings, English sparrows, ect (non are protected by law). Right now, I'm just looking at using them for retrieving practice.'
Any thoughts?

When I need Birds to work my Dog.I make Pop Corn.Take my Bate Throw Net.Go to Wal Mart put out the Pop Corn in the Parking Lot.Just wate about 30 minets the Birds come.And I use the net.I get three to ten at a time.When I have twenty Birds I go work my Dogs.

Good Luck Westerner 2 (David)

I used crows to train Nitro the first year I got him. He was retrieving them at 4 and 5 months old. Set up the caller and started shooting. For a portion of the time I let my dad be the only shooter while I worked with Nitro. Can't wait until my kids are older and I can get back to some more serious hunting and dog training.

One of the prior members on here, the name of which escapes me right now, warned me against using crows because they are essentially raptors with hooked beaks that could poke out Nitro's eye. Nitro might have even gotten poked by one, because I saw him shake the stuffing out of one of them. Needless to say, he still has both eyes and we have shot crows a couple more times after that.

That could have very well been me.....I have the scars on my hands from a couple of "Not-so-dead" crows that I went to pick up and finish off....they had other ideas! Black bastards actually drew blood! I don't mess around with that anymore.....take the .22 pistol and finish them off with that.

I wasn't planning on taking her, but rather bringing the crows home (after making sure they are completely, not merely, .....and certrifiably DEAD!:D) and using them for yard training.

Guess I would not use any type bird you don't want your dog to hunt when trained. In other words if he is hunting game birds that is what I use. I have pointers and don't want him pointing crow or anything else other then what I am hunting. Not sure what type dog ya got and different breeds it might work . ?

He is training a yellow lab.

Plus, if you use a pigeon or crow on a pointer for retrieving, how often will you actually come across one of them in the brush while hunting upland birds like pheasant, quail, and patridge? I have yet to have a dog flush a crow or pigeon while we are out upland hunting.

Nope, it definitely was not you. I cannot remember the person's screen name, but if I saw it I would remember it. It was quite a while ago, but the guy posted in this forum quite often, I know his first name off the top of my head, and he and I exchanged quite a few e-mails. Unless you changed your screen name, it wasn't you.

Me, I have never had an issue with a crow pecking me because I have rarely picked one of them up.

We have tons of doves in our area and I do not hunt them with my dogs and it is just what I prefer to do and not the lay of the land so to speak. If ya want to use them go ahead but I don't.
Many trainers do use pigeons on their dogs with no problem but again I would never use starlings and sparrows on my dogs I got enough problems with them bumping them in the field when they are bored and no game birds in the area.

Back when I trained retrievers quite a bit I used dead ducks..actually old Squaws and such..not really edible...uless ya like fish without the bones. I kept 'erm in the freezer to use in the spring and summer.. I guess you could use a pheasant the same way..I know a waste of an eating bird but sometimes ya just gotta do what ya gotta do.

Never thought about the dove issue. That, I can see as an issue because I have flushed them out of tall grass on several occassions. I think they were eating the seeds off of the tall grass. Never flushed crows or pigeons though.

If you train a pointing dog on pigeons or crows, will it point doves too? I can see the correlation between the pigeons and the doves since they are pretty similar.

I guess it is common to use the pigeons for training all types of hunting dogs and I guess I have been lucky in the respect that I have always hatched and raised quail. chucker, and pheasants to use on my dogs and never had to worry about the other birds to use.

The dog in question is a Labrador retriever.....she is a flusher (as opposed to a pointing lab). All I've trained have been flushing dogs (prior to this, an American water spaniel & two chessies). All the dogs previously would run in and flush sparrows/song birds from cover, even though I never used those species for training.....I just figured a bird smells like a bird! Don't really mind too much, either, as I figure their nose is telling them "bird", and to try and correct for a certain species might mean having them pass by pheasants for fear of correction.
I do plan on raising a few quail this summer....bird prices are going through the roof around here. Hope to have some training birds by late summer/early fall.

The prices of the birds is the main reason we aren't "hunting" any game farms around here. They want $10 per quail and $20 per pheasant. Hard to think about putting out 40 pheasants for $800 to be split amongst 4 "hunters" and then to pay to have them cleaned. It is just astronomical. Might start raising game birds myself because I cannot imagine how it could cost that much. Used to be something like $5 per quail and $10 per pheasant some 6 years ago. It really is hard to believe that the cost has increased that much.

Price of everything has gone up....electricity for raising them (in brooders), water, taxes on property....but I think the most influential factor is most likely the price of corn.....it sky rocketed a few years back when everyone was on the ethanol kick as an alternative source of fuel. I haven't followed the price lately, but once prices go up, they rarely go down.
I've also noticed that there aren't as many 'little' producers out there, so the game farms that are buying additional birds are doing so at a higher cost (it's that whole supply/demand thingy:rolleyes:) from fewer suppliers.
I'll continue to go to game farms.....what's my other option here in Michigan? There is no game on the "state game areas", and it takes birds to make a bird dog.......

.....however, I just won't be going as often as I used to.:(:(

I used to go once a year, if that. Haven't been since Nitro was a puppy and that was 6 years ago. Try waterfowling. You usually don't have to pay per bird with that and I hear that Michigan is a great place to waterfowl.

Well one thing for sure..there is no game on state game lands because Michigan has spent and then taxed itself into bankruptcy The state game lands are empty because they have no money to restock . Other states are following in the footsteps..or have preceded Michigan into the sinkholes they are in. There are not many states that are solvent right now..even Wyoming with all the gas coal and oil is on the verge.. but the feds won't let 'em use the resources here is one of the main reasons for Wyoming.. Unhappily when things get rough in a state the Game commissions are usually the first to be robbed of their budgets...and with things tough people overutilize the game resources that are left..looking for a cheap dinner or 2...But one thing you can be sure of..the price of corn..WILL go back down..it never stays up. That is one of the reasons I did quit farming myself..even with a good crop you couldn't make enough money to sustain the profit margin to stay in business

The forecast for corn and other grains isn't looking much like it is going to head downward anytime soon. With China's currency gaining ground on the dollar and China's population, it looks like a lot of our grains are going to be exported to China and the price is subsequently going to rise in dollars for those of us living in the US. Good for farmers, bad for the rest of us that need to eat. While prices for the most part have remained somewhat steady over the past couple of years, food costs have gone up.

At least this is what the economists are saying. Of course, they are only right 50% of the time. Time will tell where the price of grains ends up going.

Well, just an update.....shot some crows last weekend and brought them back home. Hid one in the shrubs and allowed the new pup to scent and find it after doing some work with the dummy......she picked it up and was having a ball with it. Threw it and let her retrieve it a few times; she had a blast!