Post SHTF Communication: Carrier Pigeon?

Imagine this: A deadly cyber attack strikes the majority of our country, effectively shutting down the grid and all electronic devices.  Your retreat location is 100 miles away and you have no way to communicate with the few members of your community who already reside near the retreat, or do you?  What if one of those members had carrier (or homing) pigeons which he/she could send out to those in the community who were miles away, informing them as to the status of the retreat?  Wouldn’t that be something of value worth pursuing?

Historically, pigeons carried messages only one way, to their home. They had to be transported manually before another flight. However, by placing their food at one location and their home at another location, pigeons have been trained to fly back and forth up to twice a day reliably, covering round-trip flights up to 160 km (100 mi).

I don’t own carrier pigeons but I have been doing some research on them and thought to pass along the info.  After all redundancy is key in all aspects of prepping and sharing ideas opens the door for solutions which aren’t typically thought of.  From what I’ve gathered the process of buying the right type of bird and training it is not something which is done overnight, but one could achieve the capabilities which I described earlier with relative ease given the proper amount of patience and dedication.

Carrier pigeons have been in use for thousands of years, long before HAM radios and camouflage 2 way Motorola radios were around.  Believe it or not these birds are very fast and can cover quite large distances.

Carrier pigeons are one of those bird species that can fly very fast. As a matter of fact, these birds can fly at a speed of 80 kilometers per hour. If they continue to fly for two days, these birds can cover a distance of 1600 kilometers or 994 miles. Based on scientific studies, pigeons used various types of methods in finding their lofts. Usually, they would use familiar landmarks, positioning of the sun and magnetic field of the Earth. Apart from that, pigeons also possess good eyesight and are far better than that of human beings. It is because they can see through ultraviolet rays.

According to information found on Homingpigeonsworld.com, raising the birds really isn’t that hard at all.

It does not require so much time to train this type of bird. However, it requires a lot of patience and repetition to train them properly.

To begin training them, it is best start with young birds and has not flown yet.

1- Put them in an enclosed area that will serve as their fly pen. Make sure that there is water and food in the loft; this will make it easier for the pigeons to associate their loft with being fed. You can do this with your pigeons for about two weeks.

2- Afterwards, you can open the fly pen and allow the pigeons to go out. They would normally fly around and there is no need to worry about it. Once they become more familiar, even if they fly around they would return to the loft to eat.

3- As soon as the pigeons begin to leave the loft for an hour before they return home; you can already take them out for about five miles.

4- When they know how to return to the loft and they have done it correctly thrice; you may begin to double the distance of the training flight. Repeat this method until it can fly about 50 miles.

5- Flight training can be done at least once a week. You may also want to change the direction every now and then. By doing this, they will get used up in flying from all directions. Every time you change the flying directions, you must begin with flight training at five miles from the loft.

Just doing the research for this article has me intrigued, I’d love to hear from anyone who has actually raised and successfully used these birds at their residence.  Mike Tyson, if you are reading this you don’t count.  For more information on where to buy and how to train pigeons check out these websites:

homingpigeonsworld.com

birdsnow.com

strombergschickens.com

Check out this video to watch carrier pigeons in action.  When the internet is slow or non-existant, pigeons are a better option!

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This article appears courtesy of Prepper-Resources.com, one of the premier prepper/survival blogs online today. Whether you are a new or experienced prepper feel free to visit and check out all of the other valuable information posted there.