Aint it Cute!

Nico's family is, to put it lightly, sport CRAZY! When they all retired from a lengthy Softball career, Dirk, his older brother rekindled an old passion of their fathers. Pigeon Racing! Since they are such dedicated sportsmen. No effort has been spared! It has been an interesting past year as they built a huge coop in their back yard, spent every afternoon practicing the flock circling around the house to get them fit, excitedly sat around on Saturdays waiting for pigeons returning from races and Sunday afternoons are now spent allowing 75 pigeons out of their coop to take a salt water bath!

Initially I wasn't fond of planning my weekends around Friday night race entries and entire Saturdays just waiting for a bird to come home, but I have grown fond of these feathered athletes. So much so that I decided I wanted to hand raise one, as a pet.

Only a select few are allowed to breed, usually the top performers in the season, to keep the racing blood strong within the coop. The unwanted eggs are thrown out. But when one of Stevie's ( so named because he is quite popular with the ladies) mates laid an egg that would otherwise have been thrown out, we decided that that hatchling would be the lucky one!

Sunday, 09 November 2008, a little yellow bundle of fluff emerged from its egg! It is so darn cute! It will stay in its nest for 4 days so it can get crop milk from its parents. Then I will attempt to hand rear it. If I succeed I will be able to cross somethig off my 101 list and I will have made a new friend!

I dont have a name for it yet. Its hard to choose a name for a bird because you dont know its sex. Any ideas?

This is Stevie, a proud father



Awe, aint it cute!