Hands up if you know where the home of pigeon racing is in Europe. Any Belgian readers will already know the answer to this question. For those that don’t, that was a clue. It seems that as the Romans made their way across Europe they based their camps in Holland and Belgium. Historical research proves that the Romans were using pigeons for communications from these early bases.
The Belgians developed pigeon racing into a national sport during the 19th century and the modern racing pigeon is a development of the Flemish Smerle. Racing pigeons are bred, like racehorses, to be thoroughbreds and are related to Dove’s rather than wood pigeons or common pigeons.
A racing pigeon wears an aluminium band around one leg. This gives details of the date of birth and identification number. If it is in a race it has a second rubber band added the night before the race.
Transport to and from the race is undertaken by approved carriers using wicker baskets to protect the birds. These baskets come in varying sizes, but for your dolls house we offer a realistic 1:12th scale pigeon carrier on our web shop.