Casey Vandermeer stole his first pigeons.
"I was young," the Strathcona County man says in his booming voice and flannel shirt, "and I always wanted some white pigeons."
Having grown up around the birds in Holland, he decided to nick a pair of them from his neighbour. His dad made him give them back.
Vandermeer, 64, got his first legal pair of pigeons in 1956. He now raises about 400 pigeons at his acreage just southeast of Edmonton, and is one of the many Edmonton-area residents who have fallen for the birds that some deride as rats of the sky.
These are show pigeons, he says, not the feral ones that plague downtowns.
"It's totally different from the birds that are outside," he said.
Instead of the drab grey of city birds, these birds come in shining copper, iridescent purple and alabaster white. Proud Norwich croppers walk tall with their chocolate-coloured chests puffed out like opera singers. Silly-looking fantails waddle about, their magnificent tails spread peacock-style, and their heads thrown so far back that it's a wonder they can see over their chests.
Strange feathers
Vandermeer steps into the 88-metre long heated shed he built to house his birds. Inside are hundreds of birds separated by gender into caged cubicles, all cooing softly. A small windstorm kicks off as he steps into one of them, sending the birds into a tizzy of whipping wings.
Vandermeer says pigeons have a bad reputation in North America due to their feral cousins, which are seen as disease-ridden and dirty. They're much more popular overseas, he notes, where pigeon lofts are common even within city limits.
There are several hundred types of pigeon in the world and Vandermeer specializes in nine. Some, like his sleek, curious flock of archangels are known for their vivid colour – bronze with black wings in this case.
Others have distinct shapes. He picks up a blondinette – a bird with a black-grey head and white feathers fringed with grey.
"If you look at him, he's got hardly no beak at all," Vandermeer says.
These birds have such short beaks that they have to be hand-fed as babies, he notes.
Vandermeer isn't the only one with strange-looking pigeons here at Wetaskiwin's 11th annual Poultry, Pigeon and Waterfowl Show (held earlier this month). A quick glance down the long row of cages reveals several white frillbacks, for example – birds so covered in frizzy white feathers that they look like balls of shredded Kleenex. Nearby are some Jacobins, whose massive, face-obscuring feathered hoods resemble the fur stoles of Hollywood starlets. A few rows over are the giant runts – a breed of enormous, cage-filling pigeons that could easily pass for chickens.
Speedsters
Judging some of these birds are Cardiff's Roland Zacharias and St. Albert's Fred Hogarth. Dressed in white lab coats, they walk down the rows of cages, clipboards in hand, and examine each bird in minute detail. Their hands are engrained with white dust from pigeon feathers.
"I don't like how soft he is," says Hogarth, as he gently grabs a grey bird from its cage and hands it to Zacharias.
Zacharias takes the bird in both hands and feels it up.
"He's humped up like a banana," he notes, with disapproval. The two make a note on a coloured tag and move on to the next bird.
Zacharias says he got into pigeons – racing homers, specifically – through his neighbour as a kid.
"I became fascinated by them," he says, and he has been breeding them for the last 50 years.
Hogarth, who is a plumber with the City of Edmonton, is getting back into pigeons after a 10-year absence.
"I was interested them when I was going to school," he says, but he never had the chance to own any until the 1980s.
"It was an adrenaline rush to see them come home," he says.
Racing homing pigeons resemble street pigeons that have been hitting the gym – same colouration, but sleeker and more muscular.
"It would be the difference between broomtail ponies running wild and thoroughbred racing horses," Zacharias says.
While most show pigeons are bred for looks, he and Hogarth explain, racing homers are bred for speed.
"A lot of people compare them to the poor man's racehorse," Hogarth says.
Racing pigeon owners will take their birds hundreds of kilometres from their loft and release them to see which gets back home the fastest. A typical race starts in Regina, Sask., and ends in Edmonton. The birds are thought to use magnetic fields to navigate back home, and can reach speeds of up to 117 kilometres an hour.
"Sometimes they beat us home," Zacharias says.
Not all the birds make it. They may run into storms, slam into wires or get eaten by hawks.
"Sometimes you get them home and they're cut wide open," Zacharias says.
The winners earn their owners bragging rights and often prize money.
Showtime
Getting a good show-bird takes years of careful breeding. Breeders look for pairs with specific traits – long legs, good colour and big, baseball-like crops for Norwich croppers, for example – then put them in a private cage and let the magic happen.
Most pigeons will lay about two eggs, Vandermeer says, which hatch into little yellow squabs. Each bird is raised on a mix of high-quality wheat, corn, peas and oyster shells (for calcium).
He puts the best-looking birds in private cages to train them for a show. Norwich croppers, for example, have to puff up their globe-like crops for the judge, while fantails have to strut with their heads back and tails up.
"When you walk in there, you start going 'woo ah, woo ah, woo!'" he says, imitating a pigeon, which triggers mating behaviours like globe-puffing and gets the birds used to showing off for judges.
"The last thing you want to have is a bird that sits in the corner and doesn't do anything," he says.
Unlike other show animals, show pigeons don't undergo much grooming before a show.
"Some people put a little Vicks [VapoRub] on their [birds'] legs," he says, which makes them redder, while others will trim nails or beaks. Fantails are the exception – owners often spend hours weaving their tail feathers for maximum impact.
The birds are judged based on how closely they match the breed standard. With racing pigeons, Zacharias says, that means judging them inside and out.
"They must be beautiful to look at," he says, and they need to have the proper bone and muscle structure.
"Our birds are athletes … if they're out of balance and toppling over, we strike them off right away."
You don't get much out of competitions besides bragging rights, Vandermeer says. Cash prizes are rare outside of racing, and each bird takes piles of time and money to raise.
"It comes to a lot of money, and you don't make any," Vandermeer says.
However, he notes some breeders will buy exceptional birds for hundreds of dollars.
Still, he says, show pigeons are a great way to meet people from different cultures – he's hobnobbed with breeders from Lebanon and Pakistan – and to compete against them.
"I enjoy breeding good birds," he says, and he's always looking to raise the perfect specimen.
Pigeons are also a great way to relax, he says.
"This is my retirement program," he says. He goes out on his loft's balcony, cracks open a beer and watches the birds fly in their outdoor enclosure.
"After you come home, you go to the pigeon loft, and it's kind of a relief."
