Nov/December 2025

CHINESE OWLS – Page 24 – Purebred PIGEON Breed of the Issue - CHINESE OWLS Is Coop Training Worth It? By Dick Holmberg I have been involved in several discussions over the years about whether or not coop training Chinese Owls is beneficial enough to justify the time. A couple of the old-timers that helped me get started used to say “if they are going to show; they are going to show”. They believed that calm disposition was something that just came naturally to a bird and if it wasn’t there, you were just wasting time. I may agree that some birds do come by it naturally but I totally disagree that there is nothing you can do if a bird is not one of those. My family of spreads (black, dun, brown and khaki) are naturally tame. Most of my bars and checks are moderate in disposition while my milky and baldhead birds are quite wild. Their natural disposition will determine how much time is needed but any bird can benefit from a little time in a judging coop before the first show. I believe this is especially true in small classes where a bird only has a short time, sometimes just seconds, to impress the judge. Occasionally the best bird in the class goes back to the holding pens because of a bad first impression. Getting a bird used to being handled and moved around with a judging stick while in a judging coop can go a long way in making a good first impression. The following pictures are all of the same young cock. Most birds that are not familiar with being cooped will either stand tall and lean back like they are trying to find a way out as in first picture or crouch down trying to hide as in the second picture. It could take several minutes for them to settle down and assume their natural stance. A bird that has been handled several times, been moved around with a judging stick nu- merous times, and spent hours in a judging coop will take a much shorter time to get into the proper stance like the bird in the third picture. Even if it is a large class that allows plenty of time to settle down, the inexperienced bird will probably go right back to looking like the first or second one when the judge picks it up and moves it. You will not win unless your bird looks like the third one though out the judging of the class. This bird shows beautifully within 10 seconds of being set down after several sessions of training. Give your birds a fighting chance. Spend some time train- ing your birds before the first show. Just do the best ones if you are short of time.•