The "Twice Dead" cock
by: John Vance

In 2001, I returned to flying racing pigeons after an absence of 7 years. The first bird I banded was AU 01 NCI 2900. Both of his parents were out of Verheyen Hofken imports. Regardless of his regal background, he was lost very early in the race season from the 150 mile station.

About 10 days later, I received a phone call from Linda Joneli, one of our club members, announcing that "2900" had been found by a family in Olympia, Washington (about 120 miles away). This family had come upon "2900" while enjoying an afternoon playing in the waters of the Puget Sound.

When they found "2900", he was "flown out" and unable to fly. They picked him up, brought him home, read his band and noticed a phone number on the band and called that number. The number was of course the phone number of Steve and Linda Joneli who were in charge of recovering lost birds for our club. Linda, took the information and gave the family instructions on how to care for the bird and thanked them for their kindness. She then called me and gave me the phone number of the family caring for "2900".

I looked through the yearbook of our state racing pigeon organization and found several contact numbers for flyers in the Olympia area. I called one of those flyers and asked if he would pick the bird up from the family and put it on the concourse shipping truck when it stopped at their clubhouse to drop off the shipping crates from the latest race. I have long since forgot the name of this kind flyer, but I thank him for his help in this matter.

After he picked up the bird from the family, he called to tell me that "2900" was in bad shape and he wasn't sure the bird would recover. He said that he would take care of the bird until Saturday when the shipping truck came through and get the bird on the truck. The arrangements I had made was for the trucker to take the bird "up the line" to the furthest north club in their concourse where Jack Land (the furthest south flyer in our adjoining concourse) would retrieve the bird from the trucker and care for it until I could get the bird from Jack (I am seventy miles north of Jack Land).

Well, the bird was picked up by the trucker in Olympiad, but the trucker did not go to the end of the line and "2900 "did not get delivered to Jack. As best as we can tell, "2900" spent six more days in the truck without food or water. So there you have the events leading to naming "2900" the "Twice Dead" cock. It took Jack 30 days to get "2900" recovered enough to be transferred home to my loft. The bird was in such poor shape that it was unable to stand, eat or drink on its own. Jack had to hand feed "2900" for about a week.

Even after the 30 days in the care of Jack Land, the bird was not recovered. For the first week that "2900" was back in my loft, he flew no higher than to the lowest perch in the loft (18 inches off the floor). It was two weeks before "2900" ventured out of the loft.

Soon he was loft flying for 2 minutes at a time and after several weeks of flying on his own, the "Twice Dead" cock had built up enough stamina to exercise with the race team. By the time training for the 2002 Old bird season began, "2900" had made a full recovery.

Thought "2900" never won a race in 2002, nor placed in the top five in the club, when I did my performance calculations at the end of the year the "Twice Dead" cock had flown eight races and scored more points than any other bird on my race team (all yearlings).

There are two hero's to this story, Jack Land for his exemplary care in the recovery of "2900" and, of course, "2900" himself, who came back from impossible odds to earn his perch for the next race season.

Hopefully, at the end of the 2003 old bird season I will have more to share with you about the "Twice Dead" cock.