Are you looking to take up pigeon keeping or do you want to strengthen your racing stock?
If you are in the Leicester area, here are some of the best places to buy pigeons:
1. Louella Pigeon World
A Loughborough-based loft, Louella Pigeon World was started in 1950 by Louis Massarella, a man with a passion for pigeons and horses.
Louis’ eldest son, John, has pretty much taken over the reins at the loft although Massarella senior is still very much part of the business.
The loft is a place for breeding as well as homing birds brought in for resale.
All birds are sold with a three-generation pedigree.
2. Massarella Racing Elite
The Massarella Racing Elite team are from the same family as Louella Pigeon World above.
Michael Massarella is the youngest son of Louis Massarella and set up Racing Elite to concentrate on the boutique breeding of champion and award-winning racers.
Michael works with four Belgian and Dutch breeders and you can read all about each of them on the website.
Unlike the legacy business, Massarella Racing Elite offers birds by auction as well as regular online shop sales.
The website has an interesting and useful watchlist feature if you create a login.
3. Pallatts Racing Pigeons
Based in Wigston, Pallatts Racing Pigeons is a family venture.
The loft is run by a father and son team and they specialize in racing pigeons sourced from Belgium and Holland.
The senior partner, Dean Pallatt, enjoys a reputation as a champion racer and breeder having success in the UK pigeon scene for more than 30 years.
The website screams passion for racing pigeons and there’s a lot of information about the lofts they partner with.
Each bird listed for sale comes with a complete history.
When it comes to the free advertising sites, we found that they were all pretty much on the same level. Although most have a decent set of listings when you search for Leicester, when you look at the details, very few are actually in or close to Leicester.
Having said that, most are within a very easy commutable distance – a favourite area for the Leicester search is Nottingham so if you don’t mind a 50 mile-ish round trip for decent birds you should have some luck on the free sites.
4. Preloved
Anyone can sell anything on Preloved and Pets is a popular category with plenty of listings. It is not an auction site.
Check the About US page for a statement about the site’s approach to animal welfare.
If you are interested in any of the adverts for pigeons for sale, you need to sign up for a site membership. This enables you to contact the seller.
The downside is that you seem to have to create a membership to even click on an advert to view it even if you don’t want to contact the seller.
5. OLCA
As with most other free ads sites, you can view all Olca’s listings at leisure but to respond to an advert, you need to create an account.
Contact is via the site’s own secure messaging systems although occasionally you will come across adverts where a contact number is included in the blurb.
This may not be the prettiest site and its search parameters do not enable tight geographical areas. You have to pick a specific area from all those that are listed under the “Leicestershire” heading if you want narrower search parameters.
At the time of writing, there was a large number of adverts with a strikingly wide range of pigeon breeds.
Just some of those were racing pigeons; Pakistani high flyers, Birmingham rollers, Modena, fantails and dewlap pigeons.
If you don’t mind traveling a little further for the perfect bird you’ve been looking for, here are places with pigeons for sale in Manchester and Birmingham, or you could try buying pigeons from some bigger organisations.
