Pigeon keeping

Taming your first pigeon

Pigeons live in big towns. Throw them food (bread or seeds) and keep feeding them. Once they've eaten about 20 items of your food, one decides it trusts you and becomes yours. Your first pigeon rides on your shoulder and follows you about.

Command	What it does
/pigeon list	All your pigeons
/pigeon info	Level, XP, energy, trick skills, pedigree and race record
/pigeon name <name>	Name your pigeon
/pigeon toggle	Send your shoulder pigeon off to roost nearby, and call it back again
/pigeon take <name>	Swap which pigeon is with you
/pigeon home	Send your pigeon home to its loft
/pigeon release [name] confirm	Let a pigeon go for good

To keep more than one pigeon you need a loft. Every new pigeon is a cock (♂) or a hen (♀).

Building a loft

Craft a Pigeon Loft from a barrel, a feather and wheat seeds (any arrangement). Place it inside a roofed shed or attic: the room around it becomes the loft, and its doorways and windows are how pigeons fly in and out.

Give your pigeons somewhere to sit:

Spot	How to build it
Perch	A fence post, wall, bottom slab or trapdoor
Box perch	A 1-block cubby with a roof and two walls
Nestbox	A 1-block alcove with a roof and three walls (needed for breeding)

Each perch holds one pigeon, so the number of perches is how many pigeons the loft can keep. After building, run /loft scan. You can also mark the spot you're looking at with /loft perch add [perch|box|nest] or /loft perch remove. /loft shows your loft's details.

Pigeons living at the loft:

• sit and hop between perches;
• fly laps over the loft;
• sleep on their own perch at night.

Right-click one to see its details, or [Take on shoulder].

Loft upgrades (build inside the loft, then /loft scan):

Upgrade	Build	Effect
Water trough	A water cauldron	Energy recovers 1.5× faster
Feeder	A composter	Breeding is 25% quicker
Bath	Water directly below a loft space	A small racing speed bonus

Training

/pigeon train: your pigeon lands in front of you. Look at it and give a cue:

Cue	Trick	From level
Crouch	Recall: comes back to you (and ends the session)	1
Jump	Hop	2
Turn a full circle	Spin	3
Punch the air towards a distant tree or roof	Perch: flies there and waits for Recall	4
Drop an item near it	Fetch: brings the item back (it never loses it)	5

• Practice: each trick has its own skill. An untrained pigeon often ignores you or gets it wrong, and it gets better the more you practise.
• Levels: successful tricks earn XP towards levels 1–10.
• Treats: right-click your pigeon with seeds just after a good trick for bonus XP. Bird Seed is worth double.
• Energy and boredom: pigeons get tired (energy comes back over a few hours) and bored of the same trick, so train a little each day and mix it up.

Breeding

A cock and a hen living in the same loft will pair up:

1. With seeds in the loft barrel and a free nestbox, the cock flies out and comes back with sticks, and the nest builds up.
2. The hen lays 1–2 eggs, and the pair take turns sitting on them.
3. The eggs hatch into squabs, which grow and leave the nest as new level-1 pigeons. They take after a parent, and occasionally look like something new.

Right-click a nest for its status, to [Collect eggs] (keepsake Pigeon Eggs) or to [Destroy nest]. /loft breeding off stops breeding.

Pigeons bred in your loft keep a pedigree (sire, dam, breeder and generation), shown in /pigeon info.

Carrier pigeons

Letters: /pigeon send <player> <message>, or /pigeon send <player> to be asked for the letter in chat.

Who carries it:

1. Your own pigeon from level 6, free.
2. Otherwise a trained pigeon hired from a public loft nearby (the fee goes to its owner).
3. Otherwise a wild pigeon, for a small fee.

How far it flies:

Level	Range
6	Up to 1,500 blocks
8	Anywhere in the same world
9	Other worlds
10	A third faster

Delivery:

• The pigeon flies to the recipient, lands in front of them and waits to be right-clicked.
• If they're offline or indoors, the letter waits in /pigeon mail.
• Afterwards the pigeon flies home to its loft.

Packages (your own pigeon, level 7+): /pigeon send <player> package opens a parcel window.

• What it holds: 1 stack at level 7, more at higher levels.
• Confirming: click Confirm twice. The first click shows exactly what will be sent, and changing anything cancels it.
• Nothing gets lost: closing the window, logging out or a server restart always gives your items back.

Hiring out your pigeons: /loft hire <price> lets other players hire your level 6+ pigeons for letters, and you get the fee. /loft hire off stops it.

Trading pigeons

/pigeon crate <name> packs a pigeon into a Pigeon Crate. The pigeon must be on your shoulder, or at your loft while you're there. The crate keeps everything: level, skills, pedigree and race record. Trade it, sell it in a shop or give it away. Right-click the crate to let the pigeon out: it goes to your shoulder if it's your first pigeon, otherwise to your loft (which needs a free perch).

Pigeon racing

Owners release their pigeons from the same spot, and they race home to their own lofts. Speed is measured in blocks per minute, so lofts at different distances race fairly.

Command	What it does
/race create <name> [entry fee]	Start a race. Where you stand is the release point
/race enter <race>	Enter the pigeon on your shoulder. Be at the release point (within 32 blocks); the pigeon must be level 4+ and your loft at least 200 blocks away in the same world
/race leave <race>	Take your pigeon back out before the start
/race start <race>	Organiser: release the birds
/race bet <race> <player or pigeon> <amount>	Bet on the winner
/race cancel <race>	Organiser: cancel and refund everything
/race info <race>, /race list, /race top	A race's details, current races, and the all-time leaderboard

• What makes a pigeon fast: level, trick skill, energy, a loft bath and a bit of luck.
• Prizes: entry fees form the pot, paid out 70 / 20 / 10 to the top three.
• Bets: bets on the winner share the betting pot. If nobody backed the winner, everyone gets their bet back.