My name is Garrett Ramsay, and I grew up in rural Perham, Minnesota. In 1993 I found out about pigeons on a bus ride back from a speech and drama meet. I was curious to see what they were about and went to take a look a the homing pigeons. I was immediately in love. Fascinated. I had never heard of racing pigeons and spent my hours after school checking out books from our library and trying to find local contacts. I started with two pair of pigeons, Babe & Paul, and Romeo & Juliet. Paul was an old bird when i got him, and never filled an egg, but lived to be 18 years old. From that humble beginning i got in to homing pigeons quite heavily and then found out about fancy pigeons.
I then started going to all the local homing pigeon shows, went to club and combine race meetings, trained out my birds to 100+ miles, and started going to regional shows, national shows and international shows. My first year showing at the MSPA show gave me grand champion and reserve grand champion of show with two half siblings. I also won a Best in Show at the SMPCA show with a German Double Crested Trumpeter. I also won grand champion with a blue bar English Trumpeter at the ETCA squeaker show one summer. Among these and other smaller wins I ended up at the NPA grand national, the International Bokhara Trumpeter Club in Den Haag in The Netherlands, the Pagaeant of Pigeons in San Bernadino, The ISPA show in Des Moines, and the National Young Bird Show in Louisville KY.
Usually traveling with my dad or Darin Schlief to these shows, made for a fun get away from the colder weather in Minnesota during the 'off season'.
I have come to have dozens of different breeds since 1993, if i tried to list them all i would fall short, but among them i had Birmingham Rollers, Classic Old Frills, Berliner SF Tumblers, Norwegian Tumblers, most trumpeter breeds, Dragoon, Exhibition Homers, Helmets, Giant Runts and many other breeds with much smaller numbers.. I have a great appreciation for many breeds, especially those I have tried to raise and have not successfully done so. It takes a lot of dedication to raise the short beaks, or the heavily muffed breeds and hats off to you all who can do it!.
My greatest joy is watching the homers return from a training toss, or delving in to the genetics behind the birds. I have fully enjoyed raising the more rare colors/patterns in my racing homers and English Trumpeters, with favorite patterns being lavender splash and blue bar in ETs, and barless in all colors/modifiers in the homers.
I do hope after my absence in the pigeon circles the past 10 or so years, I will be able to reconnect with old friends and meet many new friends! thanks for reading!