Start Her Page With the Loft She Came From
When a dove joins your flock from another keeper, her record should begin before she ever saw your loft. Write down the previous loft's name and town, the keeper's name and contact details, and the date and circumstances of the move — bought, gifted, or taken in because a loft was closing. Record her leg band number exactly as stamped, her colour and markings, her sex if known, and her hatch year if the band or the seller gives one. Note what you were told about her parents or strain only as reported history, clearly labelled as the previous keeper's account rather than something you witnessed yourself.
That distinction matters because dove records get passed on. If this bird is ever rehomed again, the next keeper needs to know which parts of her story are verified by paperwork and which parts are a chain of honest word-of-mouth from loft to loft.
Capture the Training She Arrived With
Training history is the part most often lost in a move, so ask the previous keeper specific questions before the conversation ends. How far has she been tossed, and from which directions? Was she trained to a whistle, a feed call, or a flag? Has she flown with a kit, been kept as a prisoner breeder, or spent long periods unflown in an aviary? Doves and homing-type birds build strong site loyalty, so note whether she was settled to the old loft — a bird strongly homed elsewhere behaves very differently in her first weeks with you than a youngster who never settled anywhere.
Write the answers as a short dated entry, and add what she actually does in your loft during her first flights as a separate entry rather than overwriting the old one. The contrast between reported training and observed behaviour is itself useful information.
Log Her Arrival Condition as a Baseline
In the first week, record her weight, how eagerly she feeds, the look of her droppings, and whether she drinks and bathes normally. Photograph her band and her overall condition on arrival day. Note any quarantine you ran — how long she was kept apart from your established birds, what you observed, and when she was introduced to the flock. If she saw a vet on arrival, file that visit note with this page rather than in a general health folder, because the arrival check is part of her transfer story.
Keep the Old and New Loft Records as One Chain
Store the seller's receipt, any messages about her history, and her new entries in a single sequence: previous loft, transfer, arrival, then your own training log. Update the training side as you work her — new toss points, how she traps on return, whether she settles to your loft — each dated, so the page reads as a continuous biography rather than two disconnected halves. Review it once a season and prune nothing; corrections get added as new dated notes so the chain stays honest. Keeping that whole chain in KinsLe's Pet Passport means the dove's earlier loft, her transfer, and her training with you sit in a single packet you can hand over complete if she ever moves on again.