
A little story about Hercules and my decision to have him preserved. Hercules was gifted to my son Zandie 4 years ago. Having cost the original owner €4,000 he didn’t want to keep him any more as he had to have a single pen to himself. Why? Because he simply couldn’t be with any other cocks. He was way too aggressive, especially when other hens were around. Hercules won multiple races but his biggest win was coming 1st out of a competition with over 15,000 pigeons! After retirement, he went on to breed multiple winners. We are lucky to have children of Hercules here at Pioneer Pigeons and they are part of our breeding program in 2025. Zandie much loved Hercules and I, After finding him in a bad way on Tuesday I knew I had to put him to sleep to stop his suffering, I cuddled him, told him we loved him and said goodbye to him. Right there and then I made the decision that he should be preserved and immortalised.

I have had to say goodbye too and lost many good and favourite pigeons over 35 years but Hercules was different in some way. The way he used to play fight you when he was with any of his girls, the attitude he had even up until just the day before he died was unlike any other pigeon I have had in my life. So for that reason, I swiftly took him to Wayne Pyle Taxidermy. I’d never met Wayne before, but after gathering myself and having a cuppa I did a quick search of a taxidermist local to me and got on the phone to Wayne. He was a great help and very reassuring. Within an hour I was in Waynes studio not too far from where we live and I was blown away by his work. Some people may think taxidermy is weird or creepy, but not me. I have lived with taxidermy since I was a young kid. My dad even had a room full of taxidermy years ago, so to me it’s an art and a thing of beauty. Wayne told me it will take about 3 months for Hercules to be ready and for me I can’t wait to see him again. I’m very excited to see what we can do in 2025 with our 24 pairs of Pioneer Pigeons and Hercules’ children will be paired to some of the best pigeons we have. Let’s see how they get on and see if some of Hercules’s grandchildren can do what their grandfather managed to achieve! 🙂
Mark Lyford