Birds for dog training: where to find? Can they be shipped?

[Arnak]

Good day,

I’m now the proud owner of a 9 week old Picardi Spaniel. She will be helping for duck hunting but I’m also cosidering trying training her to point birds. The only problem is to find birds to train with (I’m in Yellowknife).
Does anyone know of a supplier that could ship birds by plane?

I got live tropical fish shipped up here so why not birds?

Any help finding that in Alberta will be much much appreciated. Thanks

[wwbirds]

Most big suppliers will mail or air freight you day old chicks but you would have to have a brooder to keep them warm until June or July as they cant self regulate heat until about 7 or 8 weeks old. I just paid $400 plus to airfreight 12 pounds of chicks in from Ontario. Adult birds by the dozen would weigh that much and require much larger crates. Pretty much every US producer who trucks birds in from USA is banned from coming to Canada because of Avian influenza which is now in 27 states and the list is growing weekly. I suspect training birds of all kinds will be in short supply until the bird flu ends. I looked for a month from all my normal suppliers before a located birds. Even when I located birds in Texas they closed Texas imports a week later. Then Pennsylvania.

[Hunter5425]

You can use pigeons to train and they are easier to obtain and are tough as a coffin nail so easy to care for. I've trained several dog's with them though to be honest I prefer quail as flying rats gross me out . You can catch them yourself if you can find an enclosed barn or grainery and use a headlamp and net after dark or you might find a seller or even a pest control company that will sell them. Good luck on the new pup.
Boone on a pigeon at 6 months