What It's About
A side hustle featuring homing pigeons being rented out for special events.
Business Model
Skills Required
Complexity
Profit Potential
Words of Wisdom
Keeping homing pigeons is kind of a dying art. As such, most of Lisa's mentors were older men with a penchant for long, drawn-out conversations. This led Lisa to another idea—she thought about creating a homing pigeon e-book or online course to help other aspiring bird trainers. She still feels like a newbie, but as a newbie, she knows what people need to know.
What are you learning on your side hustle journey, and how can that information help others on a similar path?
Fun Fact
How are homing pigeons able to find their way back home across vast distances? Well, if a recent report from a U.S. Geological Survey geologist is correct, homing pigeons use low-frequency sound waves that emanate from just about everything to mentally map their environments and navigate back to their lofts. This ability stems from the fact that birds can hear at far lower frequencies than humans can, down to about 0.1 Hertz. These kinds of waves emanate from the Earth itself—from the oceans really, but also up through the crust and the Earth's topography and even in the atmosphere.
Notes from Chris
Episode 195
Lisa Harris has done a lot of different things. She’s been a bartender to Revlon lady, limo driver, dog walker, ranch worker, newspaper ad sales, and more. On weekends and at events including weddings and funerals, she gets paid to release white doves, also known as homing pigeons. Five years ago, while traveling, she was at a rest stop and heard gentle cooing coming from a yard. She peeked in and was fascinated about how content these gentle pigeons looked inside their "loft". That week she got her first book on pigeons, and her curiosity took off. She studied all year and got her carpenter husband to build a loft at their house for dove HQ. After a lot of learning, Lisa opened A Dove's Love. Celebration displays and releases start at $200 depending on the number of doves needed and location. There has been a lot of demand and only a limited supply of dove releasers in the D.C./Northern Virginia area, and Lisa had been turning down lots of phone calls and requests because it took her so long to get the doves trained.
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
- A Dove's Love: Fly on over to Lisa's website to learn more about her and her doves (fun fact: 'white doves' and 'homing pigeons' can be used interchangably)
- Popular Science | How Homing Pigeons Find Their Way Home: If you're interested learning more about homing pigeons and their unique method of navigation, check out this article from Popular Science!
- The Live Cricket Drop-Shipping Hustle: Yep, it’s true: a Pennsylvania man makes $700+ a month drop-shipping live crickets to reptile owners across the country
- Worm Composting Empire Brings in $400/Month: Texas man stumbles upon a worm composting method that turns into an interesting hobby and a fun side hustle. Don’t let your hustle idea wiggle away!
- Show Me the Honey: Houston Beekeeper Buzzes to $4,000/Month: In this buzzworthy episode, a Texas woman creates a $4,000/month side hustle as an advocate for sustainable honeybee habitats
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Resources
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