CYPRESS : Boy’s Birds Can Stay, City Says

Ricky Maes wasn’t doing well in his schoolwork and was suspended 18 times in one month for fighting with classmates.

The 12-year-old boy used to get into so much trouble last year that his parents decided to do something about it. They bought him birds. They began with seven chickens, five ducks and a rooster.

The Maes’ neighbors weren’t happy but didn’t complain until Ricky got a few dozen pigeons that would fly to nearby rooftops and leave their droppings there and on windows.

Ricky’s mother, Tina, said her son solved that problem by selling those birds and got 64 homing pigeons to replace them.

Ricky, who is deaf, has trained his homing pigeons for races. He can’t hear them when they coo, but he loves to watch them fly.

His mother said the pigeons have boosted Ricky’s self-esteem and helped him improve relations with his friends and family and get better grades in school.

Nevertheless, three neighbors recently wrote letters to the City Council after calling a code enforcement officer to report Ricky’s family for housing pigeon coops illegally.

So Tina Maes and her boyfriend, Michael Plett, applied for a permit to be allowed to keep the coops.

At a meeting this week, council members sympathized with Ricky and voted 4 to 1 to let him keep the coops and all the pigeons as long as no one complains any more.

Plett promised that if anyone does complain, he will personally wash windows, roofs and cars. He said that since Ricky got the homing pigeons about a month ago, very few of them land on neighbors’ homes.

If the pigeons land on someone else’s property twice, Plett said, they will be sold because “homing pigeons are supposed to come home.”

He said the pigeons do not create a problem with their droppings any longer because they have learned to fly to their coops after their flights, which they take in the early morning or evening hours. He added that the birds don’t make much noise either.

“We got Ricky into pigeons, and his whole life turned around,” Plett said.

Winning and losing races and nurturing the pigeons has taught Ricky the value of caring and respect for others, Tina Maes said.

“He’s learned patience and now has great self-esteem,” she said. “Things don’t come easy for him because he is deaf, and the pigeons have instilled pride because he sees himself succeeding at something.”

Earlier this month, Ricky won two races sponsored by the local chapter of the All American Racing Pigeon Union.

Using sign language and wearing a beaming grin, Ricky said he loves his birds.

With arms stretched out wide, he showed how much he likes racing the pigeons. “A hundred times over,” he signed.