Pigeons!

[billv]

I had forgotten all about pigeons until I saw this....I had a bunch of them when I was much younger. I called them "tumblers" because they would do back flips while flying, almost all the way to the ground. They were black with a white head; they looked kinda like a bald eagle. I used to sit and watch them for hours! The babies are about the ugliest thing you ever saw, and their parents feed them by regurgitating into their mouths.

[ArcadiaReptiles]

Does anyone have any information on how to care for pidgeons? I absolutely love Pidgeons and have always wanted to keep them.

[Taceas]

I don't know anything about pidgeons, so I can't help you there.

Basically if you have a decent sized backyard with room enough for a coop and flying cage, you're already halfway there. They're extremely easy to maintain, which explains why they're so common around the world, they're extremely adaptable.

Mine are in a 12' x 10' x 6' chain link dog pen. It's set on a concrete pad for ease of cleaning and digging predator proof. We lashed on the top heave wire grating, and over that some scrap pieces of sheet metal roofing, scraps we found leftover from our pole barn. I've got young sapling trees that I cut due to their diameter in size and soft bark, angled in corners or across the length of the pen for perches, and I've got a tiny old decrepit patio table to set the food bowl on to keep rodents out and keep it out of the weather.

Ideally they need a small house attached to the cage with perches and nest boxes, think of a small yard barn type thing.. Right now, mine don't have that. We have more irons in the fire with stuff going on than it can get taken care of. It doesn't have to be anything complicated or fancy. All they really need is a dry roof over their head, a windbreak, and a place for nestboxes.

Or a single pair can be kept in a rabbit hutch style cage. Most have a wire cage portion, and an enclosed box portion. I used them for single pairs I was intending for specific breedings and they work fine. Although they do really need a place to fly. If you don't have birds of prey, you can let them loose during the day and they'll return home at night. Although don't do this for 2-3 months after getting them, or they'll return from where they came or at least try to get there. =P

As for food, Rural King around here sells scratch grains meant for chickens, its whole wheat, whole milo, and cracked corn. I supplement it with chicken layer crumbles that has vitamins and minerals.

Clean water can't be underestimated. Pigeons are copious drinkers and bathers. A shallow wide bowl works well. Right now mine have a kiddy pool from the ducks they use that I empty and refill each day. But before that they had one of those black rubber bowls you find in the horse/livestock section of any farm store, they're indestructible, which in the winter you need when the water freezes and you have to kick the ice out. Its around 4-5" deep and 20" across.

Other than that, there's not much else.

Here's a link I found that is pretty concise: Care of Domestic Pigeons(Columba livia)

[desertanimal]

Originally Posted by Taceas

. . . I see a young coyote digging trying to get in the pen. He can dig to China if he wants, the pen is sitting on a concrete pad.

But by the time I got the window screen removed and the gun loaded, . . .

Not if you shoot him, he can't.

[Taceas]

For the past couple of months I've been having problems with something sneaking into my pigeon pen and consuming newly hatched chicks or eggs being incubated. Considering it has only been those two things and none of the adults setting on the chicks or eggs have been harmed, it can only be none other than a snake.

I would go out randomly at night and shine a flashlight around, looking for snake activity, but never found it. But the next day I would notice more eggs missing. Then last weekend it left me a surprise, a nice shed on its way out of the pen after eating two chicks sometime during the day.

Yesterday just after I finished cleaning out the pen and filling up their water trough I noticed something shiny between the wire top and the scrap sheet metal roofing. I walked over and took a closer look, and there was a very fat Black Rat snake looking quite pleased with itself.

I called hubby over, and while he pushed the sheet metal up, I reached up through the wire and dragged the snake out. It never once bit me and was one of the prettiest Black Rats I've seen in a while, almost completely black and very shiny, nicely behaved too.

Later in the evening it got transported a few miles away into my parents barn in the woods to eat its fill of starlings and rodents. I'm just glad I didn't have to kill it. I was beginning to devise a way of putting poison into a pigeon egg, as I never was able to catch it in the act, as it would always strike at all hours of the day or night. It may not be the only one, but it was guilty enough with a belly of 2 pigeon eggs when caught.

In other pigeon news, the two speckled pigeons have been caged together for a couple of weeks now and they're making attempts at pairing up. He's been wooing her and she's been slightly receptive so far, so I hope it continues and I hope to see some speckled babies in a few more weeks.

[hana]

Any more trouble with the coyote? We have enough of those around here to make them real pests. I was out riding the other day and before I made it to the arena, one got up and loped off into the woods. I guess it was sunning itself. I'm just glad my horse isn't afraid of them.


hana

[Taceas]

No, haven't seen a coyote near the house in a few weeks now, I think because there are rabbits and fawns everywhere that's keeping them occupied and well fed.

[desertanimal]

Cool story. Like a mini-private investigator novel.

[Taceas]

The Damascenes hatched out their second clutch on Tuesday, and I thought I'd snap a few pictures of the new babies.

[Nanci]

They are so adorable! There's nothing cuter than a baby pigeon!!

Nanci