My first pigeons

[Lil'ChickFarm]

Four years with chickens. Ten years with bird breeding http://www.feathersnsong.com and now I have pigeons.
I am pretty sure I have three males and one female, so I am going back soon to trade in a male or see if we can get two more females, not sure if three pairs might be too much for their 4 x 4 aviary.
My hubby is building me a new chicken cool this fall and it will have a pigeon loft in it. For now they are out front on my deck and I just love watching them. I ordered white, green and purple Christmas litter strings to decorate their aviary. Loving learning about pigeons.
All suggestions about how to keep them safe and warm in the winter, in this aviary, welcome.

 

[loftkeeper]

box perches would work real well in this loft .keep the birds from fighting so much

 

[Lil'ChickFarm]

One picture shows that we added a wider perch and they settled nice. Would three pairs be too much for this size? Should we enclose it for winter?

 

[mightymax]

I have 15 Old Engligh Owl pigeons in a chainlink dog run that measures 10 X 6 X 6 and I wouldn't feel right about adding anymore. I thnk 6 birds in that size avery would be fine, but keep in mind that at any one time, you could be housing up to 6 of their offspring along with them. Pigeons breed faster than rabbits and they don't kick the kids out at a very young age, so you could literally have 3 generations of pigeons trying to live in one 8 X 10 nesting box...lol. It's quite a sight!!! It gets below freezing here in the winter and besides their nesting boxes, I will put up tarps on the sides if it's really windy or raining really bad but other than that, they're pretty hardy birds. I haven't lost one yet to disease or the elements. Good luck and have fun. They can be quite entertaining creatures to watch.

 

[Lil'ChickFarm]

Thank u! I plan to move weaned babies out back to the new coop we are building in the fall. It will have a pigeon loft and a door for flying, plus a smaller outside aviary.

 

[laughingdog]

Looks like colored homers. do you know if from homing or racing lines and color bred in then nred back? orcolor show lines?

That's too small a loft for all time for homers. if it was on side would be decent, then cut long perches into individual peg perches big enough only for one bird, two per bird. nesting trouble can be avoided knowing that pigeon pairs have two nests.. when one pair of young reaches about two weeks, hens lay another pair of eggs in second nest, then again in first nest when second set get about two weeks, and so on and so on. no pile ups..

 

[Lil'ChickFarm]

This is just for fun, we are building a pigeon coop in the fall.
They are homers but not special ones, the owner does fly them, I won't until I have babies. Don't want them to fly back to his house.