Pigeon Talk

[sourland]

Painted the pigeon (named her Pancake) in watercolor in my sketchbook today. Thanks for the idea! Her iridescent feathers were fun to capture!

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Beautifully done. Do you have another thread or a site where your work is displayed?

 

[StinkyAcres]

Beautiful!!!

Thank you!

Wow! She really looks a lot like a Portuguese Tumbler now without the scale!
That irridescence is amazing!
I can speculate all day, of course, but as to breed, I suspect she is a pet quality Portuguese Tumber so on the larger side.

Thanks! I think you're correct. All of the others he had looked like the same breed as well. I may have overestimated her size.

Beautifully done. Do you have another thread or a site where your work is displayed?

Thank you! Yes, website is gscartwork.com. And I do poultry portraits for BYC members here: https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/custom-poultry-portraits.1535003/

 

[sourland]

Thank you!

Thanks! I think you're correct. All of the others he had looked like the same breed as well. I may have overestimated her size.

Thank you! Yes, website is gscartwork.com. And I do poultry portraits for BYC members here: https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/custom-poultry-portraits.1535003/

Folks, check out this website. Work is absolutely incredible.

 

[Qwerty3159]

Seems like there’s a ton of members hand raising pigeons right now.

This guy is a little slow to develop and the hen seemed to have stopped feeding him entirely. His crop was completely empty and he was frantic in the nest box.

He’s inside with me now and doing much better.

 

[cavemanrich]

Seems like there’s a ton of members hand raising pigeons right now.

This guy is a little slow to develop and the hen seemed to have stopped feeding him entirely. His crop was completely empty and he was frantic in the nest box.

He’s inside with me now and doing much better.

Is he one of 2 that hatched??? and if so,,, how is the other one doing??

 

[Qwerty3159]

Is he one of 2 that hatched??? and if so,,, how is the other one doing??

Nope, singleton. He was an “immaculate conception”, by a single hen. I didn’t even expect her lone egg to hatch, it was discolored and misshapen. I have a guess that the father is my only blue bar cockbird, but it also could be a feral. The hen is one of my whites and they all basically look the same and produce similar looking offspring when paired with blue bars. This one has me stumped.

The hen is my only pigeon that knows how to get back out of the trap door but I usually let her do her thing, it’s not uncommon for her to let herself out but for a young bird she’s showed a lot of resilience and smarts to stay alive outside by herself a lot.

She was doing a good job taking care of the one for the first week or so, and had her own food and water hidden in the nest box. He was a little runty, but with a full crop, when I left for a work trip on Sunday. When I came back yesterday his keel was showing. I’m not sure what caused her to abandon the squab, though as a first time parent and working alone I’m not too surprised.

Either way, he started digesting and pooping so should be on the road to recovery.

 

[Qwerty3159]

Also, is there a better way to feed him than this? The hen had him on the seed mix including peas even by the time I had left on Sunday. I tried to use a funnel but the peas are too big. The bag worked well but as you can see from the pictures he was going absolutely bananas, opening as wide as possible and shoveling gigantic mouthfuls down his gullet. I am not worried about him asphyxiating because the bag isn’t zipped shut, it just makes a total mess lol

Hopefully I won’t have to do this for too much longer, he shows some interest and ability to peck seeds on his own.

 

[Amer]

He’s crazy about those seeds!
My friend told me about how his friend’s lovebird did parthogenesis. Apparently that was rare enough a scientist came in to study it.

 

[Qwerty3159]

He’s crazy about those seeds!
My friend told me about how his friend’s lovebird did parthogenesis. Apparently that was rare enough a scientist came in to study it.

I have heard of it occurring rarely in birds, though I think in my case it’s much more likely she got fertilized by some random male pigeon, if not one from my own flock.

I had a garter snake a while back that I raised as a captive born baby, some seven years later she produced a litter of parthenogenesis babies.

 

[sourland]

Nope, singleton. He was an “immaculate conception”, by a single hen.

She was doing a good job taking care of the one for the first week or so, and had her own food and water hidden in the nest box. He was a little runty, but with a full crop, when I left for a work trip on Sunday.

In my experience hens have stopped feeding the squabs early on (generally only during the 'pigeon milk' stage) and the cocks have pumped until fledging. I always figured it was so her body could recover before laying the next round of eggs.