Pigeon Talk

[Qwerty3159]

@cavemanrich you were right! His legs totally caught up. He’s running around today

 

[Amer]

@cavemanrich you were right! His legs totally caught up. He’s running around today

Yay!

 

[Amer]

 

[avjudge]

Wow, I must have missed an alert so this thread stopped notifying me of further updates and I missed the baby drama. I hope it continues to do well!

My baby of mid-April is all grown up.

And on the second try my other pair hatched a baby last week. (The egg that should have hatched last month was a dud.)

Question, because I have no experience raising babies with unpaired birds in the loft: at what age do birds typically start pairing up? Yesterday I saw my unattached male, which lost two mates over the course of last winter, desperately courting Meringue, now about 7 1/2 weeks old. And just now I saw the two of them flying around together.

(He is her grandfather, but a post I read recently in this forum stated that even closer pairings are not a problem and I’m not really breeding anyway. Perhaps I should have ensured that the other pair had their baby first, but of course it may not be female so Miraboo/Meringue could have been the pair I ended up with anyway.)

 

[avjudge]

Things are not good with the new baby I just posted a picture of yesterday. Someone, most likely a parent, has injured it, pecking and skinning it. I started a new thread about this.

 

[Qwerty3159]

I replied to your new thread - hoping for the best!

The baby I had to pull and handraise is doing well. At this point, he is too able bodied and annoying to keep indoors so he has graduated to living outside. Since he’s so small he’s in his own separate coop adjacent to the main loft. He is still stunted but continuing to eat, grow, and develop. Hopefully by July he will be flying!

 

[sourland]

Things are not good with the new baby I just posted a picture of yesterday. Someone, most likely a parent, has injured it, pecking and skinning it. I started a new thread about this.

Sorry you are dealing with this. Generally it is a territorial or bachelor cock that does this.

 

[avjudge]

Sorry you are dealing with this. Generally it is a territorial or bachelor cock that does this.

And that’s the strange thing, the two other males just seems so unlikely to do that. But I am keeping a sharper eye on things and fingers crossed it was a one-off thing

 

[Qwerty3159]

And that’s the strange thing, the two other males just seems so unlikely to do that. But I am keeping a sharper eye on things and fingers crossed it was a one-off thing

I noticed in the other thread you said you had 4 pairs but lost 3 birds, how many of them lost a mate?

In my experience, only hens with mates cause no issues with other pairs. Cocks with or without mates/nest boxes will fight with other pairs. Some hens without a mate or nest will also fight with pairs. I have a single hen that gives all the cocks a run for their money, she single-handedly ran each and every pair out of their nest boxes and caused a whole shuffling before finally deciding on one to claim.

My point in all this is that the parents are likely innocent and your culprit could be one you don’t suspect. You can sometimes tell if they’ve been fighting by taking a good look at the wattle, around the nostrils or near the eyes. Might have a small laceration or you can see where the crusty outer white layer has been disturbed.

Edit: I should’ve read your earlier posts on here more carefully. I think your frantic single male is the culprit!

 

[avjudge]

Edit: I should’ve read your earlier posts on here more carefully. I think your frantic single male is the culprit!

Yes, I now think you’re right! I had been considering the dynamics when all of the pigeons are in the aviary. Both of the other males are dominant over Miraboo (the widower), but most particularly the father is, and Miraboo spends most of his time just outside his own nest box where they don’t hassle him.

However, I was just checking on the baby while the aviary was open and the parents were out flying around together, as they do in that courting phase each month. With the aviary nearly empty and quiet (the other female sitting on plastic eggs, her mate perching on a shelf above), I caught Miraboo flying first to a perch with a good view of the baby’s nest box, then to the perch outside its door. At that point I shooed him away. Sometime later, he tried again.

I have closed the aviary door leaving the trap open and when the parents return I will see if keeping them in keeps Miraboo away as I suspect it will. Until they return I have put an object in front of the nest box’s pigeon entrance to block Miraboo from landing and entering.

If I see Miraboo making any moves in that direction while the parents are confined to the aviary, I can always confine him to a large dog crate within the aviary until the baby is large enough to be safe.