3some (male) pairing???

[stuckinthecity]

If they are young birds they are probably just experimenting and learning.

I suspect you will find that a pair will form from the 3 in time, and the odd one out will be pushed out.

Just leave them to it and see what develops. Your other birds will have young and then you can pair them up to these 'guys' if things are not working out.

Its very difficult to tell the gender of some pigeons. I have had females act like males, bowing and strutting, fanning their tails and mounting other birds... and being very aggressive and dominant. Also had males be very quiet andplacid and too timid to even find a mate. These birds always surprise us!

One memorable time I had a female with 3 male mates at the same time.

She would visit each males nest box, flirt and mate. Lay eggs in each 3 boxes in turn and produced 6 young that the males had to take care of without her help at all, while she retired to a life of leisure perched on the top perch watching her boyfriends frantically trying to take care of the hungry demanding young alone!

I'm not worried about them doing this and didn't plan on separating anyone. I don't separate any of my birds unless they're sick.
Yep. As I stated above I'm fully aware of how hens can act like cocks.
It would be quite a long time before the squabs from my other birds are ready to pair up. I have recently (re)caught a homer hen who was living semi feral to see how they reacted to her. And I know she is a hen-I witnessed her laying an egg in the nest she made behind my chicken coop. They completely ignore her until she comes close to them, then they shoo her away. They don't trail her like a cock pursuing a hen. It would appear like they have established a pretty close bond with eachother.

 

[stuckinthecity]

Update. Smallest bird in the trio, the red and white fantail- is now sitting on an egg. LOL.
Doesn't explain the white bird though. Unless the white bird is actually a hen, laid the egg and now the red and white fantail is incubating her egg. The cock (largest and darkest) has shown no interest in the nest at all. THESE DANG LITTLE BIRDS

*ALSO- not very happy with my red roller/homer cock paired with my red and white fantail hen. She sits on the nest all day long and night. I rarely see her ever get off and he seemingly does absolutely nothing to help her. I've seen him feed her only if she bugs him for a little bit. He's young, so definitely a learning curve for him.
It changes the game now that I know BOTH my red and white fantails are hens. Crazy that the cocks used to run them off (Again not in a pursuing way, as in trying to get her to go into a nest).

Thank you to everyone who has replied! I'm starting to think these little guys can change sex as needed haha I'll either be doing DNA testing in the future or I won't guestimate at all until theyre around 8 months.

*ONE MORE QUESTION- It seems a normal thing for siblings to pair up in an "open loft" situation? If that word makes sense to y'all. I don't separate pairs (like I should). I let the birds pick their mates. I have 2 sibling pairs at the moment (One with an extra hen it would seem...or who knows)...So this is normal? I would rather them not inbreed. But now that I have TWO unrelated hens I have plenty of pairing arrangements I can put together.
Thanks again!

 

[stuckinthecity]

pic for reference

 

[stuckinthecity]

Here is the 2nd mated sibling pair. Black and White is the cock, the dun??? colored bird is the hen.

 

[stuckinthecity]

Crazy to think that all 6 of these birds came from the same parents. A light blue indian fantail hen and a "garden" or American fantail cock.

 

[jak2002003]

It is really a bad idea to let siblings breed together, as it will bring out any bad genetic traits which could lead to ill health, deformity and just all over poor quality weak birds.

If you don't want to separate them and pair them up with other birds (which is you best option) then my advise to you is:

Don't let them breed. Either replace any eggs with fake ones for them to brood, or give them eggs from other pairs (even just one egg will keep them happy) and use them as foster parents.

I don't know why you don't want to pair them up yourself... which is what most people do. Then you can choose you best birds and control what breeding goes on. You are also then able to control when they breed and how many youngsters you get each season.

I used to separate the males and females into each half of the loft, and only have them together when I wanted to breed form them. That worked great, but the hens still kept laying eggs without the males in the winter... which is not good for their health.

Now I paired them all up, and give them plastic fake eggs to brood. They are very happy with this set up. I only let my best pairs hatch out their eggs. If the other birds lay eggs now I eat them... they are like quail eggs.

It is incredible how quickly they reproduce if you don't do something to prevent it... breed like rabbits!! Which means high cost for feed, more cleaning out, overcrowded stressed birds, and more likelihood of a disease outbreak.

 

[Hokum Coco]

give them plastic fake eggs to brood.

Good Post.
You can also hard boil their eggs and then set them back under the pair and let them continue on their marry way. Which is what i do in some situations.
Especially when my loft is at it's maximum capacity.
As mentioned one egg in this case makes them content as well.

 

[stuckinthecity]

It is really a bad idea to let siblings breed together, as it will bring out any bad genetic traits which could lead to ill health, deformity and just all over poor quality weak birds.

If you don't want to separate them and pair them up with other birds (which is you best option) then my advise to you is:

Don't let them breed. Either replace any eggs with fake ones for them to brood, or give them eggs from other pairs (even just one egg will keep them happy) and use them as foster parents.

I don't know why you don't want to pair them up yourself... which is what most people do. Then you can choose you best birds and control what breeding goes on. You are also then able to control when they breed and how many youngsters you get each season.

I used to separate the males and females into each half of the loft, and only have them together when I wanted to breed form them. That worked great, but the hens still kept laying eggs without the males in the winter... which is not good for their health.

Now I paired them all up, and give them plastic fake eggs to brood. They are very happy with this set up. I only let my best pairs hatch out their eggs. If the other birds lay eggs now I eat them... they are like quail eggs.

It is incredible how quickly they reproduce if you don't do something to prevent it... breed like rabbits!! Which means high cost for feed, more cleaning out, overcrowded stressed birds, and more likelihood of a disease outbreak.

Hmm I guess I didn't make my question clear. I was asking if it was a normal thing for siblings to WANT to pair up. I wasn't planning on breeding sibling to sibling. lol Just sort of happened. Why don't I separate birds? Bc I don't have breeder cages set up. So I should expect every sibling pair to become a mated pair? I thought they would choose other mates if unrelated birds were available. Like I said I have 2 unrelated hens to play around with a breeding set up soooo yeah.

 

[stuckinthecity]

And also, all these birds are pretty young so I wasn't aware of genders, obviously. Since I thought they were mostly males. Now I can make changes