Billing at 7-weeks? Or fighting?

[rolohman]

Hi folks!
Thanks again for the help I’ve gotten so far - first time pigeon owner.

Our pigeons are seven weeks old, according to the farmer that I bought them from last week, and seem to be settling pretty well. However, my coop cam caught them grasping each other by the bill and pulling back and forth. Are they just practicing for mating later on? Or is this aggression that I need to take more seriously? Screenshot of the grainy video attached.

 

[Qwerty3159]

I have seen remarkably young pigeons exhibit courting behaviors with other pigeons, both with other young ones and those of breeding age. They definitely seem young, I’d guess six to ten weeks of age.

Hard to tell just from the screenshot but if they both had a relaxed body posture it was probably not a hostile behavior. When two cocks fight and bite each others beaks and wattles there is a lot of wing slapping and frantic movement

 

[rolohman]

Thanks! Yes, no wing flapping and bodies seemed relaxed. I’m relieved!

 

[Qwerty3159]

No problem! I would guess those two will pair up as they get older

 

[rolohman]

Soooo…. Today I caught THIS on the coop cam:



They’re about 13 weeks old now. The order of events confused me though. First the white one crouched down in front of the gray, who did nothing. Then the white got back up and the gray crouched and the white jumped on top. After a bit of activity, the white jumped off and crouched again, and was ignored.

What’s going on? Are they both males, practicing? Or do males sometimes crouch down to indicate to the female that they’d like to mate? There was a bunch of billing and cooing right beforehand.

 

[Qwerty3159]

Soooo…. Today I caught THIS on the coop cam:

View attachment 3690037

They’re about 13 weeks old now. The order of events confused me though. First the white one crouched down in front of the gray, who did nothing. Then the white got back up and the gray crouched and the white jumped on top. After a bit of activity, the white jumped off and crouched again, and was ignored.

What’s going on? Are they both males, practicing? Or do males sometimes crouch down to indicate to the female that they’d like to mate? There was a bunch of billing and cooing right beforehand.

You’d think there might be a straight forward answer to this but I’m sorry to say there isn’t. I have a VERY masculine hen that struts, tail fans, and mounts cock birds. She’s done this with all three males I’ve paired her with, and they raise fertile eggs. This is a unique situation in my opinion because this has continued for years.

With young birds, it’s not uncommon in my experience to see both sexes switching roles during courtship/mating.

 

[rolohman]

That is kind of hilarious to me. It’ll be interesting to find out what they are, eventually!!

 

[Qwerty3159]

I’m guessing based on your description that the white one is the cock and the grey one is the hen.

Only time will tell for sure. If you end up with four eggs in the nest instead of the usual two, then you have a pair of hens. If you end up with no eggs you may have a pair of cocks. Hope this helps lol