Eastern Tennessee Thread

[SilkieGirl]

I have one homer all i know its a powder blue colored male, we keep him as a pet. hes not the friendliest of birds but he tolerates being handled fairly well. I thought about getting more but am unsure at this point, I dont know much about pigeons.

 

[laughingdog]

well if he is super unfriendly he is probably a male, lonely and defending his territory to attract a mate. maybe my racer will be a girl and we can work something out one way or another. my racer is getting in the white that its parents are covered by the majority of. my females only get testy if nesting (you could try putting a large dog bowl in there, and see if its a she and nestles down after nesting, as my dove males just run back and fourth and sit on outside of nest until they settle in together).

 

[SilkieGirl]

Yes I am pretty sure its a boy, he doesnt bite or peck but he has hit me with his wings before im guessing thats his way of trying to defend his territory or something. He does make this noise when he wants to be fed, trust me he is very impatient. I never let him fly outside due to the hawks and my cats.

 

[laughingdog]

this one is so tame, i think he would let anything walk up and poke him to death. then again i had a wild male used for breeding (his color was better than any show pigeon id ever seen and more like a parrot) then given to me, as he was a terror, unless rarely when he felt lovey dovey, and thats all i should say on that, but he put me off from pigeon keeping for years..

 

[SilkieGirl]

lol I dont think I will be raising them anytime soon, I already need several more birds to add to my exsisting flock of breeders. We even have a young pair of sebastopol geese now, and this fall im planning on expanding my call duck and silkie breeding flocks too. will have to sell about 4 partridges ive hatched so far, way too many roos in that group.

 

[laughingdog]

to bad, the breeds to train seem to be fun to start to work with, though my games seemed to prevent the predator problems of falcons and hawks, that alot of pigeon fliers are recently talking about more and more, and then some getting out from frustration from them.

 

[SilkieGirl]

Well would be difficult here, we have a resident falcon who lives very close by and I see every day, it has never tried to bother any of my chickens but I dont plan on giving him the chance lol. Do have quite the problem with foxes though, those are terrible, scare the chickens every night come around yelping and you get no rest the rest of the night because even though it cant get to them they still are absolutely scared out of their minds no rest with scared chickes and guineas lol. I wonder if there is a way to keep foxes from coming into your yard

 

[laughingdog]

foxes hate pepper, and aside from that, set the dogs on them (borrow some even), after a warning to head start but scare the tar outta them. have the dogs mark around were you dont want the foxes to get to comfy (human pee also works well, but disturbing idea to alot). im not sure were trapping is legal for falcons, but ive seen good results in trapping raptors with the live bait theyre after safe, but then teach the raptor to associate that animal/area with negative re enforcement by letting dogs taunt it till its freaked out, then let go and chase off (without actually harming it, as to many are killing raptors that keep alot of other predators and pests down that are alot worse and kill alot more than one bird to eat). its seemed to work.

 

[SilkieGirl]

Well its not afriad of my dogs, and my dogs dont even bark anymore because they are so used to him or her. It appears to be a young fox, probably a year or so old maybe less, so I dont know if that is why its not afraid of things or not, its not even too scared of us. Seems to "announce" itself every time by barking very loud. Will try that pepper thing, hopefully that will start to detour it from the cages atleast.

 

[laughingdog]

well as long as it doesnt mess with the pets, itll probably just be free added pest and pred control. they eat alot of rodents, especially once that "barking" attracts a mate, and they have kits. i could caution, but honestly never had sever local wild life issues, just mostly roaming pets of people (right now my neighbor's dog wants to eat my fledgling pidgeon). im guessing shooting it in the butt with a paintball gun would be bad to do? they think its adorable and funny that their dog kills protected bird species and they watch her hunt them. it learned not to go after my chickens as my dog tore after it, but dont think the dog sees the pidgeons like knows the goat, kids and chickens are to be protected.